On Thursday, January 31st at 7:00, I met with my
conversation partner, Ali. He invited me over his house for dinner and I got to
meet with wife, Badrisa, and his newborn daughter, Mila, who is only three
weeks old. I learned that his wife used
to take classes from CIES and I helped both her and Ali with their English
speaking skills. I told Badrisa that I used to take Arabic classes but that I
forgot a majority of what I learned with the exception of the alphabet. She
then helped me remember how to write words in Arabic and gave me tips on how to
remember certain letters and sounds that I used to struggle with when I was
studying the language. Throughout my
time there, we all talked about a variety of different things, including
American history. Specifically, we talked about topics regarding Native
Americans and the Civil Rights Movement.
Then we talked about religion and Ali was kind enough to explain exactly
how Muslims pray and what each part of each prayer is called, which I was very
interested in learning about. I really enjoyed meeting up with him and meeting
his family and we agreed to have a BBQ in about a week or two.
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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