Monday, November 1, 2010

Day 7: Friday- Coming Home

I cannot believe that my stay here is over. I loved it here so much, other than the minor fact that there was a bit of a bug problem and the fact that I could possibly get malaria if I had gotten bitten from a mosquito. Thank gosh that didn't happen. So, today I said good bye to everyone that I know here and it is a bit sad that I have to go home now after such a good time here visiting. I don't really want to travel on those terrible roads. However, I miss all of you back home and I hope you missed me too, but home sweet home here I come.

Erica

Day 6: Thursday- Agriculture/ Industry





So, this is my second to last day here in Virginia and I previously briefly mentioned that they grew tobacco here. Here tobacco is a main export and it was John Rolfe who perfected how to grow tobacco in large amounts, so people call him the “Father of Tobacco”. Here I also saw some plantations that grew rice. Here the industry also thrives on slave trade. It is much easier for a plantation owner to get a slave here in the South because there is a greater need for them. In Carolina, there was massive slave trade because of the close ties that it has with the West Indies and since they are close to each other it makes sense to say that large plantation owner has easy access to slaves. Compared to us, we grow things because we need it to live and not for profit. At home we grow things like fruits, veggies, and raise animals for us to eat.
            Here in Virginia, profit relies on one main thing, tobacco because the seasons/ temperature tends remain the same, but at home we have season changes which affects what we can grow and what we can’t. Also I have found that land here is more fertile while ours is more rocky, which also affects our agriculture differences.


Love,
Erica

Day 5: Wednesday- Sight-seeing

Hi guys,

I'll be out until sundown walking around and visiting other people and places so I'm not going to update/ say what I learned today. No worries, I'll be back tomorrow blogging about more stuff that I have learned. But before I go its so hot here! I just realized that the temperature is the same all year round unlike home, which right now would be cold windy.

Erica :)

Day 4: Tuesday-Diversity in the South

So yesterday I finished my blog by saying that I would tell all of you about the cultural/ ethnic diversity that I see here in Jamestown. Compared to us Jamestown is definitely more diverse because they have a need for slaves here. The slaves came from Africa which makes it more diverse than  the north. From just walking around I can already see that the population of slaves here is nearly ½ of the total population. Cousin Brandon, here owns a slave who is here to help him out on the farm even though he is a somewhat small farmer he can still afford a slave to help him out. Also here there are races of people, who even some I can’t really tell the difference because it is so diverse. I only know very little about this, but many other countries are also competing for land in the New World, so they send people over here to live and as people live, they tend to move around which can cause people of different race to mix and create different ethnicities. For example the Scots-Irish were created in the New World. I believe that we are less culturally diverse because we came over as a family. This is because families usually stick together and because we are separatists we don’t like to mingle. I have seen so much around here and I really wish that you were here to see it all with me. I’ll be back soon!

Love,
Erica