Olumayowa CP-1

Finally! I met my conversation partner! After a few appointments that we cancelled, slept through, arrived too late, e.t.c, I finally met Baraaa Alwagdany in his apartment on Friday evening. I got lost in his apartment complex so we both walked in wide circles while talking on the telephone until I saw him from afar in a yellow Brazil soccer jersey and started waving. Baraa is a Navy officer from Saudi Arabia who has been studying English in FSU for two months so that he can begin to work on his degree in Marine Engineering. He has only known English for the time that he's been at CIES which is pretty amazing because he lives on his own and could understand most of our conversation, though I could tell that he didn't enjoy speaking and was ignoring me some of the time. At his house he made me some Arabic coffee that tasted and smelled like very strong smelling flowers and we ate Chips Ahoy!  while talking about our hometowns and places around the world that we've been. Baraaa is only in the U.S.A because he had to leave his university in Egypt during the revolution. He became really animated when I told him that I was learning Arabic and began to speak with him a little in his language, I think this helped him reach his comfort zone because he didn't feel uncomfortable with the flaws in his English once he noticed those in my Arabic speech, also our conversation became more animated when he realized that we could fill in the English vocabulary that he didn't know yet with Arabic. Through the evening, we both learned the translations for a lot of words as our conversation started to veer in different directions. I now feel like I have a sense of how one learns to speak a language fluently; while there is a lot that Baraaa has productive command over, there is so much vocabulary in this world that seems obscure until you have to use the word (it took us over 5 mins to understand the word "turtle" in both English/Arabic).

Later in the Night Baraaa's cousin Roy came over to visit. It was very exciting to speak with Roy because he has studied the English language for only 6 months yet he speaks almost fluently, it is very easy to believe that he is an American because of his flawless accent, acute listening, and speaking. He was actually visiting so that he could speak Arabic with me and find out my motivations for learning the language. The great part was that Saudis understand the dialect that I speak so they both easily gave me feedback and help, next time we meet Baraaa and I will bring a list of words that we'll be helping each other to translate. Though I understand that our conversation time is for Baraaa's language development, I think the fact that he can retract away from English for a few minutes while we speak will really help to get him excited about our sessions. He says that he dislikes Tallahassee and only goes out to school (unlike Roy who has been to every nightclub in town), so I aim to change that by taking Baraaa to some of my favorite places around Tallahassee/North Florida. Tonight, Inshallah, we're going to Country Buffet for an awesomely fattening American experience. Wish me well!