In our last meeting I had asked Ibrahim if he would be interested in coming to speak to my Language and Culture class because we are required to bring a guest from another culture. I thought that it would be a good opportunity for him to be able to speak English in front of a slightly larger group of native speakers to help him improve his skills. He seemed genuinely excited about the opportunity, although a bit nervous, and so I told him that I would help him along and bring questions to guide the things he wanted to talk about in class. When I met him for our weekly coffee at the Barnes and Noble, it was clear that this was the main thing on his mind but instead of jumping straight into his presentation, I decided to change the subject for a bit to help him relax.
We ended up talking about his family back home and how much he missed them. He told me that he hadn’t decided yet whether he was going home over the semester break or if he was going to travel instead. I asked him how often he was able to talk to his parents because of the large time difference but he surprised me by telling me that he made time to talk to his mom every morning. I couldn’t believe how often he made an effort to talk to his mom and I felt like a slacker for not talking to my mom as often when she only lives thirty minutes away! He told me that back home family was very important and, since he had a big family, he liked to talk to them as often as possible. We then talked a little about his next closest younger brother and sister. Ibrahim told me that he was proud of his little brother because he spoke English very well already and when he left, his brother’s English was actually better than his own. He also told me that his sister was very smart and one of the best students at the school she went to, but she was also a bit of a trouble maker. She always wanted to do new experiments and try new things. One time she even broke into the school labs and stole some chemicals to try an experiment but his mother caught her and made her return them. After talking to Ibrahim for a while about his sister, I realized that I didn’t know how old he was so I asked him. He told me that he was twenty-one. Surprised that he was older than me, I told him to guess how old I was. He told me that he thought I was about twenty-three! When I told him I was nineteen he couldn’t believe it. I explained to him that U.S. students graduate from high school sooner than Saudi students do and so although I am a sophomore, I am younger than he is.
We then turned the conversation back to his presentation and in order to prepare him for my class, I explained to him that a common question for our guests had been about the dating practices in different cultures. Ibrahim told me that dating was technically illegal in Saudi Arabia but everyone practiced it discretely anyway. He told me that when he was ready to start looking for a wife, he would actually ask his mother to find a suitable girl for him. When she found one that she thought he would like, they would arrange a meeting between the families in order for them to meet. If he liked her after the first meeting then they would continue to meet with a chaperone until they got married. Dating in Saudi is drastically different from in the U.S. and because it is illegal to date, most dates are held with the parents within the homes to prevent any kind of trouble.
Needless to say, Ibrahim’s presentation to my class was great! My teacher was really impressed with how well he spoke English after only a year in the U.S. and my classmates enjoyed learning about the difficulties he had faced in trying to adapt to a new culture. I even got the chance to see Ibrahim write some Arabic on the board to show us the differences in the alphabet and the way he was used to reading from right to left instead of left to right like we do here. It helped me appreciate even more the challenges he had to face in order to learn English.
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