My first meeting with Adel...

“Hello, my name is Adel”. That’s how the conversation started between Adel and myself. As this was our first meeting, I did not have a clue as to what Adel looked like, so I found his Facebook profile, and perused his pictures so that I would recognize him when he got to Potbelly. From the moment we met, it was almost like an old friendship, in that there wasn’t the awkwardness that generally accompanies meeting a new person. As we approached the register to pay, Adel quickly whipped out his credit card and paid for lunch, even after a couple attempts to persuade him otherwise. We walked across University Drive over to Barnes and Noble and sat outside, since it was a beautiful day, and that’s when the adventure began.

Adel is originally from Medina, Saudi Arabia where his father owns one of the largest mosaic art factories in the Middle East, and he is one of the 250,000+ Saudi students who are sent to America as foreign exchange students. Originally he was to go to Los Angeles to study, but he did not feel comfortable moving there with his wife and two kids. We discussed our respective majors, and he disclosed that he had his Masters in Linguistics from a university in Saudi Arabia, and was here to better his English, and hopefully to earn his Ph.D. and eventually teach at a university in America, because it’s difficult to find a job in Saudi Arabia with a Ph.D.

 Quickly our conversation turned religion, and we both surprised each other with our knowledge of each other’s respective religion. We discussed how there are rules in both Christianity and Islam, and how a majority of people in both faiths break the rules laid out for them in the Quran and in the Holy Bible. After religion, we talked about sports; mainly soccer and then we began talking about our families.

Adel, who is 31, has a wife and two kids: a daughter named, Yara, which is a type of flower, and a boy, Abdullah. Adel was extremely proud of his kids, and he showed me a picture of them on his Blackberry, and I must say, they were extremely adorable. Adel mentioned that his son was in kindergarten, and has trouble understanding certain words, and always comes home asking what certain words mean. This segwayed into discussing the similarities between schooling in Saudi Arabia and in the United States. In Saudi Arabia, kids attend six years of primary school, then three years of junior high, and then three years of high school.

Towards the end of our time together, Adel told me about his parents and siblings back in Saudi Arabia. He is the oldest of seven children, five sisters and one brother. When he was writing his thesis for his Masters degree, Adel wrote over nine-hundred pages. Once he graduated, he came to America for three months in order to get settled and prepare for his family to join him here.

I enjoyed my first conversation with Adel, immensely. His e-mails were misleading as he spoke English well. I am looking forward to my second meeting.