A Whole New World

In one of my classes we watched a movie on brothers who went to Africa from Europe to look for gold. Once in Africa the brothers met many natives. They got a group of natives together at the beginning to help them navigate and learn the land. The natives did not know what to think of the brothers, for they were like nothing they had seen before. The brothers were seen as spirits of the dead relatives to most of the Africans. They did not understand why they were white or any of the advances they had. It was really neat to see how awestruck the people in Africa were. They really were amazed at the things the brothers brought with them. While there the brothers traded with the natives. They would trade guns and such for sugarcane and other crops from the area. Neither group knew each other’s language and therefore had to communicate through signs and motions. I really liked watching how the two groups interacted. Today most everyone on the world knows the others exist. It would have been like aliens coming to earth. I really liked hearing the Africans talk about what they were thinking at the time the brothers had come. Most of their theories were pretty crazy, but I guess I would probably think like them if another kind came to the earth and I thought we were the only living things. For the natives they thought there was nothing else but their land and what they knew. All in all I felt the brothers’ trip was a good experience for both the brothers and the native Africans. I went to Honduras and Nicaragua for mission trips in the past and although these trips were not close to the brothers’ trip, it still had a similar effect. The people there knew of America and other countries but when we came with our cameras and such everyone was very interested in them because many of them had never seen one before. I also learned a lot from their culture. For one thing their houses are a lot different and they do not have plumbing. Now this was in the poorer regions that I went to so I am not sure about other areas, but it was neat to see someone else’s way of living. I gained a lot from it, one thing being to not take things for granted. So my trips along with the movie have showed me how different people can be but also how neat it can be to share each others’ cultures with one another.