Mohammed AND Abdulaziz (#3)

Meeting number 3: This week, instead of just meeting with Mohammed, he brought along his cousin, (whom I was originally paired with but was unable to contact) Abdulaziz. Abdulaziz speaks less English than Mohammed, is 20, and has lived in the US for nearly 2 months. Because of the different calendars, Abdulaziz is 20 by the Arabic or Islamic calendar, and only 19 (with his birthday being tomorrow, March 7^th).

For the first half of our conversation, Abdulaziz was quiet and mostly kept to himself. Mohammed and I talked about his schoolwork. He said one of the most difficult for him was to learn the new alphabet and learn to write from left-to-right, rather than right-to-left in Arabic. Also, he talked about how grammatically he makes the same mistakes consistently, but is definitely improving.

Next, we moved onto the topic of living situations, since he mentioned Abdulaziz lives with him. Next year, he wants to live in either the Grand Marc at Westberry Place or in the new apartments being built on South University across from Kroger.

It would have been helpful to have Brian Trost with me for the following part of the conversation, as he is my go-to source on soccer knowledge. Mohammed mentioned that he and Abdulaziz play soccer with friends on Sunday. Soccer happens to be Abdulaziz’s favorite sport (along with swimming, both of which he did back in Saudi Arabia), and he is an avid fan who follows several leagues closely. Al-Hilal, in Saudi Arabia, is his favorite Soccer Club, however he also follows the English Premiere League closely. We talked about how Arsenal beat AC Milan 3-0 today. We also reminisced about the 2010 World Cup. He enjoys watching Barcelona and Real Madrid, along with Bayern Munich and FC Basel (in Germany and Switzerland, respectively). Overall it was interesting to meet with both of them and gauge their differing levels of English.