Emily CP #1

Date/Time: 7 March 2017 at 6:45 PM

Location: Starbucks on Tennessee St.

My conversation partner’s name is Saeed. We met for the first time outside the Hecht House and then walked to Starbucks across the street which I then learned was Saeed’s favorite. He ordered a mocha and was quite sweet in immediately asking that I get something for myself that he would buy, repeatedly shutting down my innvitation to pay. It reminded me of my time in Morocco where most Arabic men were more courteous to women and I did not want to offend him. On our walk over to Starbucks I learned that Saeed is 32 years old and from Kuwait. He studied civil engineering in school and was excited to learn English and go home for work one day. He told me that he has twelve siblings, 6 brothers and 6 sisters. At my surprise Saeed informed me that this was quite normal in Kuwait as his father has two wives. In Kuwait men are allowed to take up to four wives. It was quite a culture shock. I am well aware of polygamy, but as it is illegal here in the states I think a part of me just assumed it was illegal in most other countries. We talked about Kuwait and how, with it being a mostly desert region, Saeed lived closer to the ocean and liked visiting the beach. In fact, he told me his favorite vacation was a trip to Thailand. We spoke about travel and my love for adventure, he was amazed that I had visited so many countries at my age and agreed that he wanted to visit Europe one day, too. We then moved on to his interests, with soccer leading in almost every category. I then taught him some English sports vocabulary such as opponent, offense, and defense. As I, too, grew up around soccer we quickly bonded over the sport though we disagreed on our favorite teams; he was a Real Madrid fan and I prefer Arsenal. It was evident upon meeting Saeed that he had better conversational skills than not, but he did struggle with vocabulary and often used his phone to translate the Arabic word to its appropriate English equivalent. As he put it, Saeed understands what he wants to say in English he just doesn’t know all the English words yet to say it.