Reflections

Looking back over the past 10 weeks, being a part of this class has been a phenomenal experience! The first couple of weeks I was terrified because I did not know what to expect even though I had read the syllabus over and over. I honestly thought that the course would see religion from one point of view. This was not the case. The course taught me that religion has so many different aspects and so many different qualities are displayed within each religion. It also taught me how "easy" we have it in America verses how some countries struggle with daily life because of the obstacles that they face. This was a valuable lesson to me.

I wish that I could have taken more time to learn each culture more in depth but time did not allow. The only surprise that I had was the ease at learning geography. It was a subject that I have strayed away from because I thought it was boring. The way our professor structured the class, it made learning fun and it kept my attention. Each week, I looked forward to completing assignments before they were due because I had a yearning to learn more and more. This was very unusual for me because normally I am so bored with class that I want to just scream!

This class also allowed me to learn how to blog. This was something I shied away from because I did not now how to even create a blog. Now that I know, I may just blog just for the fun of it!

I am so glad that I chose to take this class this summer. I have already recommended it to several friends.

American Gypsies

I had the pleasure of watching a show by the name of American Gypsies. Because I have a love for learning about other cultures and religious beliefs etc..., I decided to tune in one night to this show. I found out some interesting facts about these particular gypsies. The family that the show focuses on is the John's family. Unlike our culture, they believe in marrying very young. They even discuss marriage with their children at a very young age. However, they does not mean that if you are a Gypsies that you can just marry anyone that you choose because you do not have that pleasure. You can only marry another Gypsies. If you are defiant and decide to marry someone who is not a Gypsies, you will be considered an outcast in the Gypsie community.

Another belief that gypsies have is that they believe that all of their women poses psychic abilities. They consider this a gift and they prepare their young girls at a really young age to be psychic readers.

Gypsies do not mix with those who are non gypsies. Or at least, this is what they prefer. It is considered shameful to do so (especially when marrying a non gypsy).

Gypsies are not Egyptian but what they call Romani aka Rom. They consider non gypsies to be Gaje (ga jay). This simply means that you are not a gypsy or Rom.

The last bit of information that I found out by watching this show is that in the Gypsy culture, the youngest has to listen to what the older sibling tells them to do. This is the only similarity that I found to be close to what we believe.

I really enjoyed the show and the interesting facts. I look forward to learning more and more about this culture.