Conversation Partner Meeting #2

            Yesterday was the second conversation partner meeting I have had this semester. I know it is a little late in the game to only be on number two but my partner quit the program and I wasn’t informed of this. Anyway I now have a new partner and his name is Mohammed. When we met up, we first went through all of the obligatory introduction questions as I had done with my previous partner Osama. I found out that Mohammed is from eastern Saudi Arabia. So far east that there is actually a bridge in his city that goes straight into Bahrain, which is one of the Middle East’s gulf countries. I also learned that his father once owned and operated a meat processing plant back in Saudi Arabia. He has since passed but Mohammed and his brothers now run the company. He is here getting his supply chain management degree to better help his dad’s company. He said that he has a lot of experience running the company but not enough knowledge about running a company. Without both, he said, you cannot succeed. Mohammed is also here with his wife who is currently trying to get her masters in journalism. I thought it was interesting that the first thing we discussed once we had introduced ourselves came up after the question of differences between here and Saudi. He started off by talking about how he had ordered Direct TV to watch soccer. He wanted the channels in both English and Spanish but only got English because he would have to order another package. He now is moving and called to cancel the service and was upset they charged him a cancellation fee. He didn’t understand that it was in the small print of the form he signed and thought that was strange that the installer that had him sign the contract didn’t explicitly tell him everything that was in the contract. He also informed me that trying to rent an apartment is more expensive if you don’t have a social security number. He said that just because he didn’t have one the apartment he is renting got eight hundred dollars per month more expensive.

            Our talk then got quite a bit more serious when we began to discuss the current situation in the Middle East. It started with a talk about the three major religions that exist and how we all really come from the same background and how the fighting is useless. We both came to the conclusion that all of the fighting is due to the fact that politics and religion are intertwined. Un-like in the US where church and state are separate, political parties are fueled by there religion or specificity of a certain religion. Mohammed kept making the point that there won’t be peace in the Middle East until religion is removed from politics. I was happily surprised at the conclusion he made because I would agree with that. He also brought up the point that he doesn’t understand why Americans and European countries keep arming people that end up becoming their enemies. He said that they should pick a group of people and back them the entire way if we are going to keep getting in everyone’s business. Off of that point I asked how the Saudi’s viewed Americans. I was surprised to learn that Americans had lots of influence in Saudi Arabia especially in his town because it is one of the biggest oil towns in the country. First of all he brought up the Gulf War and how he said his mother was running through the streets with him in his arms running from Saddam’s troops and how Americans saved his town. He also pointed out that the Americans that worked for the oil companies even changed and influenced the local dialect of Arabic introducing words such as pick up (as in the truck) and how some people even today don’t know that is an English word.

            I was a little worried going in especially because Mohammed was a new partner and I had become comfortable with my first partner. It turns out that he is a cool, easy going, smart guy that I look forward to meeting up with again next week.