CP6

 On Thursday, Jan 24th, I met up with Mubarak at Jimmy John's near his apartment. I got a sandwich and we headed to our friend Mahdi's apartment off Pensacola St. We had discussed going bowling, but instead we just decided to hang out at Mahdi's and talk. Mahdi had set out some delicious chocolates and other desserts, as well as cashews and pistachios, and prepared for us the traditional tea of his country, flavored strongly with cardamom (هال in Arabic). We watched some documentaries about jaguars and other wildlife in the jungles of South America such as caimans and capybaras, and discussed the IELTS and TOEFL (Mubarak says he is not allowed back to Kuwait until he scores at least a 5.5 on the IELTS as they are here on a government grant).

 We talked about a few other things such as differences between what is polite or expected behavior for someone from the U.S. versus someone from Kuwait; for instance, when asked whether or not they desire more tea, someone from the U.S. usually will not hesitate to say yes or no, but people from Kuwait will say no thank you even if they really do want more.

 I think it's important to have discussions about cultural expectations, to raise awareness about international manners and hopefully help avoid unnecessary conflict due to such differences. Just yesterday when I was eating at Far East Cuisine with my girlfriend, she told me that in Japan (she lived there for some time) and likely other Eastern cultures, it is considered rude to leave your chopsticks sticking out of your food and instead should be placed together sideways to indicate that you are finished. [Just looked this up and chopsticks sticking straight up from a bowl of rice indicates an offering for the dead. More chopstick etiquette: http://www.neiu.edu/~sdundis/examples/cook/chopsticks.htm]

 After taking some goofy instagram pictures and chatting for a bit more Mubarak subtly hinted that he was ready to go home, so I gave him a ride back to Grand Marc. I am looking forward to spending more time with these great guys and helping them to pass the IELTS so that they can return to their home country victorious in their quest to learn the language and culture of the United States.