Meeting with Noor

I had the opportunity to meet with my conversation partner, Noor, last week.  We had planned on meeting for lunch as we have for the previous meetings, but this time when she showed up she brought two friends with her.  I won’t lie; I was a little intimidated.  Three people who are in the process of learning English and then there’s me.  What am I supposed to talk about?  Should I assume they understand everything I’m saying, or should I talk slowly at the risk of rudely over exaggerating?  I had already made my way past these fears the first time meeting with Noor, but with new people I had no idea what to do.  It was quite obvious that I was the odd one out.

As we began to eat and talk, however, everything went really well.  One of the girls was more talkative than anyone I know, and her English was fantastic.  She wanted to talk about movies and TV shows (all of which were American and popular movies) which made it easy to carry on a conversation.  It was a lot of fun to see that it really wasn’t difficult to interact with them at all; in fact, it would probably be a lot of fun to hang out with them just as a typical group of friends. 

A couple interesting things were said that I thought were worth making note of.  After receiving our food one girl looked worried and asked the waiter to come back over and verify that there was no bacon (or any form of pork for that matter) on her baked potato.  This is one thing I had not thought about that would be difficult about living in another country.  We are insensitive to other people’s religious customs and it is not even on our radar when choosing restaurants or suggesting what they should get to eat.  It turned out perfectly fine and pork free, but it did make me more aware of what to watch out for and how to be more sensitive to other cultures.

Another funny comment was one that Noor made about the Halloween party she had a few weeks ago.  I simply asked if she did anything fun to celebrate, as it was something we discussed in a previous meeting, and she said “Oh yes we had a party!” I replied happily with a simple “oh that’s great!” or something of that nature, then she quickly said “Oh! Only with girls!”  I just found this interesting that she was quick to make that statement as if it was something important that I know.  It would not cross my mind that it would matter to have both men and women at a party; in fact, I would think it would be expected.   This is just another cultural difference that I would have been completely insensitive to if it had of been by own Halloween party.

Aside from these comments the meeting was fairly uninteresting but it was nice to get to know a few more people and learn a little bit more about where they are coming from and why they are here.  The girl who was bubbly and talkative said she is here for engineering of some sort, which apparently has great opportunities back in Saudi Arabia.  Again this is a somewhat interesting contrast to America where most (but not all of course) engineers tend to be males.

 Even when the conversations are not particularly meaningful or thought provoking it is still a great learning experience.   Overall it was another great meeting and I look forward to meeting with her again as the semester is coming to an end.