Another Chat

Conversation 5

Right about now Alya is probably riding a roller coaster at Six Flags. We met yesterday and she was excited to tell me that she was going to Six Flags today with her husband. Alya has never been to this amusement park before because she always has her children with her and trying to get them to go on rides in difficult. They are young and cannot go on all of the rides so she would have to have her husband wait with the kids while she goes on a ride, but who wants to go it alone? Since we do not have school today (but her children are still in daycare) she and her husband decided to go. I could tell by her tone of voce and expression that this was a big deal for her. She said she has been to an amusement park before, but only once in Paris. It is hard to imagine rarely going to amusement parks, I feel like Disney World (or Disney Land for those on the west coast) is a right of passage for children. But then again, there are no amusement parks in Saudi Arabia (they do not want people of the opposite sex to mingle with one another). It always surprises me the little differences that we Americans take for granted growing up here.

One of my favorite topics to talk about is food. I love food, especially food from other countries. Because we met around lunchtime yesterday food was on our minds. Alya told me about her favorite dish from Saudi Arabia-dolma. I am not sure if I am spelling that right, but that is how is sounds like it is spelled. Dolma is grape leaves filled with rice and sometimes meat. Alya said that the best kind she has ever had is her grandmother’s recipe. Alya prefers the kind without meat. I asked her if she knew how to make it for her children and she informed me that it takes a lot of time and patience to use grape leaves and roll them so she does not like to make it often. But a friend of hers loves to makes so she surprises Alya with dolma sometimes when they are at the mosque. Alya asked if I had ever tried dolma before and if not she said that she would make them for me sometime. It was so nice to hear that she would! Middle Eastern hospitality is such an amazing treat.

Also she mentioned her favorite food in America. Can you guess what it is? Hamburgers! Her and her family all love hamburgers and always try new restaurants if they have hamburgers. She says there are no restaurants in Saudi that make hamburgers, except fast food chains, which are not good. She said that her family gets hamburgers at least once a week! I asked her if she had tried to make them since she enjoys cooking; she has but they are not greasy like at restaurants and that is what she loves most. I guess American food really is hot dogs and hamburgers!

Since Easter is just a few days away, Alya asked what most Americans do for Easter. She did not know much about it and was curious to see how we celebrate the holiday. I told her that most people go home and spend time with family and attend Easter service at their respective church because it was a day to remember the rise of Jesus Christ. We talked a bit about what that meant and then she asked if it was similar to Ramadan. We had a few laughs about how her husband has to give up coffee during Ramadan and often has a difficult time with that. Since Muslims are not allowed to eat or drink during the day during Ramadan, her husband has to begin weaning himself off of coffee starting about two weeks before Ramadan begins. She was laughing to herself at the experience of watching her husband get headaches from caffeine withdrawals. I told her that I could relate to that-when I try a day without coffee I get a massive headache.

As usual my hour with Alya flew by. It was great to be able to meet with her and hear that her GMAT went better this time. I know she was stressing about improving her score so she was relieved to have improved by over 100 points! Congratulations to her!