Our family is excited to be part of a Worldwide Cultural Swap, organized by the Little Red Farm. When I came across this website a few months back, I knew it was something I wanted to do with my girls.
The Worldwide Cultural Swap is done through the mail, sharing artifacts and information about where you live with four other families you are paired up with, through the swap. I signed up back in May, on this page. A couple weeks later I got an email pairing me with four other families wishing to do a swap was well. Then we shared information about our families, the ages of our children and where we live, via email. We created a deadline for everyone to mail out their swap packages. Since it was summer and some of the families in our swap were traveling a lot during the summer, we agreed on the deadline of July 31 to give everyone plenty of time.
We mailed our packages last week, to England, Australia, a Moroccan family who splits their time between the US and Morocco, and Colorado. The girls are SO excited, running to the mailbox everyday looking for a package in return.
The swap asks Americans to focus on their state rather just America, understandably so. Since we are not from Tennessee, it was a fun opportunity for us to learn some new things about our state.
Here is what we put in our box.
I included a document explaining more about the contents and what they mean, for the families receiving the boxes. The write up had photos, pairing the descriptions with the objects you see above. My oldest daughter had a learning moment when she read why the Tennessee flag has three stars on it, saying, “Ohhhh. I always wondered about that.
Here is what the document explained…
- The official state flag of Tennessee was adopted on April 17, 1905. The three white stars in the center symbolize the three different geographical regions of Tennessee: the Great Smoky Mountains (in eastern Tennessee), the highlands (in central Tennessee) and the lowlands (in western Tennessee, by the Mississippi River). The white circle binds them together. The blue stripe along the margin was added for distinction when the flag is hanging; with the stripe, not only the red shows while the flag is hanging.
- Knoxville, Tennessee is home to the University of Tennessee. Tennessee football is huge here! On game days people everywhere in the city are wearing orange. The stadium, where they play football games is called Neyland Stadium. It seats 100,000 people and is the largest football stadium in the Southeast. The stadium is located on the Tennessee River and many fans travel by boat to attend the games!
- Grits are a food of Native American origin, and have now become a cultural staple of the South. They are mainly eaten for breakfast. They consist of coarsely ground corn, or sometimes alkali-treated corn (hominy). Grits are similar to other thick maize-based porridges from around the world, such as polenta, or the thinner farina. Three packs of instant cheese grits were included in the box.
- In Knoxville’s downtown visitor center, local radio station WDVX hosts the Blue Plate Special every weekday during lunch, where regional bluegrass and country musicians play live music that gets broadcasted on the radio. Our city is known for Bluegrass music, which was started in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Tennessee, sometime around the Civil War in the 1800s. The various types of music brought with the people who began migrating to America in the early 1600s are considered to be the roots of bluegrass music—including dance music and ballads from Ireland, Scotland and England, as well as African American gospel music and blues. (In fact, slaves from Africa brought the design idea for the banjo–an instrument now integral to the bluegrass sound.) A copy of a CD featuring some of the local bands from the radio station was included in the box. For blogging purposes – Here is a link to where you can buy the CD, which I hope you consider doing to support this non-profit radio station. It’s a great CD. We support the radio station with donations several times a year, which is why I felt it was okay to copy the CD for this educational purpose. But please – do go show your support for this awesome, community based radio station.
- Also in the box was a woven piece of blue fabric with a piece of paper explaining some of the history and heritage of weaving in this region – East Tennessee is known for its history of craftsmen and craftswomen, from sewing, to welding iron and woodworking.
- A Tennessee map was in the box too, so swap families could locate Knoxville and its surrounding areas. As was Knoxville visitor’s magazine.
- And a book titled Appalachian Mountains that my children enjoyed very much. The Appalachian Mountains are about 45 minutes from Knoxville. There is a famous hiking trail called the Appalachian Trail that starts in Georgia, goes through Tennessee and ends in Maine. It’s a total of 2,180 miles.
Our last picture before we packed up the boxes and headed to the post office.
I was very conscience while figuring out what to include in the box, to keep the weight low (as well as the cost of the content in the box) and prevent shipping costs. It turned out our boxes weighed 1.5 pounds each. Even at that, it was just under $15 to ship to Australia and England. It was worth it.
We had a blast getting the items together for the box, visiting the East Tennessee History Center where we collected the book, flag and weaving example. We visited University of Tennessee bookstore for some mini footballs, and the visitors center to get the Knoxville visitor guide and state map, some new CDs and listen to some live music.
This is an old trolly that used to go from downtown Knoxville to Island Home Park neighborhood.
My little one, dancing to bluegrass music being played in the museum.
My girls ALWAYS love visiting this old school house in the museum.
I’m going to make a point to take my girls more often to this free afternoon music season, The Blue Plate Special. They loved it and were very good audience members for the live music. I think we only made the radio once. Oops.
Now we wait, checking the mailbox daily, for packages from far way. We’ll let you know what we get!
