MP4

Delaney Day

Dr. Neely McLaughlin

World Literature

December 8, 2020

Major Project 4: Option B

Word Proposal

I am going to use the book Aya Like in Yop city for this major project. I would like to write about how culture can bring family together especially in such hard times like we are going through now. I want to go into the hard effects this pandemic has caused many families and the struggles they are going thought, not just as a family but as a community. I want to talk about how much our communities rely on our small businesses. I never really thought about the luxuries we had just to be able to go out to restaurants and to the store and over to our friends and families homes. We all have taken this for granted and never thought twice about it because our American Culture has allowed us to live a free life.

Going through this pandemic was definitely not expected but we are adapting and learning a new way of life. We are learning to keep our distance and have better hygiene; as in washing our hands and using hand sanitizer after touching anything. We have had to distance ourselves from our families and our friends to keep them safe. We are supposed to only go our for work and for essentials. We are trying to keep everyone safe so we wear masks when we are inside confined spaces or when we are in close proximity to other people.

Culture Recast

Instead of Aya living in Yop City I would have her living in the country. I want to put her in a completely different environment. She would not be as close to her neighbors and she is in the original book. She most likely would not pursue the career of a doctor. She would set out to become a farmer and she would settle down find a partner and start a family of her own. She would learn to cook and clean and raise a child and stay home to help with the house hold chores. Aya would attend church every Sunday with the children and her partner. The kids would go to school and come home to do their homework and help out with the animals and the chores that needed to be done around the house. The children would help with cutting the grass and feeding and grooming the horses. They would need to work on the farm before and after school. The kids would still put school first but they would have set times to get everything done. Once the children arrive home they will eat the fresh meal that is cooked for them Aya and her partner would sit down and eat with them as a family. This way of life is completely different that Aya’s life back in Yop City and it would be a complete cultural shock for her coming from Yop City to go into the country and live such a complete different life and to be expect to live a whole new life.

Annotated bibliography

Jaffe, Meryl. “Using Graphic Novels in Education: Aya: Life in Yop City.” Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, cbldf.org/2015/03/using-graphic-novels-in-education-aya-life-in-yop-city/.

This site is perfect if you want to get to know all about Aya Life in Yop City. It talks about the overview and the summary of the book. This site is basically a good teller if you would or would not want to read this book. It talks about all the different themes that happen and go on in the book. It also tells you on what pages certain things happen. This is a really good site.

Sylla, Fanta, et al. “The Quotidian Life of a Neighborhood.” Africa Is a Country, africasacountry.com/2014/05/aya-of-yop-city.

This site is about African culture. This is also a big picture of some women and how these women are dressed is the exact same way I described how the book Aya Life in Yop City dressed. There are actually more pictures if you scroll all the way down to the bottom. You will see little pictures of what the area looks like and again this is how it looked in the book.

Milks, Megan. “’Aya’ by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie.” PopMatters, PopMatters, 22 Feb. 2020, www.popmatters.com/aya-by-marguerite-abouet-and-clement-oubrerie-2496230789.html.

This site goes straight into the hard facts about this book. It walks about Aya and the hardships that were happening and that they were having to deal with, for example war, AIDS, and poverty. This is very serious in Africa and Aya was trying to get into a medical school and this is stuff that she will be having to deal with everyday because if she becomes that doctor she will have to know how to treat these illnesses and how to help people in poverty get treatment.

“Life In Yop City Analysis.” Cram, http://www.cram.com/essay/Life-In-Yop-City-Analysis/F39KVJXKGZKQ. 

This site is basically a summary of what happened in the book. I think this was an important site because if you chose to not read the book that you would be able to have a good understanding of the book itself by reading this site. It talks about Aya’s values and her goals for her life. I found this site to be quite accurate to the book. 

You Are Being Redirected…, drawnandquarterly.com/aya-life-in-yop-city. 

This site was short and sweet. It was straight to the point and a good snapshot of the book. It also gives the website users straight access to the book itself. It also recommends similar books that readers also might like, this site is very informative but short.

Reflective Learning Narrative

Coming up with a new Culture for Aya was very difficult. I wanted to do something completely different than her life in the book Aya Life in Yop City. I wanted her to get out of the city and in my mind the very first thing that popped into my head was out in the country with horses and fields and church and marriage with a big family that Aya and her partner would grow together.

I know first hand what growing on a farm is like because of my family. My mother was born in North Carolina and so I know all about cleaning up after the horses and the chores that come along with it. I know how to milk a cow and I also learned what it was like in the kitchen. I learned how to cook chicken and steak along with many other different meals. I learned the ins and outs of what goes on living out in the country on the farm. The neighbors Aya would have, would not be close. The closest neighbors she would have in her new life would be about half a mile down the road. She would have to take her bike and ride it down the street if she needed to borrow eggs or milk. She could even take the tractor but it would be tough because the gas is expensive to fill up the tractors just for her to ride it down the road. 

I also want to go into details about what her new life would be like if a pandemic hints where she would be living out in the country. Aya and her family would be okay because of how far away they live from everyone. The children would be homeschooled because Aya did not want her kids to get exposed to this virus. Her partner would go out for work and then come straight back home because they just as much as Aya do not want to get the virus and possibly give it to their family. Aya and her family would suffer some financial struggles because people were no longer buying their vegetables and their milk or eggs. People could not afford their products because they also lost their jobs due to the pandemic and they would have to learn a new way to provide for the kids and for their animal. Sadly when the hard times come they come hard and fast. Aya would have to sell two of her cows and a horse to keep her family fed and the electric on. The family ate the produce they made and that was helpful because they did not have to go out and buy food they are able to make and grow their own food. 

Aya stays home with the children to help with their school work. She becomes their new teacher and tries her very best to teach them the school’ s material but it is difficult because Aya never got the same schooling as her children are getting because back then times were different for women. 

These ideas and concepts just came to me the more and more I typed about what Aya’s life would be like. I really felt the need to include the pandemic in this new cultural world for Aya. I wanted to include this because of how relevant it is in today’s world. It is a very serious issue and nobody knows what the future holds and how this will all work out. Pandemics hit just like in Africa with Ebola, and with the Flu and now the Corna Virus. This stuff is very serious and we never know what will come next, all we can do is prepare and adapt for new tragedies and new beginnings to happen. We have to be able to adapt to whatever the world throws at us and keep on moving in life! 

This is why I wanted to incorporate the pandemic in my Major Project 4, because it is something that we are living through right now and I wanted to challenge myself to write a little bit about how Aya would try and live with this pandemic as well.

This site in particular I enjoyed and also helped me to decide on where Aya and her family world live because I just thought it was beautiful out in the country and it is a different way of life. It talks about what it was like coming from a city to the country and I couldn’t think it to be more perfect for Aya!

Bargen, Sarah Von. “This Is How Life Changes When You Move from the City to the Country.” MarketWatch, MarketWatch, 24 May 2019, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-how-life-changes-when-you-move-from-the-city-to-the-country-2019-04-02.