April 23rd, 5:10-7:30pm
Norah’s apartment
I met with Norah for the fifth time on Sunday. She had
dental surgery the previous week, so we shared dental horror stories. This led
to a discussion on terminology that we use to describe different generations of
people in the US. Norah had read an article that talked about baby boomers and
also referred to people in the “twilight of their lives,” and she wanted to
better understand what these words meant and which ones were most frequently
used. She explained to me that in Saudi Arabia they more often refer to a span
of years during which people were born when talking about a generation of
people, not with specialized terms like ours. I talked with Norah about the
discouraging results of my research on teaching English in India and mentioned
that teaching jobs in Saudi Arabia seemed to pay much better and entail fewer
hours. She encouraged me to consider teaching English in Saudi Arabia, and we
agreed that my upcoming visit to Kuwait would help me get a feel for the area. She
is a teacher by profession, so she also shared some stories about past student
discipline issues with me. We also talked about birth control and infertility and
the different perspectives that some people have on them. She told me about a
poor mom at her school in Saudi Arabia who kept having children to the point
that she and her husband needed assistance providing for them. When a teacher
offered her help getting birth control or any type of family planning, she
refused and said she wanted to keep having children.
Norah and her husband are waiting on their government to
purchase the flight tickets that they have requested for their return to Saudi
Arabia, so I am not really sure if I will get to see Norah again or not before
she leaves.
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