I wish that I had a better memory so that I could recount all of the awesome things I learned during my first meeting with my conversation partner, Rayan, and his wife, Hanah. Rayan and I decided to meet at Union Grounds on Wednesday, February 6, and as the day came quickly approached, I became apprehensive. But as I arrived at the newly furnished Union Grounds, I spotted Rayan and his wife sitting together, and I became excited to see what this opportunity would teach me. After our introductions, the conversation quickly took off as we talked about their classes. They are both taking writing, speaking, reading, and speech classes in English. Right now they are reading "The Secret Life of Bees," and Rayan told me that after they finish the novel they'll be able to watch the movie in class. He thought it would be cool to know what the characters were going to say in the movie before the scene actually played. Rayan said that they go to school Monday-Friday from 9-1, and that they are enjoying it.
Rayan and his wife moved to the United States last January and began their adventure in Knoxville, Tennessee. There they began the task of learning English, and they decided to come to Texas to get more practice and work up to taking the GRE. One of their favorite things about Texas is all of the cuisine. They especially like Mediterranean food, Terra in particular. I told them that next time they go, they have to try Sweet Sammie's because it's so close! Hanah pulled out her notebook and wrote down the name and then she asked me what type of cuisine it was...I said desert and she wrote down "sweets." I noticed that in her notebook she had other restaurants written down that other people had probably recommended to them. I thought it was comical that for as long as they have been in Texas, they still haven't tried Mexican food!! So I told them that Blue Mesa was the place to go.
From that conversation stemmed a conversation about Spring Break plans. They hope to make a trip to either Las Vegas, the Caribbean, or Cancun. Rayan and Hanah LOVE to travel! When they lived in Tennessee, they made trips up the coast to New York and Washington D.C., and later they made another trip south to Charleston, Atlanta, and Miami (Hanah made Rayan drive, but he said it wasn't too bad!).
They are from Saudi Arabia, and luckily they were able to go back for a month during winter break. All of their family still lives there, but they don't get too homesick since they have each other here.
I asked them what kinds of differences exist between the Saudi Arabian and American cultures, and Rayan responded with a question for me...he said, "Well, what is the first thing that flashes in your mind when you think of Saudi Arabia?" The only thing I could think of were the high temperatures and deserts. He asked, "Do you think of oil and camels and funny outfits????" and then he and Hanah turned towards each other and started laughing heartily. I asked them what it was like there and how they would describe it in a couple of sentences. Rayan said that in Saudi Arabia everyone is so hospitable. He said they are always sharing things with others (especially food!) and that you always feel really welcome there, which he felt was different than the United States. I wondered if he noticed a similarity between Saudi Arabia and the southern part of the US, since we're often associated with hospitality, and he said he could see a little bit of a similarity.
Then they told me about the different regions in Saudi Arabia and the different stereotypes each have. They are from the eastern part of the country which is generally more open minded. Those in the south are known as being especially closed minded, and the people in the East are even more so even though they are exposed to more cultures. Rayan and Hanah speak Arabic, and they wrote out their names in Arabic while showing me what each individual letter looked like. There are over 30 accent marks which is crazy! They are encouraged to speak English at home, but they said they only speak English about 10% of the time for simple words in English that they don't feel like using the Arabic words for.
Rayan showed me his phone and what all of the Arabic characters looked like on their keyboard. Once I was looking at his phone I noticed two different dates at the top of the screen. Rayan told me that they use two calendars in Saudi Arabia, the lunar calendar and the regular calendar we use. The lunar calendar was used in the days before our calendars of today were used, and it is determined by looking at the moon each night and seeing a slight change in the light reflected from the sun. The government in Saudi Arabia actually monitors it, and on days that it's cloudy they make public announcements concerning the calendar so that everyone stays on the same track. I also noticed that instead of having today's date as 6/2/2013 their's read 25/3/1434 so I had to ask what Rayan what this meant. He explained it to me like this..."You use 2013 because that's how long it has been since Jesus died, but our prophet is Muhammad, so we count the years since he walked the earth, and that's how we get 1434." He blew my mind with that, but at the same time it made so much sense!
I absolutely can't wait to continue our conversation next week, as I have already learned much more than I ever would've thought from this sweet couple!!
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