Zachary Backes - CP 8

6/20/12

Today was only slightly terrifying. Had to teach the culture class, following Ted is not an easy thing to do. Luckily, Faisal showed up along with Mayowa, Dhugal, Xueping, and Austin so there were at least some friendly faces in the crowd. After getting through the class relatively unscathed, and getting to meet Abdullah (who I now owe ten grand for coming to my class apparently) a very cool kid who has shown up to most of our culture classes, I met with Faisal.

I didn't want to inundate him questions right off the bat but I was really curious for some feedback on the class. So we started off at one of my favorite restaurants in town, Steel City. It's a Pittsburgh themed burger/bar joint with such divine delicacies as the Roethlis-Burger and the Polamalu-platter. My dad's from Pittsburgh and I've made more trips up there then I can count, and I also wanted to make up for the wataburger form the last time. This was real food, and I actually think Faisal enjoyed it. At least he cleared his plate this time.

Seeing as the setting brought back nothing m\but memories I got a little tangential, recalling the stories my dad had told me about Pittsburgh. Faisal is pone of the few people out there with the talent to actually listen, a trait that has no doubt been a major factor in his amazing progression in English since I met him. He would ask me questions about the story at times and ever now and then he would have me explain something, like why i kept saying people lived in "burrows" which he knew of as a place that animals dwelt, and I knew of as another name for small neighborhood.

When I finally snapped out of my reminiscing I tried to flip the roles around. Faisal was slow to get started talking about his home, he seemed to have some mixed feelings about it. He loved it, and the people, don't misunderstand but it felt as if he was worried about portraying it in a way that I would take negatively. He mentioned that women cannot drive legally, nor can they be outside unaccompanied at certain times, before which lead ,me to belive it was a pretty fundamentalist culture. But as Faisal opened up more I began to see a different picutre. He described his father who was always working very hard alongside his mother to support their huge family. He talked about the connection he has with his siblings and how close they all are. And how these feelings of closeness are shared with the large number of relatives who live quite close.

He said that there are people who can be crazy or over zealous in their faith, but that his home town was a very open and understanding community. I tried to keep as quiet as possible, only speaking up when I needed something clarified as he had done for me. But even though I was not saying much I noticed that his speech was always defensive when he talked about aspects of his home or culture. He still retained pride for it but it was as if he were talking while expecting a surprise punch form anywhere and everywhere. It made me sad, though I did not express this to him, that he must have experienced some serious scrutiny about his culture while over here to have built up such a ready guard.