Zachary Backes - CP 2

I got to meet with Faisal again today at his apartment. When I entered he presented me with Krispy-Creams and some of the best tea I've ever had. It was black with milk and honey and cinnamon. I was two cups in before I finished my first doe-nut. We began by talking about greetings in Arabic and English and what the common responses were. He had already mastered the fine art of "What's up?" to my great enjoyment.

He put on Anaconda (you know, back before Ice-Cube did children's movies and Jay-lo...Jaylow..."Jenny from the block" was hot) and we watched a chatted a bit. Neither of us were really into the movie but he told me that a friend of his back home who had spent some time in America said that Americans always like to have the TV on so whenever he invited Americans over he got into the habit of putting on the television. I laughed and told him that while I liked to watch movies and television occasionally I didn't even have cable and much preferred music to motion pictures as a background. That was when he pulled out lap-top and started showing me some Youtube videos of his hometown, which looks gorgeous. I promised if I ever got to Saudi Arabia I would go see his town and its huge cable car system that connects two mountain ranges on either side of the town.

We kept talking about how to phrase good questions in English. It seems to be how he likes to learn, through asking questions and studying the responses of people. I noticed that when we first met he could give me full and more complete sentences when he asked a question then when he responded. So I tried turning the tables and asking him general questions about his life, his family, and his time in the states. It took a couple minutes but as I kept pressing with more questions and delving into further detail his answer became longer and more verbose. I'm not sure if he noticed what I was trying to do or not but I was pretty happy with how much talking I got out of him.

One funny thing that kept occurring during our visit was how many times he got calls from his different family members. Three brothers, a sister, and his father all called during the three hours we spent together. When I asked him how often he spoke with his family he said "everyday" without hesitation. And I'll be honest the first thing I did when I got back in my car after we had said our goodbyes was to call my sister, then my mom, then my dad....even considered Aunt Dotty but... >_>