Last meeting with Mohammed

            This was my final meeting of the semester with Mohammed. It was a bittersweet moment. Unfortunately I didn’t get to bond as well with him as some of my other classmates did with theirs given my unusual circumstances regarding my original partner. For the last meeting I wanted to learn more about his family because it was a topic we never really went into. I learned a lot about his family so lets see if I can remember it all.

            First off, I was shocked to hear that Mohammed has four brothers and four sisters! He more or less the middle child at 26 while his oldest sibling is 42 and the youngest is 18. I asked what they all do and a little bit about them and this is what he told me.

            I’ll start with his youngest sibling, which is his sister Sarra. She is eighteen years old and is currently studying engineering. He also has a sister who is 22 and currently studying dentistry. Her name is Wala. I don’t recall if he told me where they are going to school but I think they are studying somewhere in the United States.

            His youngest brother Hassan is next at 24. He didn’t finish college and is helping one of his older brothers run their late fathers company.

            Mohammed is the fourth youngest and is hoping to study supply chain management here at TCU next semester. His next oldest sister is Zainab. I feel like I would get along with her really well because she is a chemistry teacher back in Saudi Arabia. Zainab has been married for the last eight years.

            The next oldest sibling is his brother Firas who is thirty-three. He is a businessman that is the manager of their fathers company. He is the one that Hassan helps. He has been married for the last two years

            His brother Abdullah is 36. He is currently and engineer for a company back in the Middle East. He has been married for the last two years and graduated from American University in Dubai.

            Husain is 40 years old and is a math teacher. I forgot if he teaches in the States but I do know that he graduated from the University of Chicago. He has been married since 2001.

            Lastly his oldest sibling is Zahraa and she is forty-two years old. She is an English teacher that has been married since 1994. Her husband is a manager for Aramco, which is the largest petroleum company in the Middle East. She lived in the States for five years and in Canada for another four because of her husband’s job.

            Of course I then told Mohammed about both of my brothers. I have a twin brother who is studying molecular biology and cello performance at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He is a junior (duh we’re twins) and looks absolutely nothing like me. I told him that we look related but because we are fraternal twins we don’t look exactly like each other. My little brother is 18 and his name is Cole. He is the quarterback for Hope and is studying applied mathematics.

            I thought that this discussion was a great note to end on. I was also surprised at how much I learned about Mohammed by learning about his family. It was also cool to hear what it was like to live in such a big family. I thought my family of five was on the large side but it isn’t anything compared to his!