"Your actions speak louder than your words."

Before talking about this saying, I would like to say that is very important to clarify that in a conversation there are three elements: verbal communication, tone, and non-verbal communication. Surprisingly, verbal communication represents just 7% during a conversation or speech that is why our body language is one of the most important things when we are trying to communicate with others.

I agree with the saying, because a person can know more from other based on their gestures and facial expressions than on what they are saying. For example, during a conversation if the person you are talking to is constantly looking at the time, that probably means that he/she has something else to do; or if you tell something to a friend and he makes a facial expression of rejection, you know that he didn´t like what you said or is not agree with you.  .

To summarize, body language and facial expressions represents 97% of the message during a conversation that is why I think that actions speak louder than your voice

Minority Subcultures

Since America was discovered, there has been a huge mix of cultures and races from all around the world. In Colombia there are a lot of subcultures, but right now I will focus on one of the most important groups, the Afrocolombians. The Afrocolombian culture is the result of the mixture of the slaves brought from Africa with the Spanish colonists or with the indigenous. The majority of the population lives in  the departments on the pacific and Caribbean  coast of Colombian ; they are also settle in the valleys of the rives Magdalena, Cauca, San Jorge, Sinú, Cesar, Atrato, San Juan, Baudó, Patía y Mira. Afrocolombian people are different from the dominant culture just in their physical appearance, their skin is dark, and their hair is usually curly, they also tend to be strong people, and women have beautiful bodies.

As in the rest of the world, Afrocolombians were slaves, they didn’t have any rights. They weren’t allowed to do some things or to enter to some places. Currently, things have changed a little bit for them, they have more freedom, but in some places , like in Tumaco, Nariño and Valle del Cauca, they live in extreme poverty, this situation was explain by the commission of the Human Rights , which says that this group has always been exclude, and social and economic disadvantage, they cannot enjoy their fundamental rights; the infant mortality rate double the national record, the also have less access to services such as education and health, which is reflected in less jobs opportunities.

In my opinion the government should take the lead of the issue, how is that this people is living in such poverty conditions. They are human beings like us, they have feelings, we can´t let them suffer, they need our help. And the most important thing is that all Colombian must know about their situation, there are some people that always turn away when it comes to talk about their nation, some times we concern more about other countries issues, and we forget our own reality.

Reference List: 

• Ministerio del Interior y de Justicia, Republica de Colombia. Población Afrocolombiana. (2006). Retrieved from: http://www.mij.gov.co/Etnias/Inicio/Etnias/bAfrocolombianosb/tabid/72/Default.aspx
• Caracol Radio. Afrocolombianos: Entre la pobreza y la discriminación.(2009). Retrieved from: http://www.caracol.com.co/noticias/entretenimiento/afrocolombianos-entre-la-pobreza-y-la-discriminacion/20090521/nota/815959.aspx

When it comes to talk about getting married with someone from a different culture, there might be some problems that you will have to deal with. Since I have not been married, I will use as reference the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". The most remarkable problem that you have to face is the choice of the religion, on that desicion depends the way your kids will be raised. In the movie we saw that Ian had to adopt Toula´s religion, because her family is not open minded, they were not happy at all about the wedding idea, but they calm down a little when Ian decided to chance his religion. Another problem can be the behavior, each family have its own way to do things and react. Despite Toula knew how things worked in her family, she wasn´t very pleased with her relative behavior, she thought that they were noisy people. However this was not a problem to Ian, he was easygoing and he really loved Toula , so he enjoyed all the "crazy" things that  Toula´s family did. In conclusion, If you get married with someone from a different culture, you can find some obstacles but you can get over them with love and respect.

I think it is very important to protect all the cultures, especially those who are shared by a less amount of people, because as Phil Borges said "Every two weeks and elder goes to the grave carring the last spoken word or that culture. " Meaning that , that culture will eventually  dessapear, wich is very sad because the world will not just lose a languaje "What we lose is essentially an enormous cultural heritage, the way of expressing the relationship with nature, with the world, between themselves in the framework of their families, their kin people," says Mr Hagege.  Our world needs to have  diversity. As told by Wade Davis "why don´t we try to speak Cogui or Cantonees, and we will sudden discover what it be like to not been able to speak your own language." I totally agree, each country needs to have its very own culture.

Hello!! My name is Angelica Cortes , I´m 17 years old and I´m from Barranquilla, Colombia.

By now I´m studying Industrial Engineer at Universidad del Norte, I´m in my first year. This blog was created for my english class in order to improve my writting skills, and I also think that having a blog is a great way to learn the language, because here I´ll post interesting things about my class.