Conversation #1

When I walked into the Brown Lupton University Union, I did not know what to expect. The only contact that I had previously had with Adel Abdullah Aldosari, my conversation partner, was e-mail and listening to his voicemail messages. Mistakes with grammar, syntax and word choice were splattered throughout his emails like bugs on a windshield, and phonetic errors marched to the frailness of his voice in the detailed message he gave me. His voice was not only frail but soft. These factors coupled with the fact that he was an ESL student made me weary of my conversation experience. I expected to enjoy the conversation, but I thought the speech barrier could make it difficult. I was afraid that the service-learning would be very one sided and that I would not really gain as much from the conversation as I hoped.
My fear was absolved within the first couple of seconds of meeting Adel. As soon as I met him, he stood quickly and extended his hand. Mine met his, and a firm handshake was born. He greeted me with a simple introduction, yet he spoke with much more confidence in person than on the phone. The conversation began smoothly.
After discovering that I was a journalism major, Adel had a slew of questions about the media and my opinions on free speech. We discussed lots of different facets of media and how, in America, the media serves as a tool to help us continually define, clarify, and strengthen our rights. I think what fascinated him about the media in America was that it governed itself and functioned independently from government control. He was so used to the media his hometown of Medina, Saudi Arabia, where the government dictates every message released by news organizations and heard by. Saudi Arabia’s bar on free speech and free press really puts members of that nation and nations with similar philosophies on speech at a major disadvantage, he said. they are disadvantaged is that they don’t know the truth. They only know Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud’s truth or the next kings truth. Further, their perceptions of reality is warped because people aren’t able to make opinions from analyzing a wealth of unbiased information like in America. Saudi Arabian citizens instead are only fed one source that only produces nationalist propaganda for content.
The conversation bounced like a pinball from topic to topic. It started out being about the media, then it drifted towards the study of language, then to pros and cons of life in America, and the topics kept surging. It finally concluded with more information about Adel. Adel is 31 and lives with his wife, daughter Yara (5), and son Abdullah (2). He is currently working towards his masters in Linguistics at TCU. He came to the United States with a bachelors in Arabic Language. He then pursued a masters degree in business marketing when he first arrived in New York. This degree, however, is obsolete because he wishes to become a teacher in Saudi Arabia. There, he would need a PHD, a masters degree, and a BA all on the same track to teach at a university. This is why he “backtracked” through his education.
I really appreciated my hour with Adel. His questions about the media forced me to analyze my own feelings and perceptions about the media. Also, his view on language and family truly touched me. I hope to delve deeper into these two topics for our next discussion.