Two of the presentations that I have really enjoyed so far were the presentations about Chawalas (tea stands) in Bangladesh and the presentation about Turkish baths. While most of us have to do research outside of the culture we are studying, these two presentations brought in cultural aspects that the students had acquired while in the countries themselves.
The videos that Andrew showed not only gave us a glimpse of what Chawalas really looked like, but they also brought the culture alive. It was interesting to see the things he talked about in his presentation actually occuring at the tea stand. An example of this is the tea stands serving as a kind of public forum. Although the focus of the videos was not directly on the public surrounding the tea stand, you could tell form the people standing around, and the noise in the immediate area, that the tea stand really did serve as a cultural meeting place.
I also thought it was interesting that the men who serve the tea work incredibly long hours and even though they are considered part of the lower class, they are not looked down upon by upper class members of society. In fact, Andrew said they were considered very trustworthy. I think Andrew's presentation was unique in that he was able to bring a personal/human aspect to the project that many other students have had the opportunity to do.
The presentation on the Turkish baths was very intersting. When I saw the way the baths were set up, I immediately thought of the Spanish / Moorish fortress the Alhambra. Within this fortress there are very similar baths. This is because the south of Spain was dominated by Moorish influence for a long period of time and still retains much of that heritage.
I learned that these baths were not only used for personal hygiene but also for social life. I found it very interesting that women would go to the baths to size up other women and determine whether they were fitting wives for their grandsons, sons, or brothers. So far these presentations have been really interesting and informative.
Over the past few weeks Maroof and I have been reviewing and working on new lesson specific vocabulary. I think I missed a post last week so I'll talk about what we did then. We started working on vocabulary to use in an airport including buying tickets, presenting a passport and finding a taxi after landing. Maroof has also been helping me with any grammar questions I might have. For instance, we were going back over family vocabulary and we began creating sentences out of that vocabulary to describe our family members. Over the next week or so, I plan to begin studying for the exam and ask Maroof any questions I might have.
I have been listening to the BBC farsi podcasts, but I still haven't had much time to work on Rosetta Stone because of my other school work. I have also been trying to memorize more vocabulary and make myself more familiar with normal sentence structure, especially in responding to questions.
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