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 third conversation partner meeting was with Josue, my conversation partner from Paris, France. He suggested that we go to a restaurant for this meeting, and recommended the Colombian restaurant on Tennessee St. called "Super Perros". I had never been to this restaurant before, so it was interesting to not only converse with someone from outside of my culture but also at a cultural restaurant with an atmosphere and menu different than what I am used to. Most of the menu was in Spanish, so we were able to bond over trying to figure out what the menu was saying, and ended up sharing a lot of laughs over it. During our meeting, we caught up on how he was doing at CIES, what he's involved in in Tallahasee, and discussed deeper topics such as the current political affairs going on in France. This led to a grander discussion about American politics, and it turned out we had similar views. It was interesting to connect our ideas across border lines, realizing we all want the ...
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