Global Village

For this blog I will be going over the Global Village. The Global Village can be described as miniature flee markets representing the different countries. They were called villages, and each one was authentically decorated with cultural artifacts representing their individual countries. The countries with the biggest and most intricate details were the ones in the Middle East, but that was understandable as we were in the Middle East. They had carts spread throughout the place with cultural foods. The food was my favorite part as I got to try authentic food from all over the world. They also had performances near, and in different villages to show cultural music and art within the country being represented. I loved listening to the performances and even ended up dancing along to some of them. This experience allowed us to see how each country is viewed from Dubai’s perspective witch is quiet interesting. We never stop to consider how each country is viewed from other countries perspectives. It’s not that we are fully stuck in our ideas, it’s more that we haven’t been to the other country and wouldn’t be able to represent their ideas. It also allowed us to feel like we visited more than one country on our study abroad. We got to see all of the different countries in the Middle East and well as Africa, America and Asia. At the end of the activity we were able to learn about some of the distinct differences of culture and food between some of the Middle Eastern countries. We also got to experience cultural performances that introduced us to different music and dance. Overall, this was not my favorite activity, but everyone still had a lot of fun. I was sick entering the Global Village and was not in the best health to truly enjoy the entire activity. We got there and were able to see all of the lights turn on which was beautiful and made for some fantastic pictures. It also allowed all of use to visit a type of souk one last time before the end of the trip. Each village had its own little flea market going on so you were able to purchase anything you could think of. It was a little overwhelming with the size of the location, but it was fairly easy to get around as the whole place was one big circle. They did not have as many bathrooms as was probably needed for a place of it’s size but everyone was very helpful to point you in the right direction. I would say this activity was very fun and educational as we all learned a lot. I would say it was more fun than educational as we all had a blast trying to visit all of the different “countries”. It was a great end to a long day of activities that everyone was looking forward to visiting. People were describing it to be like Disney Land and they were right, it had the same feel.