My Real Cross-Cultural Encounter

My expectations for writing this blog were to learn about a culture of war and the history of child soldiers. I had no anticipation of hearing from someone who would respond to my blog. I always knew my blog would be in a public domain but I never realized what effect posting your own thoughts in public could have on others. While I expected to receive comments from my classmates, I was astonished that someone from Uganda, the place I was studying, read and commented on my blog would ever read it. For me, this became a real cross-cultural encounter. It gave me an opportunity, whether my facts were right or not, to have an exchange with someone who could intimately relate to the topic and made the issue more personal. The initial point of my blog was not to just tell a story, but to get a response and encounter people who could teach me more about my subject. While I still have not spoken to or met a child soldier, this encounter got me to rethink and expand my facts and beliefs. It forced me to see whether or not my western Caucasian background, my views and attitudes towards the information I gathered, were accurate or slandered. The importance to me was not so much about what I was writing in my blog, as much as putting something out in the public view to form a dialogue and come in contact with people who had personal experience. I am much more aware of what and how I write now as I am certain people, not just close to me, but all around the world, could be reading my thoughts and information.