Last Meeting

Conversation 7

Yesterday I had my last official meeting with Alya. I can’t believe that it has already been seven times meeting with her. It hardly seems like I have met with her at all, but at the same time it feels like I know a lot about her. She is a really great person, and I honestly think that we are going to keep in touch. Today we happened to run into each other on campus when we were heading to class. We both had a class in Scharbauer and both happened to be early so we sat and chatted for a few minutes before we had to go to class. It really showed me that we would not need to be required to meet to stay in touch and have enjoyable conversations.

When Alya first walked in to the bookstore, she was almost jumping in excitement so I knew she had something she desperately wanted to share. The soccer team that comes from her small village outside of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia won the soccer championship they competed in! She told me that this team is not great and often is seen as the weakest link in the Saudi soccer teams, but they managed to beat several teams. Luckily, Alya and her husband have a satellite that allows them to receive Saudi television programs, so she was able to watch the game. While I do not know much about soccer, and am not interested in the sport, I was happy for her team, especially considering how happy she was!

As for our meeting yesterday, we filled each other in on our weekend adventures. As per usual, mine consisted of studying, writing papers, and a few hours of enjoyment. Alya on the other hand, always manages to have an exciting adventure. She went to Dallas all three days! On a whim, she and her husband decided to take a drive to Dallas for dinner on Friday night after they picked up their children. Since her husband had a guys day planned to watch TV with 20 of his closest friends, Alya spent the day in Dallas with her husband’s cousin. In the Arab culture, some husbands do not like other men to see their wife inside of the home, so Alya had to make sure she was not at home when any of her husbands friends were there. She told me that they always talk about it when they want to have people over to their house, so that no one is offended or gets uncomfortable.

Her husband’s cousin was visiting from out of town so the two decided Dallas was the only place to visit. Alya was sort of laughing at the experience, but her husband’s cousin did not want to come to Texas because she thought it was filled only with cowboys and horses; she instead wanted Alya to visit her in Oklahoma. Having driven through Oklahoma before, Alya said she had no interest in ever visiting there! But they spent the day in Dallas and rather enjoyed themselves, by the way she was talking about it! She is really taking advantage of living in America and enjoying every spare minutes.

While most of her weekend was delightful, Alya clued me in to the not-so-delightful aspect of her weekend. Apparently, a few weeks ago new tenants moved in to the apartment above them and they have been stomping on the floor every time her children make even a small noise. The other night, her daughter fell out of bed and started crying and the neighbor upstairs starting stomping on the floor to quiet them! Another day, her son started doing a dance for less than a minute and the fellows upstairs again starting stomping on the floor to get them to be quite. I could tell Alya was shaken up by these occurrences and she didn’t know how to handle this. Her children get extremely frightened whenever the people above them start stomping and she is having a hard time explaining to them why they are doing that; partly because she does not understand herself. They are never loud and do not let their children run inside the apartment. I was incredibly off put by this and honestly did not know what say. I tried my best to reassure her that she is not doing anything wrong and that she should continue to ignore them as much as possible.