A fortunate encounter

Today was a slow day at work.  This afternoon one of our international students, a young man from Saudi Arabia, wandered into my office with some questions about his transcript.  We sorted that out and started talking about his school back home, his experiences, Islam in general and for him personally.  I actually have no idea how we got around to the topics that we did.  I think it started with a discussion of the Arabic calendar, because I had to know what year he took chemistry and 1408 didn't mean much to me.  We actually looked up pictures of the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the mosque at Medina so he could illustrate some of his descriptions.

I had the courage to ask if it was hard being a Saudi Arabian in the U.S., you know with all the people with fear and hard feelings.  He told me that Americans are mostly nice, that we smile a lot, and that the ones who aren't nice are ignorant and afraid.  He even said that he understood why they were afraid, but it bothered him to be lumped in with Saddam and Bin Laden.  He gave me an insiders view of how offensive the groups are to Muslims.  He counted off the ways the extremists go against the teachings of Mohammad and stressed that the suicide bombers will not be finding themselves in Heaven anytime soon.  This student was glad to be in the U.S., but loves his home country and is looking forward to returning and serving his King with his degree (he is on a full scholarship from the monarchy).  I was repeatedly amazed by his resilience and open, honest, dialogue, which largely left me feeling uncultured and occasionally at a loss for words.

It was a very different direction that I usually lead conversations, definitely into the 'danger zone', but it was really amazing.  I can't capture everything here, but after he left my office I realized that despite all my world travel, my liberal views and my position on a multi-cultural campus brimming with events, I am still very much the white girl comfortable in my white world.  I am largely ignorant of the specifics of religions beyond my own discarded Christianity.  I have few friends, fewer that look or think different from me.  I rarely venture into situations where I might say the wrong thing or not know the proper way to act.  I want more than that for Lawrence, and for myself.