I am a little ashamed to admit that I honestly don't know a whole lot about the middle east. I know the names of various countries- Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. I know that they speak several different languages, Arabic and Farsi included. I guess a bit about Islamic culture and traditions too, but I'm pretty ignorant as to many of the actual beliefs of Islam, other than that Mohammed is their prophet, they don't drink, they refer to God as Allah, celebrate Ramadan with fasting, and worship the Quran. I also know a bit (a very small arcane bit) about the ancient history of the middle east, such as, we get our coffee drinking habits from that region.
There was a pretty large middle-eastern population at my high school and for a little while around tenth grade I hung out with a crowd of them a lot. I picked up some vulgar phrases in Arabic from them and learned a bit about the family life habits of some middle eastern families living in America.
Realizing that I pretty much know absolutely nothing about the middle east has made me extremely eager for this unit to enlighten my feeble little American brain.
1 comment:
Haha, I hope we do enlighten you Kel. Actually, I know we will. I have been enlightened myself and it's been a great experience working with this group! I'm glad you're excited for it.
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