Tuesday, June 2, 2009

A Special Post by Lila



A week ago, we went to Illinois and we went on a train there, and we met a bunch of Amish people: Eli, the mother, Nathan, Samuel, Ruth, Paul, James, a little boy and the baby girl. I taught the three oldest ones, Nathan, Samuel, and Ruth, to play cards. The games were Crazy 8’s, War, and Go Fish. They liked the games. They said, “Let’s play that game again!” I had a great time with them.

Amish people don’t gamble. Even though they played cards with me, it wasn’t against the rules because they’re just kids’ games. Most Amish people don’t play cards and don’t know what the cards stand for. Some Amish people do play cards, except that they’re cards are different than ours. My dad told me he saw two Amish men playing cards.

Now I’ll tell you a bit about Amish culture.

Amish people don’t use new technology. Some use solar panels. They don’t use electricity usually. If there’s a medical problem or emergency, they will use it. They won’t drive cars, but they’ll have people drive them for them. They will ride trains, wagons, and horses.

They wear the colors black, white, purple, green, and blue. The girls and women wear bonnets, black or white. The women and girls wear a green or purple and black dress, a cape or a black coat. The mother on the train wore the same thing as the girls. Men and boys wear black or straw hats. The boys on the train wore a denim vest with black pants and black boots and a black shirt. Their dad wore a blue vest, a blue shirt, black boots, and black pants.

Amish people go to school to 8th grade. Some of the kids get educated at home past 8th grade. Very few go to college. They go to a one room school house. They mostly speak English, but a certain time of the day, they speak Pennsylvania Dutch. They learn how to write it a bit. The Amish I met don’t learn English until they go to school. They start speaking English a tiny bit at a time before they went to school.

4 comments:

Joanna said...

Wow, Lila, what a fascinating blog! You learned a lot from meeting these people, and now you are helping us learn from it too. Thank you so much for sharing.

Joanna

Unknown said...

Wow. I love all the details you provided about Amish culture. I wonder what their playing cards are like.

Susan Murphy said...

Lila, that was so interesting. You taught me something about Amish culture!

Emilie Lin said...

I have the same reaction as Joanna and Paul. "Wow" is exactly my first reaction. I'm amazed at how much information you remember and learned about the Amish culture! Thank you for sharing.

Ms. Emilie (Peter's Mom)