Conversation 3…and a Visitor!

My third conversation with Bayan went nicely! We met in the BLUU just before spring break and discussed how our weeks had gone. She was sweet enough to ask how my mom’s visit had gone. It was so nice of her to remember that my mom had come to visit. After we had been talking for several minutes, another IEP student came up and joined us. Her name is Lilly. She has a conversation partner too, but I don’t think it’s anyone in my class. She told me it’s a boy, and she prefers talking with girls, which Bayan agreed with. She and Bayan are friends so she stayed with us to talk. She is from Vietnam and incredibly sweet. She hasn’t been here for as long as Bayan, but her English is still extremely good! I know I’ve said it before, but these people who have left their homes and everything they know to come here and learn a completely new language is just incredible to me. I find it really inspiring, and more and more I’m seeing that it’s something I’d love to do one day, maybe right after college. But that’s for another day.

On this day, we talked about a variety of things. One thing we touched on was dieting. Lilly began telling me that some of her friends are trying to diet, and she asked me my opinion on it, and if I knew any good diets. I explained that I don’t really like the whole ‘diet’ concept, but rather a regimen of healthy eating and exercising. Bayan said that she agrees with me, although she doesn’t get a chance to work out much. Because Bayan and I have talked before about our mutual large sweet tooth, she was surprised to find out about my personal rule of not eating sweets on weekdays. Somehow this discussion of dieting and exercise spun into a whole discussion about milk. Lilly asked if I knew the best kind of milk to drink. I really didn’t have an answer to this. I told her I don’t really know the difference between the different kinds of milk, just that whole milk contains the most fat, while skim contains the least.

The discussion of body image led into the topic of different perceptions of beauty. They both told me how in their respective countries, it is quite different. They said that paler skin is considered more beautiful, which is quite the opposite of the United States. It’s funny, because both of these women have fairly tan skin, especially Bayan, which is not the ‘thing’ to have in Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. It’s so interesting how the opinions in various countries are so different.

After this topic, we found our way over to pets and animals. Bayan expressed her fear of all kinds of dogs. She explained she is not a big animal person in general, but for some reason she is the most afraid of dogs, big and small. We talked for a while about the high intelligence of higher primates, like apes, and how fascinating they are. Lilly told me about an article they had read in one of their IEP classes about chimpanzees. I told them about how I learned that there are gorillas who have been able to learn American Sign Language. This made me think about the importance of languages, that it is able to connect me to these two women from other cultures, and language can even connect humans to animals.

After a while, Bayan said she needed to go because she and her husband were going to see a movie. Before we all parted ways, she mentioned that it was almost her one-year anniversary of being in the US! I promised that after spring break I would take her to Sweet Sammies to celebrate her being here for a year! It was a nice conversation and I enjoyed Lilly joining us as well.