I watched these two videos about music in Palenque and a short part of the Alvin Ailey dance company’s show. Both are performed by black people but with a completely different style; the first one is more autochthonous and shows the culture and history of this towns of freed slaves. The second one, has the same topic but its more classical (I think is a ballet but I’m not sure).
Both are amazing and are full of culture, history and talent.
Every country has many holidays, but there’s one that is more celebrated that the others. For example, in Peru the Christmas, in Thailand the Thai new year, in India the Holi Festival and in Guatemala the Holly Week.
I read about those holidays on websites and I found interesting that they are written on English and the countries aren’t English speaker (except India, I guess) Why was it used? In my opinion the reason is very easy, the writers didn’t want people to their own countries to read them, they were expecting readers from different part of the world. The only way the had to make the bigger number of people able to understand their messege, was writing it in a language that a huge amount of people from all over the world can read, English.
Maybe I should explain myself, by » the writers didn’t want people to their own coutries to read them» I mean that people don’t research their own culture (I could be wrong). For example,if someone wants to know about the new year celebration in Thailand he/she should be from an other country. Which also means not a Thai language speaker.
I should answer the question: How have either a sport, hobby, or music shaped your own personal culture? But there’s a problem I don’t know. I’m not sporty, I do like basketball and I play it (kinda) but I’m too small. About music, I like a few songs but I’m not a big fan.
I think my hobbies are the reading and movies, I read all kind of books and my favorite kind of movies are thriller and horror. I love Tim Burton’s works because no matter the topic, it always have what I call «horror environment» the main characters are sinister and the places are surrealistic or dark. Also he use to work with Johnny Depp, who in my opinion is a great actor because his interpretations are completely different from each others.
I’m not sure if I have answered the question, but that’s what I like.
Even though Colombia is a multi-ethnic country, we can find racism here, specially against black people. This situation is not exclusive of Colombia, it’s the same thing through Latin America; I’m not trying to excuse us, this situation is unacceptable and the generalization make things worst.
Most of the time, those people can’t access to a good education so they can’t have a good job or afford their child’s education; which means that the next generation will have the same problems.
Anyway, that’s just one side of the problem; the other side is «white’s people» perspective (no one in Latin America is actually white, lets just say no black people) who believe that afros are less. We must try to fix this situation, I know it’s hard but we should start by accept we’re equals, fortunately, this change already started, the process is slow but there are institutions like «El observatorio de discriminación racial» that are trying to do it.
«No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite».
NELSON MANDELA
I didn’t do carnival activities, actually I’ve never done because my family and I travel on this days. Anyway, this year was different, I stayed at home studying, although the last two days (Monday and Tuesday) I went out whit my friends and visited my family.
I watched the video of a Tinariwen’s song (which by the way I didn’t like) but I found a few interesting things about tuareg’s culture.
The video is basically a man in the desert drinking tea, nevertheless we can see how important is the desert, and the nature in general, for this people (the Tuareg). This man seems to be taking a break and enjoying the pace and his tea, so I consider he loves the place and the environment.
Thinking about the lyrics, it’s easy to see that they want to be free, not only walking around but also in an emotional way, they don’t like to feel tied by feelings or people.
I might be wrong, but I believe this song is a hymn to the lost freedom.
This year (2013) is important to Barranquilla, not only because it’s its 200 anniversary also because the city was chosen as the American Capital of Culture of 2013 by International Bureau of Cultural Capitals.
The desition is a consequence of two facts: the hard work that the mayor´s office has been doing and the excellent opinion of the presidente of this entity about the city, its culture and the international proyection it has.
Even though, the award is just a public recognition of the good enviroment of Barranquilla, I think there could be an economical benefit because it is an oportunity to promote the city around the world increase the tourism.
This is my first Englis’s task, I read http://mulkatime.blogspot.com/2012/01/two-worlds-collide.html about an American man teaching English in Ugand
Each man has a different point of view. The black man belive the white man is cranky and hate him whitout a good reason, in the other hand, the white man belive the black man is mean and does everything intentionally. But the black man is a countryman and what he do is normal to him so he can’t understand why his neighbor is always angry. He try to be nice but it’s worst beacause the white man feel that the things he does are useless and is covinced he is just trying to bother him. As the author said they are separete by their culture and education.
Hello, my name is Gisel Mattar. I’m from Barranquilla, I have a huge family, 10 uncles and aunts and around 50 cousins. I’m very lazy and perfectionist (yes that combination works). I love horror movies and fantasy books, I also love traveling and I hope I could do it more often but that’s just a dream.
I guess that’s all, this is me a common girl…oh I almost forget that I hate humanity (not every single person, the big group)
Gisel Mattar 
Escrito
en enero 28, 2013