Monthly Archives: February 2014

Conversation Partner Meeting #4: Family, Siblings, and Sweets

With our conversation today, I learned several new and interesting things about Essa that surprised me. We started talking about family…. Essa has 5 siblings! He has an older sister, 3 older brothers, a younger sister, and a younger brother. He is closest with his two younger siblings, because his older siblings are married and have their own families. His brother’s name is Rashid and is six years younger than him. His sister is four years younger and they call her Nona, but that’s just a nickname that she has had since she was little, because it is similar to the Arabic word meaning “small”. This got us a little sidetracked… I asked him if he had any nicknames. Some of his friends call him “Jee” because Essa’s name in Arabic actually means Jesus… And then we got sidetracked about what different names mean. He looked up my name, but apparently it doesn’t mean anything (big surprise there, especially since I got my name because my parents had a coworker whose dog was named Callie and they liked the name, just not the spelling). His daughter’s name, Dana, means “pearl”.

After this tangent we went on, we got back to the topic of family. Back in Saudi Arabia, his father owns a very large building, kind of like an apartment building or set of condominiums, where all of his siblings and cousins live with their families. So, it’s like a big family reunion, all the time. Even though he is not living there at the moment, Essa’s apartment has been kept just the way he left it, so he can start life back up again when he returns home. Although his whole family lives so close to each other, he is closest with his younger siblings, and seems to spend more time with his sister, Nona. He said that he usually helps her bake. “Wow”, I thought, “that’s so nice of him,” thinking that it was just your average baking-chocolate-chip-cookies-at-home kind of baking, maybe with the occasional birthday cake or something. Essa then pulled up his sister’s Instagram account to show what his sister bakes… I was completely wrong. These pictures were of cakes and cupcakes designed to look like basically anything and everything – Soccer balls, princess castles, actual Disney princesses, crowns, guitars, graduation caps, engagement cakes, soccer jerseys, and Minions (from the movie “Despicable Me”), just to name a few. I sat there, in amazement. She makes and frosts all her cakes by hand, takes pictures of them on Instagram to advertise, and then customers can call to order whatever they want. It is a full-blown business operation! She even converted a room in the family’s building to bake and to put all her supplies; according to Essa, the whole room is pink. Nona has been doing this for a couple years now. Before she started her baking business, she made greeting cards, but did not enjoy that job. So, she went to school to learn how to bake and to make these wonderful creations, leading to the starting of her business. Recently, she went to a class in Dubai to learn how to make cakes very flat. Essa said that while she was learning, she would take out a level (like ones that builders use) to make sure that her cakes were perfectly flat. Currently, Essa is in the process of trying to make a machine that will help his sister to mix the colors of the frosting more easily. He seems to be very supportive of his sister and her business.

This conversation has been one of our most interesting yet… Essa’s name means Jesus, his whole family lives right next to each other, and his sister bakes beautiful cakes for a living (possibly one of the coolest jobs ever). Every time we meet, I seem to learn something new and interesting about Essa!

Conversation Partner Meeting #3: Fire Safety, Driving Safety, and Saudi Arabia

Today’s conversation, like our previous ones, started with brief small talk. I asked him how his day was and if he had any tests coming up or a lot of homework. He responded that he had a presentation about fire safety in one of his classes earlier that week. Fire Safety? I thought to myself that this was kind of a random topic to give a presentation on. However, as he explained it, I realized it made sense… that’s the beauty of getting to know people. Once you learn more about them, the things they do and how they are makes more sense. Essa worked at the Fire Department for a couple years when he lived in Saudi Arabia. He liked his job at first, but during the last few months he didn’t like it. He said that during the presentation he was asked about the first hard thing he experienced in America, so I was interested to hear what he said. Apparently in his apartment, there was a small fire on the balcony… however he found this out by policemen and firemen banging on his door late at night. Someone had seen him smoking earlier that day, so they police and firemen wanted to ask him questions. However, he assured me, he knew that he put out his cigarette properly due to his experience in the fire department. Essa also pointed out that the door in the classroom open inward (it was pull, not push) and that there was not a fire extinguisher in the room… something that only a fireman would likely notice.  We also discovered that we share of dislike of presenting projects in front of a classroom.

After talking about his presentation, we somehow got on the topic of driving. I asked him if he had to take the test to get his American drivers license. When he took the test, he was under the impression that he would have to go on the highway… but no! This came as a surprise to him. He got his license, so obviously he did well on the test, but there is one thing that he said he messed up on. When turning left at a stoplight on green, he just went without stopping to yield to the incoming traffic. His instructor freaked out (I don’t blame him), but just told him that he needs to stop when turning left and passed him anyways. Despite this mishap, his driving has been good ever since, minus a speeding ticket for going – wait for it – 110 miles per hour on the highway. Then I was curious about how driving is different in the United States versus Saudi Arabia. More people follow the rules in the United States than in Saudi Arabia. For example, stop signs are basically optional there. To reinforce this notion, he showed a picture of a car wreck that happened at stop sign intersection right in front of his home. Apparently, police are a little stricter in the United States as well. Also, the driving is faster in Saudi Arabia… the fastest he has ever driven is about 160 miles per hour (he had to mentally convert from kilometers per hour) on the highway! 160 miles per hour! I don’t even trust that my Kia Optima can get past 80 miles per hour.

Our conversation then lead to the subject of spring break and his family… remembering that his wife and daughter are leaving to go back to his country, I asked him more about what that would be like. Although he would miss his wife and daughter Dana (I asked him how to spell it this time), he said that it would be much easier because he now longer has to worry about being a father and a student. How he can just focus on doing well in school and passing this section of his course, so he can hopefully move on to take a writing class over the summer. Then, he will maybe return to his home country. However, he does not seem to have an exact plan about when he will go back and seems to be pretty casual about the timing of when he will go back. This struck me as interesting, because I could not wait to go home for the first time over Thanksgiving break… and although Minnesota is different from Texas, there is no way to compare the difference to the differences between Saudi Arabia and Texas.

As the weeks progress, I have found that our conversations flow more normally. This is a good sign, because it shows we are more comfortable talking to each other and we are becoming more familiar with each other, too! Sometimes I have to rephrase certain questions for him so understand better, but other than that Essa’s English is totally understandable. I see both of these things as very positive and things that will progressively to improve as our conversations continue.

Conversation Partner Meeting #2: Daughter, Daycare, and Desert Weather

There I was at Union Grounds on a Thursday afternoon, just a couple minutes before my conversation partner, Essa, was supposed to meet me at 4:00 for our second conversation. It was 4:00 and still no Essa… would today be a repeat of last week? However, Essa showed up just a couple minutes after 4:00 – already a better start than last time. We made small talk for a couple minutes, which then turned into a conversation about many different things. I learned about his family, and what it’s like to balance having a wife and daughter with taking extensive courses at a university. For example, he had to take his daughter, three-year-old Dina (honestly, I have no idea if that is spelled right) to an appointment in the middle of the day to get her eyes checked. It took longer than he thought, so with driving and getting her back to her daycare, he was a couple minutes late getting back to campus to meet. He says that usually he has a couple hours during the day to work on schoolwork on campus, but when he has to take his daughter to appointments and things like that, it can be difficult. With his wife taking courses at a different school in the area for a degree in public health, both are very busy with being students and parents. Another thing that makes things difficult is the cost of daycare for Dina. The daycare that she goes to in Fort Worth costs a lot of money… I guess daycare in the United States just costs a lot in general. For example, he said that one week of daycare in the United States is more expensive that one month of daycare in his home in Saudi Arabia. For this reason, Essa’s wife and daughter are leaving to go back to Saudi Arabia in a couple weeks, where his daughter will stay with her grandma and attend preschool. I asked if it would be hard to be away from his daughter, and he said it would be, but he plans to return to Saudi Arabia after he finishes all his courses here. In the end, it will be better because they will save a lot of money on daycare expenses, plus it may take the stress out of the position of balancing being a student and a parent if his daughter is so far away… a 21 hour flight away, to be exact. While on the topic of his daughter, he showed me a video of Dina wrapped up in a blanket like a taco yelling, “I’m stuck, I’m stuck!” – she is absolutely adorable! We also talked about his home and how the weather is so different here and there. He pulled up the weather app on his iPhone to show what the weather was like in Saudi Arabia (50 degrees), and I pulled up the app to show what it was like in Minnesota (16 degrees… not too bad for the middle of February). I learned that in Saudi Arabia, they wear a more traditional costume, especially when it’s hot out. He explained to me that it is white, so it reflects the sun, and thin to keep you cool. There are different kinds and lengths, but he always goes for the coolest one because it can get up to 125 degrees in Saudi Arabia…. And here I was, thinking that those 95-degree days in August in Texas were unimaginably hot.

It was interesting to learn about Essa’s life and family, but not in a way that felt like I was interviewing him. Sure, I asked most of the questions, but it was very conversational and normal. After today’s conversation, I look forward to getting to know Essa even better. Our backgrounds, homes, and life experiences are so different that I feel like he can offer a different perspective, which is so interesting and refreshing. 

Conversation Partner Meeting #1: Expectations and a Little Bit of Confusion

I think that it is safe to say that usually when you meet someone for the first time, you go into this meeting with some sort of expectations. These expectations obviously depend on the situation, but in the case of my first meeting with my Conversation Partner, Essa, my expectations proved to be a little off.

When I first got in contact with my Conversation Partner, we quickly set up our first time to meet: Thursday at Union Grounds at 4:00 p.m. Though I was a little nervous to first meet with Essa, I felt good about getting the time and place set up to meet. When Thursday came around, I was excited that my lab got out early so I could find a table at Union Grounds for us to meet. Once I got settled down, I texted Essa, describing where I was sitting and also what I look like, and also told Essa to text me upon arrival. I sat there, and as 4:00 came around, I scanned the area. Is there was anyone who looks like they could be Essa and that they’re looking for a girl with “brown and a brown scarf”? Then, it was 4:10… still no Essa. Seeing that we had confirmed our meeting earlier that day, I thought maybe Essa was just running a little late… but then I got a little worried because there was never a response to my text about my location and appearance. Was everything okay?

4:18 (text from Essa) – “Are you close Union Ground?”

YES!!! A response! Except for this was a little confusing because I had definitely said that I was at Union Grounds… maybe this was going to be a little more difficult than I had anticipated. After responding that I was at a table and asking if Essa was still able to come…

4:26 (text from Essa) – “I’m there”

I looked around for someone who looked like they could be named Essa… I pictured a girl in her twenties who possibly dressed not like your typical TCU girl (oversized shirt, leggings). When I didn’t see anyone who looked like I had imagined Essa, I changed my criteria to anyone who appeared to be looking for someone. Finally, I turned around to see a Middle-Eastern looking man, seeming to be in his late 20s or so, looking at his phone and then scanning the room. “Are you Essa?” I asked… and it was!

Before even going into the details of how our actual first conversation went, it is clear that my expectations of two things were definitely off point. First off, my general expectation that Essa would be on time. I am the kind of person that likes to be on time, and that is how I was raised. If I make a plan for 4:00, I will be there at 4:00 (or likely a couple minutes early), and if I will be late, I let the person that I am meeting know that I won’t be on time. However, as I sat there waiting for Essa, I realized being on time might not be something that is a priority in his culture, so perhaps this expectation of mine is unrealistic.

My second expectation was that Essa was going to be a girl about my age. Clearly, I was mistaken. In my mind, my assumption was that Essa would be like a college girl, but simply from a different country. This was not the case. Instead, I found out that Essa is 32 years old and is from Saudi Arabia.

Despite my seriously wrong assumptions, we did actually have a conversation. Honestly, it was mostly me asking him questions about himself. In fairly good English, he told me about where he is from and little bit about how he ended up in the IEP program here. He came to the United States in 2013, first to a program at a community college in Portland, Oregon, and then to TCU. When we asked him about how he felt about the weather here compared to Saudi Arabia, he said that it also says that Texas is hot all the time. However, he found out that Texas does, in fact, get cold and sometimes it even snows! After bonding over the fact that we both didn’t realize it would snow in Texas, we talked about his background and what his life was like back in Saudi Arabia. He described how they only have three years of high school, but he had to repeat the first and third years. After that he went to school for about a year, he worked in many different industries, from train operating to the fire department. Later, he got married, and then in 2013 he came to the United States to learn more English. Right now he lives with his wife and three year old daughter. I can’t imagine balancing a family life, with a wife and child, while still being a student in a foreign country!

Though sometimes it was difficult to understand his accent, Essa’s English was impressive throughout this entire conversation. He seemed to enjoy sharing and talking about his life, which I think helped him be more comfortable with his English too. At times, he would pause for a couple seconds before answering a question, but after this pause his English would come out in full and completely comprehendible sentences.

Regardless of my mistaken expectations and slight confusion that started off this newfound conversation-partnership, I am interested and excited to learn more about Essa and his life. Though my wrong assumptions of timeliness and identity have been corrected, I am sure that these conversations will continue to bring unexpected new things each time we meet.