My conversation partner's name is Ajab, and he is from Kuwait. When we first contacted each other over text I was afraid he had very low proficiency because he didn't really seem to understand my texts other than the very simplest things, but once we met in person it became clear that he had much better spoken proficiency than written proficiency. I honestly was a little nervous about the whole thing, but we opened up a little to each other and things went well. We simply met up at Starbucks and started to talk. We talked about our families and our respective countries first, and I showed him a song on Youtube played to video of cities in southern Spain, which is where my family is originally from. We found things in common because Melilla, the city my grandparents are from, has a huge Muslim influence. He even said that it looked a lot like his own country. One of the quirkiest things he asked me was what rings mean in America. He specifically wanted to know if by wearing a ring himself, that would make others assume he is married. I taught him that engaged and married people wear rings specifically on their left ring finger, and afterwards he laughed because he had assumed that anyone who wore a ring here was married. He is taking the TOEFL exam this Saturday to practice and see how well he does, so I wished him luck. I would definitely be willing to meet up again.
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