hello! This session was also interessant, even if it was short because of technical problemes. An interesting thing is that we work in pairs to speak about the politic in our country, and I learn a lot about ME politics... We also speak about terrorisme, but I didn't find it really interesting... We just said obvious things and that's it. I will not be able to go to the next session, because I go to Paris for french basketball championship :) But I impatient to continue our meeting !
Today, we had very quiet discussion. We talked about our families and our families live.
In Europe or in the USA, children leave home between the age of 18 and 20. If they leave later, they are mostly regarded as wimps. It’s more a personal effort to leave home and to get along with oneself.
In the Arabian world, children leave home after their marriage. If they had left earlier, they will come back after finishing their studies and stay with the family until their marriage. It is less possible to stay with friends or even alone, particularly for a girl.
Conflicts in Western families are solved during a discussion of all the family members. Of course, parents decide for their children. But at a certain age, everyone takes his decisions on his own, maybe after having talked to the others, but it’s his own responsibility.
It seems as if in the Arab world, most of the decisions are taken by the parents and the children adapt to.
Later, we talked in little groups about gender roles. As I live in a very liberal society, it wasn’t easy to understand the reasons for all the contact restrictions in the Arab world. In fact, non of the girls could really gave an answer. I mean it’s not necessary to forbid contact between girls an boys to avoid teenage pregnancies...
Living in a Western civilisation, beeing able to find your own position and self-determined sexuality doesn't imply that everyone behaves like a bi***.
Caution: if you’re living in the Arab world, don’t cheat on your husband – you might be killed!
Before starting I just want to say that this conferences should be held only with 5 students. A bigger number, combined with some technical problems, just stands in the way of a fluent conversation.
This time the facilitators tried to get us to know each other better so in the first part we talked about marriage customs in our countries, favorite music, favorite sport, funny situations that happened to us when we had to speak in a foreign language.
After that we had to choose a final project from the three available and also to choose a partner. Unfortunately the person with which I feel I have the most in common is from Colorado so the rules of the game didn't allow me to choose him as a partner. Giving that all my colleagues opted for the Community Interview project I had to adapt though my first option was the Joint Article. Now I'm in a team with a girl from North Cyprus that has a lot of technical problems:D.
As for the video project it will not be easy to finish it on time. Too many projects in parallel this period will make it a difficult task.
The facilitators also remarked that we are too calm and that we should know each other better so they've proposed to exchange some facebook id's:). But I think that the cause of this, as I mentioned at the beginning, is that we are too many in a group and we have to let everybody talk.
That's about it for this session. I should get started with my video project now:). See you next week.
last session was quite bizarre : a new member came whereas facilitators didn't even know anything about it, and then one facilitator choose to speak with that person and five other members in another meeting room. As a consequence, during 40 minutes, we were only 5 persons remaining in the main meeting room. The discussion was focusing about the place woman have in the society (Middle-East and West).
I was especially shocked by the fact that if a woman were raped, she would immediately be blamed, and considered as a shame of the family!!! As a person accustomed to our values, it is very hard to believe such things can happen in our days!
Later, when everybody was in the same room, we spoke during 25 minutes of the life of an american woman : her guy died 10 years sooner, and she got pregnant at 18. She's now 36, and fears the time when her "little" girl (18) will leave the house.
In most of the Arab world, girls aren't allowed to date in public. Kisses and hand-"shaking" (I don't know the right expression) are prohibited. It is not the case in the north of Egypt.
In short we learned mainly about Middle East habits.
Positive points were that groups were made. I work with an eypgtian girl named Kholoud. As she left the session soonly, we had to correspond by email, but only one email successfully reached her mailbox. For the other ones, I had to transmit it to Soliya, where tech advisers had the way to contact her directly! I was a bit disapointed she changed the topic we choosed, and that she was quite long to answer mails.
In fact, this Soliya module requires a lot of work,( as I've seen with the specifications of the video project, that, to be honnest, I don't find really usefull), and I fear it would be really hard to make a good work, cause we have exams on that week...
I think facilitators should better focus attention on real topics than to give us such works..
5 comments:
hello!
This session was also interessant, even if it was short because of technical problemes.
An interesting thing is that we work in pairs to speak about the politic in our country, and I learn a lot about ME politics...
We also speak about terrorisme, but I didn't find it really interesting... We just said obvious things and that's it.
I will not be able to go to the next session, because I go to Paris for french basketball championship :)
But I impatient to continue our meeting !
Third Soliya discussion:
Today, we had very quiet discussion. We talked about our families and our families live.
In Europe or in the USA, children leave home between the age of 18 and 20. If they leave later, they are mostly regarded as wimps. It’s more a personal effort to leave home and to get along with oneself.
In the Arabian world, children leave home after their marriage. If they had left earlier, they will come back after finishing their studies and stay with the family until their marriage. It is less possible to stay with friends or even alone, particularly for a girl.
Conflicts in Western families are solved during a discussion of all the family members. Of course, parents decide for their children. But at a certain age, everyone takes his decisions on his own, maybe after having talked to the others, but it’s his own responsibility.
It seems as if in the Arab world, most of the decisions are taken by the parents and the children adapt to.
Later, we talked in little groups about gender roles. As I live in a very liberal society, it wasn’t easy to understand the reasons for all the contact restrictions in the Arab world. In fact, non of the girls could really gave an answer. I mean it’s not necessary to forbid contact between girls an boys to avoid teenage pregnancies...
Living in a Western civilisation, beeing able to find your own position and self-determined sexuality doesn't imply that everyone behaves like a bi***.
Caution: if you’re living in the Arab world, don’t cheat on your husband – you might be killed!
Hello,
Before starting I just want to say that this conferences should be held only with 5 students. A bigger number, combined with some technical problems, just stands in the way of a fluent conversation.
This time the facilitators tried to get us to know each other better so in the first part we talked about marriage customs in our countries, favorite music, favorite sport, funny situations that happened to us when we had to speak in a foreign language.
After that we had to choose a final project from the three available and also to choose a partner. Unfortunately the person with which I feel I have the most in common is from Colorado so the rules of the game didn't allow me to choose him as a partner. Giving that all my colleagues opted for the Community Interview project I had to adapt though my first option was the Joint Article. Now I'm in a team with a girl from North Cyprus that has a lot of technical problems:D.
As for the video project it will not be easy to finish it on time. Too many projects in parallel this period will make it a difficult task.
The facilitators also remarked that we are too calm and that we should know each other better so they've proposed to exchange some facebook id's:). But I think that the cause of this, as I mentioned at the beginning, is that we are too many in a group and we have to let everybody talk.
That's about it for this session. I should get started with my video project now:). See you next week.
Hi,
last session was quite bizarre : a new member came whereas facilitators didn't even know anything about it, and then one facilitator choose to speak with that person and five other members in another meeting room. As a consequence, during 40 minutes, we were only 5 persons remaining in the main meeting room. The discussion was focusing about the place woman have in the society (Middle-East and West).
I was especially shocked by the fact that if a woman were raped, she would immediately be blamed, and considered as a shame of the family!!! As a person accustomed to our values, it is very hard to believe such things can happen in our days!
Later, when everybody was in the same room, we spoke during 25 minutes of the life of an american woman : her guy died 10 years sooner, and she got pregnant at 18. She's now 36, and fears the time when her "little" girl (18) will leave the house.
In most of the Arab world, girls aren't allowed to date in public. Kisses and hand-"shaking" (I don't know the right expression) are prohibited. It is not the case in the north of Egypt.
In short we learned mainly about Middle East habits.
Positive points were that groups were made. I work with an eypgtian girl named Kholoud. As she left the session soonly, we had to correspond by email, but only one email successfully reached her mailbox. For the other ones, I had to transmit it to Soliya, where tech advisers had the way to contact her directly! I was a bit disapointed she changed the topic we choosed, and that she was quite long to answer mails.
In fact, this Soliya module requires a lot of work,( as I've seen with the specifications of the video project, that, to be honnest, I don't find really usefull), and I fear it would be really hard to make a good work, cause we have exams on that week...
I think facilitators should better focus attention on real topics than to give us such works..
Hello!
This session was like the las one, but with a new student. She is from marocco. What was strange was the facilitators don't even know this.
As usual, class started after 30 min. We split into two groups to make discussion easier to manage.
We mainly talk about women in our respective country: "la journée de la femme " exists in France Marocco but not in USA !!.
After this seperation, the two groups gather together, and then the most girlish thing happened: we - the whole group of girls - started talking during 30min about one of the US guy 's life. It was so boring and 'cliché': she got pregnant at the age of 18, then her husband died 10 years after and she got to raise her daughter on her own ... I don't know why facilitators accept to spend our class time to deals with that kind of details, whereas we could just talk about the text we are supposed to read. I say suppose because no one had read it, and even some told that they didn't know there was a reading list.
Post a Comment