A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture. Give a description of the three items you would choose. Explain to others what these three items mean to you. Describe your feeling, if upon arrival, you were told that you could only keep one personal item and have to give up the other two items you brought with you.
I had to think long and hard about this assignment. Having only 3 items to take with me, and give up everything I own, was a devastating thought. I immediately thought of my wedding ring. I assume this does not have to be one of the three items, since it is on my finger. I think I would take some kind of textbook or teaching materials if my children were still in school. They are grown and in college, so I don’t think I’d need that. I thought about my recipe card file, because it has recipes from my mother and grandmother that I really don’t want to lose. However, if I were dropped in the middle of the jungle, living off the land, a recipe card file would really serve any useful purpose. I decided that I can live without my make-up, curlers and even my toothbrush and toothpaste. Yuk!
After much thought, and consulting with friends and family, the 3 items that I would choose to take with me are: my Bible, a memory album and my recipe card file. I would choose to take:
1. the Bible
2. a family scrapbook album and
3. a bag of medicine
I would take the Bible because I am a practicing, committed Christian. The Bible holds the truths that I try live by: do not steal, do not kill, do not lie, love one another, forgive others, and be kind to one another. These words are very important to me and I would need the emotional support that these words offer me in times of stress.
I scrapbook my family’s memories, and have many pictures and mementos in scrapbooks from as far back as my great, great grandparents. I would choose to take a book that holds some of our family’s history, photos and mementos. I would hope that taking this item with me would keep our family history alive for many generations to come.
I would take the bag of medicine since I don’t know where we are going or what is going to happen. I would want to be able to keep my family healthy as long as possible. I would want to be able to put Band-aids on cuts and give an aspiring for a fever.
If, upon arrival, I find that I can only have one of these items, I would choose the memory album of my family’s history. I have memorized many of the Bible’s passages and so has my family. We would be able to keep our faith alive by talking about the verses we know by heart and the historical accounts of the Bible. The medicine would be sacrificed in the hopes that there would be medicine to be found, or even indigenous plants and herbs for the support of our health.
The insights I have gained about myself, my family culture, diversity and cultural differences in general as a result of this exercise are that our faith in God is very important to me and my family. I also see that family history is very, very important to me because I spend countless hours putting our family’s history, pictures and mementos into albums. I talk to my children and share stories of our faith heritage and our family history. I put these things in scrapbook albums so that they will be preserved for future generations. I want my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to know who we are and who we come from and hopefully pass on the faith and good aspects of our family and our heritage.
No comments:
Post a Comment