On Friday September 26
I met with Mohammed Altarouty for the first time. The
hardest part was finding a good time to meet up for the first time. At times I
feel like I was, for lack of a better word, ethnocentric when trying to meet up
with Mohammed. I assumed that he lived on campus. There was no reasoning behind
this. When we were corresponding a few days before, I tried to get us to meet
at the BLUU, but he said he prefers Starbucks. So then I suggested Union
grounds. He then made it clear, he requested that we meet somewhere “outside
the TCU area.” So I found the closest Starbucks which is off university.
Then
finally Friday came, it was evening time, and it was time to I arrived at
Starbucks approcimately at 5:25 and Mohammed called and said that he would be
about 15 minutes late. I was kind of sad when I heard this news. This is
surprising to me because I’m usually indifferent about meeting new people. But
he finally arrived and we sat down and started chatting. The first question I
asked him was about his family. He revealed that he was the youngest of 7 and
he also informed me that his father had passed away about 3.5 years ago.
Some how, the topic of
the countries that Mohammed has lived came up. He told me that he has lived in
New Zealand, the Netherlands, and of course his home country of Saudi Arabia
before coming to America. He also speaks 3 languages Arabic, Dutch, and
English. His English is very good. I believe that he has been here for a year
already. He explained to me that his
Dutch is getting worse because he does not have anyone to practice with though.
Mohammed also explained how he was very proud of his nephew, who is 13 and can
speak 4 languages as well. It made me very happy to see Mohammed so happy about
his nephew.
Mohammed asked me where
the best restaurant in the area was because he was tired of eating American
fast food because they had most of it in Saudi Arabia. I don’t go out much so I
told him Macaroni Grill. But he had Italian real food Italian food and he did
not like Macaroni Grill very much. Then I went with a classic and told him “Ol’
South” and he agreed and said it was a very good restaurant
The last thing Mohammed
and I talked about was sports. We both agreed that one of the best
international sports is rugby.
He explained why he
thought that sports were very popular in the US. He claimed that it was because
of British influence. He gave examples of America, India, and New Zealand. He
explained that there is essentially a positive relationship between British
influence and popularity of sports. I found this very interesting.
I pretty much found
everything that Mohammed spoke about very interesting. I enjoyed talking to
him. I look forward to doing it again.
Hi Terrul!
ReplyDeleteIt's super interesting to read about your first experience with your conversation partner, and I'm glad that it went well! I still haven't had a chance to meet with mine, so I'm a little nervous about it, but also excited. I've always found it to be educational when talking with people from different cultures. I know it's a lot different, but I almost felt like I was in a new country when I first came to Texas for school last year. Being from Chicago, I felt like I had grown up in a totally different culture, which is true to some extent, but not to the extent of the people who traveled here from around the world! So I can relate to the feeling of being a little lost in Texas culture, but I also have a lot of advice on how to ease the transition, so I hope to be able to talk to my conversation partner about that!