Jules CP-1

As I entered the CIES lounge for my first meeting with Jamal, I must admit that I was a little bit nervous about how we would fill an entire hour with conversation. When I asked the three guys in the CIES lounge if one of them was Jamal, they all kind of looked confused and I had to rephrase the question a couple of times. I thought to myself, "Oh man, they are having trouble with a pretty simple question... I'm going to have to take it reeeeally slow with Jamal." Then, a few moments later, a new student walked in and introduced himself as Jamal Temori. We began with the tried-and-true small talk: "How long have you been in the U.S.?"; "What do you study?"; "Where are you from?"... but after I found out he was from Afghanistan the conversation got a lot more interesting.
I was surprised to find that he isn't Iranian, since the email had indicated that his native language is Farsi. He explained that he is part of a minority tribe in central Afghanistan (I'll have to ask the name again on Monday) that speaks Farsi and practices the Shia sect of Islam. He is pursuing a graduate degree in Political Communication at FSU and thus is very well-informed on global and domestic politics. I was interested in getting his perspective on the American military presence in his country, and was surprised to find out that he appreciates us being there, because life is a lot better than it was 10 or 20 years ago, when the Taliban and Soviet Union were in power. I inquired as to what he thought about the recent execution of Osama bin Laden, and he said that while his death symbolizes a step in the right direction, bin Laden was more of a spokesman for the ideology of the Taliban rather than a commander of day-to-day operations of the group.
Somehow the topic turned to the differences between Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and he described this story he had read that was written by an Al-Qaeda operative. In the article, the Al-Qaeda member was calling a Talibani soldier "an extremist". I kind of chuckled and said, "Isn't that like the pot calling the kettle black?". Of course I had to explain the idiom, and Jamal realized that there is a similar expression in the Persian language. Apparently they have numerous poems and adages in their language, and one of them is about an onion who makes fun of a garlic clove for smelling bad. It was interesting to learn how different cultures describe the same idea. Jamal's English is really advanced, with an extensive vocabulary and only a few grammatical errors, so I think I'll compile a little list of idiomatic expressions to give him at our next meeting.
By the time there was a pause of any significant size in the conversation, nearly two hours had flown by. I had to leave to meet up with a friend, but Jamal walked me to my car and we made plans to hit up Black Dog Cafe at our next meeting on Monday. I have a feeling I won't need to struggle to find conversation topics to fill up an hour!