The Lost Boys of Sudan and Kenya

This picture of Santino only shows you little of this man's struggle. His story could fill books and bring tears to many but, he continues to work for better conditions for himself and his village. We may never understand the way this man feels and we may never be able to feel the weight that he carries on his back but, we can try to help him and his village. Santino's story, as well as others like him, begins almost at birth when his village is attacked. His father and mother would be dead before he was 6years old. So by the time the attack happened he was already alone trying to survive. He ran and survived and stayed at a refugee camp. Their where 2 refugee camps, Sudan and Kenya, where those who survived would live together and work to make their lives easier. After some time these refugees, given the name lost boys, would be given the oppertunity to move to America where they would be helped for the first few months to allow them to get assimulated. Santino was one of those that was lucky enough to get this oppertunity and left his village in order to help his village by providing support and going back one day. Although he had good intentions his mind was swayed to becoming lazy. While assimulating to American culture he started to forget his purpose and became selfcentered. Because things where so easy in America work was something he had to do less of to get a reward. This unfortunatly happened to many of the Kenyans and Sudans. But they would remember what they where there for. They continued to keep their culture and continued to help their villages, hoping that one day they could return or have their friends come to them. When one trys to understand another culture they may be blind to things that may seem oblivous to us but unclear to them. One example of this is when Santino purchases a car and drives it to the dmv fails to get his license and drives the car back home. To us this would be rediculous to him it is unclear. To most of us other culture may be weird but they may just be unclear. For instance to have a list of items for a store is normal but, to a culture like Russia it would be considered incompitant to have a list because you can't remember what you went to the store for. All in all the many things that are so normal for us is strange to others and should be looked at for another perspective before proclaiming that others are strange for the things they do or don't do.

Body Ritual Among the Nacerima

The "Body Ritual Among the Nacerima" was an interesting story our class had looked into. The Nacerima ritual to most would be considered strange and unreasonable. But, to these people, the rituals are real and part of their daily lives. It was normal for the Nacerima to keep charms and magic potions in a chest in the wall. Strange or just their way of life. They would also dig holes in their teeth to keep themselves looking beatiful. The Nacerima also have ritual rooms in their house that would show the wealth of the family. These rooms would be used to make the Nacerima beautiful, because the Nacerima believe that they are ugly so it would be normal for them to spend alot of time in the ritual rooms. How strange that these people would do such things to themselves and think the way they do about themselves. We have our culture they have theirs, but something about this story seems familiar. These ritual almost sound like bathrooms and the chest in the wall sounds like a medicine cabinet. How interesting that this is so very close to the American culture. This is the perspective of someone who is new to our culture. The Nacerima are just American. How easy it is to place our judgement on another culture with differences yet say that ours is not so crazy itself. The culture that someone has come from will make all the difference in the things they do and the way that they will look at things. But to place judgement, one must understand why they are so different.

Sociological perspectives on Surviving on a Boat

As this week went by, we put our morals to the test when we had to chose who would live and who would die on a lifeboat that held too many. Their would be no simple way to chose whose life is of more value. Things like money, family, health, prior experence, etc where all told of the 16 that where on the boat. But what moral do u have that says because this man has no leg that he is of less worth then this nobel pize winner? Who says that just because the old are old that they should be removed? In cultures, Russia, Germany, Poland, most eastern hemisphere countries would proudly say to keep the elderly because of the respect that they have for the elderly. Though they may be old, I myself being eastern European, would understand that the old will always be of more worth and will always have a higher status then those who are younger. Only they have the history books in their head, only they can pass down the secrets of their families, and only they can teach us of mistakes that they have made so we can get through them. As the other passengers would also have to be removed the chooses became more dependent on who was in charge. Conflict theory says that no matter who the leader is, he/she will have people who do not agree. If this was all based on survival then this would much easier because those who are sickly, elderly or have past health problems would be the first to go. Now understand that because someone is sickly, elderly or have health issues that they would openly allow themselves to go with a fight. One of the people that where on the lifeboat was the self-made millionare. Now he would most likey would have tryed to bribe the others to allow him to stay, because he was over weight he would be out if survival was the only goal. Their are people who would take 200k to allow one person to live and another to die but, no one will know if someone did take a bribe if offered. Another passenger was the pregnant woman, now if you where still looking at survival then she would be gone. A pregnant women needs to eat well, eat alot, use the restroom alot. Its alot to do for one person when no one any food or strength to spare to this women. Soon the baby would parish. If u had morals you would most likey say that we can get through this and that she will have a healthy baby boy or girl. All these people had reasons to live. But weather you believe survival is your only goal will make some reasons stand out then others. Today in our society we have people that will chose a younger man instead of an older one just so the company won't need to pay for a higher salary. Today is about survival, if your wife is pregnant your salary won't be raised, the new health care bill even assures that the elderly may not be fully covered. Is that a country that you would like to live in? Where our only goal is to survive?

The Natural and the Social Sciences

To help us understand the world, we have developed two parallel sets of sciences. The first being natural sciences would include subjects such as chemisty, physics and biology. Natural science would explain intellectual and academic endeavors and would predict events in our natural environment. The second being the social sciences which examines human relationships and helps us understand the the discovered though repeated observation. Social sciences may not be obvious, but their are relationships between humans and the social world. Some examples of social sciences may include economics, political science, psychology, etc. The social science is well worth understanding in our socialy impacted world. So we will continue to learn and understand more about the social sciences.