On Tuesday, January 22nd from 12:00 to 1:00, I met with Ali Talibi at CIES. First, we talked about his newborn daughter who is about two weeks old and he showed me some pictures of her. He is currently in the process of getting his daughter, Mila, an American passport and he showed me his Saudi Arabian passport. He was wearing traditional, formal Saudia Arabian clothing for me and he explained what each part of traditional men's attire is called in Saudi Arabia. I learned that the white gown is called a thawb and that a keffiya is the cloth on the head that is held in place by a black cord, which is called an agal. He told me that this attire is worn for more formal occasions like weddings, passport photos, and praying in a mosque. I then asked him the main reasons why it is encouraged for women to wear hijab according to Islamic tradition because I wanted to hear a man's perspective on the subject. He then told me the differences between niqab, hijab, abaya, and burqa for women, which I already knew.
My next tutoring session was with Turki. We met at the Starbucks on Tennessee Street, the usual spot, and started the session with a causal conversation about life and his short term English goals. Turki decided he didn't want to continue with the second session of CIES classes, and that he wanted to rather focus solely on passing the IELTS exam. He said he found the CIES classes to be helpful, but also distracting. He said he thinks he's gotten the most out of his classes and that it would be more productive for him to study on his own. Where I don't completely agree with his logic, it is his life and I trust his decision making. For this session he brought his own material that he wanted to focus on. This time it was a reading passage that I even found to be quite difficult, and I was once again impressed by his far reach in practice and ability. The reading passage was accompanied by a set of numerous comprehension questions that we reviewed and answered together. The qu...
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