Thoughts On My Final Project

For my final project, I would like to write something on homeschooling. Homeschooling sounds like a very interesting topic for me and I would like to do some research on that. I want to find out the advantages and disvantages of homeschooling.

The Evaluations of The Third Interview

Here is The link to the evaluations of the third interview

For the third interview, the winner in my head is Laci Brune.

The parameters that I used again were the same ones. Overall I think Laci did a good job on her second interview.

First, Laci has all the elements covered in the preparation and description parts. Finding an interviewee by e-mailing is a pretty good strategy. You can e-mail a bunch of international student once and there must some willing student getting back to you, which sounds like a good idea. Moreover, there is no need to worry about what if they will turn you down because you don’t have to ask them in person.

Second, I didn’t give her full credits on country report because I think she could have expanded her country report a little bit.

Third, I like her interview part. I like her questions. By reading the answers, I gain some knowledge on Germany. By listening the response from the German student, Laci had a sense that he was in fond of the United States and she chose not to responde was a right thing to do.

Finally, Laci’s interview is also a very readable one. Good visual appearance! I could found every element easily. I didn’t find many errors.

The Evaluations of The Second Interview

Here is The link to the evaluations of the second interview


For the second interview, the winner I think is Rashmi Pun.

The parameters that I used to evaluate the second interview were exactly the same as the ones that were posted on the homepage of our course. On the whole, Rashmi did very well on the five parameters. 

Firstly, Rashmi's preparation for her second interviews is well documented. I was very glad to see that how much efforts she put on her interview. She reviewed her first interview, read more articles, and gathered more facts on Sri Lanka so she could be more confident in the second interview. It was a good idea to let her friend introduce an interviewee to her and it is also a good idea to interview the person in her own place. Rashmi also described the interview at length.

Secondly, Rashmi’s country report is also informative. Based on the country report on Sri Lanka she posted for the first interview, she added some additional information on her country report for her second interview, which is great. It is also helpful to write some information on the country report related to her interview questions.

Thirdly, I like the questions she used for her interview. Some questions and the answers to the questions are very interesting to read, for example the family structure and interaction between males and females. And I also got to know something on Sri Lanka.  It was good to see that she explained her questions in a different to make the questions more understandable for her interviewer and the interviewer answered those finally.

Finally, I have to say that after reading all of the posts for the second interviews for all of my classmates her post is one of the most readable ones. I went to her blog and I knew where everything was located immediately. And there are just few grammar errors she made on her blog.

Overall, Rashmi did a good job on her second interview. Way to go!!!

Preparations For The Third Interview

Having completed two wonderful interviews, I was not worrying about whether or not the third interview would go well. Therefore, on Saturday (November, 06) I decided to go to our library to randomly pick a Somali student to finish this interview project.

When getting to the library, on the first floor I saw a seem-like Somali guy sitting at the computer lab doing his homework. I went over to him and asked if he was from Somalia. He said yes. Then I slowly explained the interview thing to thing and asked if he was willing to be my interviewee. He said he would like to but asked me to wait a little bit because he was in middle of something. So I grabbed a seat near him, took out my homework, and waited for him while doing my homework. Before long, I saw some friends of his came and sit tighter with him. They began to talk in Somali. Soon after, he called me over and asked how long the interview would be. I said I just needed maybe fifteen minutes at most. He said a friend of his was willing to be my interviewee and then introduced his friend to me.

Next, his friend and I went found a quite spot on the first floor and prepared for the interview immediately. We introduced ourselves a little bit. His name is Ibrahim Ahmed. He is from Somalia but he was born in Kenya at 1991. Ibrahim came to the United States last year. He is majoring in electrical engineering at SCSU now.

In order to find more connections with him, I brought up my friend Issa Gure (my first interviewee) again and he happened to know him (My friend is a popular guy in this Somali community :). I showed him the Somalia country report I wrote and he was very happy to see what I wrote. I said I would focus on the cultural part of Somalia and let him not worried about any sensitive issues.

We talked a lot before the formal interview.

Finally I had him see the interview and we started the interview right away.

Description of The Third Interview

To my surprise, this impromptu interview went extremely well. I was so impressed on how friendly, polite, and cooperative my third interviewee Ibrahim was. It was like we were just strangers one minute ago and all of sudden we became very close friends. He also speaks English surprisingly well even though he has just been here for one year. With his help, I finished this interview project successively.

Before the formal interview, we had a very nice and long talk, which helped us to get to know each other better. After the warm-up talk, I thought to myself, “There is no need to worry about how well he would do in the interview. You are so in luck, Heqiu! This is the right guy that all the interviewers are looking for. All you need to do today is just to be yourself and you should thank his friend who introduced this guy to you.” I had so much confidence on him. To be honest, for the first time I was so excited before an interview. 

During the interview, He behaved very politely and kindly. He had his smile on all the time; he said thank you after each of answering my questions and gave a sign to ask the next question; he also help me wrote down something he thought I would not know and explained it to me. “What a thoughtful student is! How could this student be so nice?” I was impressed.

This is the longest interview I have ever done and I really enjoyed every moment of this interview.

Transcription of The Third Interview

Interviewer: Heqiu Liu

English 191

Interviewee:  Ibrahim Ahmed

Interviewee's country of origin: Somalia

Interview date: 11/06/2010

Interview #3

Me: Could you please tell me a little bit about yourself, such as your name, the country you are from, how long have you been here, and your major?

Ibrahim: Yeah, Ibrahim Ahmed. I’m from Somalia. I was born in Kenya 1991. I have been here now for year. And I am majoring in electrical engineering.

Me:  First, I would like to know your greeting customs. We know that people in the United States say, “Hi, how are you” and shake hands when people first meet.  But, how do you guys great each other? Is there anything special there?

Ibrahim: Yeah, it depends. We have cultural greeting with Assalam Alaikum. In English, it is like ‘Peace Be Upon You.’ That is the first one. And the other thing we have different greeting customs. We have Somali people from the southern side and Somali people who are from the northern side. So for the southern side, people are born in Kenya. We say, ‘Setahay.’ In English, that means ‘How are you doing?’ the other thing is like we say, ‘Subah wanaagsan!’ that means ‘Good morning!’ we also have ‘Galab wanaagsan’. Also you can say when you want to say ‘Good bye. Good night.’ ‘Good night’ we say ‘Garitibulle Ossetian.’ The other thing is that we normally shake hands when we greet each other. Sometimes we don’t see other for a week or some days, we will hug each other. And the other thing unlike here, when you greet with your friend, maybe you hold his hand, people tell you two men cannot hold hands and walk together. But in country, it shows how much we love each other. So it is Ok.  

Me: If I was a good friend of yours and I want to pay a visit to you one day, how would you treat me as a guest in your house?

Ibrahim: The way I would treat you depends on the situation. But whenever if you like call me say, ‘Ibrahim, can I come to you?’ I will tell you, ‘ Oh, you can come, I’m ready.’ Anytime whether they want to visit you, we feel like we are very important people. We will welcome. What we will depends. If you come to my house every day, I will prepare you for some drinks, like tea, milk, or water, or juice. But if you come especially once a week, once a month, I will prepare for you good meal, like maybe I will cook for you meat. I will cook you goat meat. We will also have pasta. We also eat banana. Those are nice and delicious things we prepare. Whether you come, the food and the drink are ready. Everybody in the family will come. They would like to talk to you. ‘How is everything?’ ‘How are you doing?’ And we normally talk you strangers you know. When we see people from other parts of the world, we like to talk to them and ask them, ‘How is your country? What you guys…’ we need to know more about strangers. When American people see someone they don’t know, they don't talk to them. If you are in this room, they won’t ask you, ‘Hi, how are you?’ they just keep quite. When we see people from China, we will go to them and ask about their country. When we see people from America from Europe, go to them and ask them.  

Me: Next, I want to know what you guys usually do for entertainment.

Ibrahim: Uh, it is like…it really depends for entertainment. People have different hopes. We don’t go to parties, drink. In our culture, we don't drink. What we do entertainment is that we get together as a group, maybe with your relative, families, friends, get together, like five, six, twenty person, just have fun, ask them about their background. Maybe tell a story. What is you experiences during the week. We come together just talk, talk about our day lives. That is how we normally entertain. Sometime, if one of your friends going to marry, we will collect some money, so we can give the person who is going to marry. We will eat food, enjoy things. That is the party we go, only wedding. And just have our own parts of drinks. And if you come as group, stay for maybe one of my friend’s apartment. My friend will bring us juices, drinks, tea. And we have to tell a story. Mostly, in the weekend, like last night, I went to visit my friend. We just talked what happened during the week.  

Me: what sports do you usually play?

Ibrahim: Like me, I like watching soccer. I am fan of Arsenal. Very nice football they play. Sometimes go with friends, just play around. Especially, during the weekend, we watch, we enjoy the soccer. I don't like American football. Physical violence. But what I like about them is basketball.

… we talked something else.

Me: Then, I would like to know something on your family structure. What are some of the roles that family members play?

Ibrahim: My family structure is totally different from the United States of America. We are collective culture. One thing we do is we share the work. The father will do a part. The children will do other parts. And the mother will do… And we don’t have specific roles for every person. But helping the family, everybody will do their parts. Today, if I need to wash cloth, I will go clean the laundry. My mother will cook the food. My father will go the market and buy food. But today if I do the laundry, tomorrow I can go to buy food.  

Me: How many family members usually live together?

Ibrahim: usually like five or six family members. But you can have twenty three people live together. Like my mother gave birth to twelve children, seven boys and five girls.  And my father has other wives. They also have kids. So almost twenty kids. That is why I have twenty three together. It depends. Some people have one kid, some people have two kids, and some people have ten, six. Not like here the average they have is two kids. So no restricts. It depends on how man … we don’t have specific number of kids. It is how…

Me：Next, I would like to know something on your food culture. What do you have for your diet (such as breakfast, lunch, and dinner)?

Ibrahim: Sure, the breakfast we have is called Anjera. For the lunch, we normally take rice or pasta with bananas. We like eating bananas. Every meal we take with bananas. If it is breakfast, we eat a piece of banana. Lunch is the most. For dinner, it depends on the family. Sometimes what we take is called Gitther. It is made of rice and beans cooked together. Or they call it Anbulo. It really depends on the family members, people like different flavor.

Me: Are there any types of food you usually don’t eat in your home country, but you eat here?

Ibrahim: There are many vegetable I have never seen before, but I eat here. But we have something called food taboo. So we don’t eat pork, like any kinds of food (made of pork), bacon, ham or whatever. They are cooked different ways, we don’t normally eat any type of food from the pig.

Me: Do you go to Chinese restaurant?

Ibrahim: Yeah, I go to Chinese restaurant or Pakistani restaurant. They don’t cook with pig. That is why the pork is separated. So we got there, take the rice, add some chicken or fish or shrimp.

Me: Finally, I would like to know your body languages. Do you have any special and interesting body languages?

Ibrahim: yeah, our body language is very important. That is why we can know the person whether he is annoying. We chat with person with our physical language. It is more important than our verbal language. We nod head this way; this is mean ‘Ok’. This is (Shake his head) means ‘No’ just like in every other culture. If you see this (hold up his thumb), it means not really good. It is sarcastic. If you see some say ‘Thank you’ like this (with his thumb up), but that thank you is not a good one, it means the opposite. If people are showing this to you, it means you are not good. Uh, eye contacts. Here you can see, even the professor, we call him like Professor Coffey. But back into Africa, we use the word ‘Sir’. We respect them. we don't call their names. We call sir or teacher. And the other thing we have is that the elder, we don't give them eye contacts. So we just look them, that means we respect them. I feel uncomfortable when I call their names. You have to treat people of you age and the elder differently and people will treat you nicely.

Me: we have a lot of common in body language. How you do use your body language when you say someone is out of mind.

Ibrahim: when you say someone is out of his/her mind, we say like (making a circle around his head using his index finger). That means your mind is upset-minded. And this one (knocking his head with his index finger) is different, that means you are mad.

Me: I think we are done. I appreciate it.

Ibrahim: thank you very much. What is your name?

Me: Heqiu. We can keep in touch.

Ibrahim: Can you write me your email?

Me: Yeah.

First interview results

Link

Description of The Second Interview & Somalia Country Profile

 I would say this interview was in my favor. Yahye and I had a great conversation in the interview. I was so impressed by how talkative he was. The interview went pretty well due to three important reasons.

First, he is a good talker. My anxiety of wondering how the interview would go was gone right away before the interview because I could see that he is so prepared. In the interview, he attentively answered all of the questions I asked and seemed to talk forever if I didn’t intentionally stop him sometimes; he was very open to talk about Somalia and Somalis; he used a lot of gestures demonstrating what he was trying to say.

Second, my fair knowledge on Somalia. Just a couple weeks ago, I wrote a country report on Somalia so in the interview what he told me made more sense. And I knowingly shared some knowledge on Somalia to induce him to talk more and he did.

Third, the atmosphere that we created. The spot we chose was just right. It was quite and comfortable. We sit in sofas, which make us feel relaxed. There was nobody passing by to distract us so we could focus on the interview.

Now, I am looking forwards to my third interview.

Somalia Country Profile

Overview

Somalia, officially the Republic of Somalia, is a country located in the east coast of Africa. Due to its special location, it was once an important trading center in the ancient. However, in the 19^th century, Somalia was colonized by the European powers. Although Somalia gained independence back after 1960, it has been suffering serious civic unrests since then. Without a working government, its economy still functions well. Because of the close ties with the Arab World, Somali people share similar customs and traditions with Arab and other Islamic cultures.

History

Somalia’s early history traces back to the seventh century A.D. when the Somali state and an Arab sultanate were founded. During the 15^th and 16^th centuries, Portuguese and Turkish gained control of several coastal towns. Afterwards, and the sultans of Oman and Zanzibar took back the territory, and ruled the surrounding area.

Somalia’s modern history began in the 19^th century. After British occupying Aden in 1839, the European powers subsequently began to established colonies in Somalia. In 1960, Italy granted independence to its colony and then Britain withdrew from its protectorate in Somalia. As a result, the Republic of Somalia was formed on July 1, 1960. Ten years later, Somalia experienced a civil war which lasted for 21 years.

Continuous fighting on territorial interest happened until 2004 when the transitional parliament was founded to somehow bring back regulations, laws, and order. Whereas, without an effective government, Somalis have a long way to go on resolving the chaos and corruption issues (Backgroud Note: Somalia).

Government

During January 1991 and August 2000, Somalia had no functioning government. A weak parliamentary government was formed in 2000 but soon dissolved in 2003 because of its inability to normalize the administration. In 2004, a new transitional government, known as the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), was installed and a new president was elected (Somalia).

Geography

Somalia, which is located on the east coast of Africa with the longest coastline on the continent, covers a land mass of 637,657 square kilometer. It borders on Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti.  Somali terrain consists mainly of plains, highlands, and hills. Mogadishu is its capital (Backgroud Note: Somalia).

Economy

Despite the lack of a working central government, Somali economy has surprisingly continued to keep healthy. The main types of industry supporting the economy are agriculture, livestock, limited financial services, textiles, transportation, telecommunications, and fishing.  Agriculture which is the important sector, with livestock, makes up to about 40% of GDP and more than 50% of export earnings (Africa: Somalia).

People

·         Population

Somalia has a population of around 9,832,017. 45% of the population is under the age of 15 and 52.6% between the ages of 15 to 64. Years of civil war and unrest and its inability to deal with poverty and disease have caused up to one million people to die (Hare).

·         Religion

The constitution of Somalia defines Islam as the religion of the Somali Republic. With very few exceptions, 99.9% of the population are Muslims (Backgroud Note: Somalia).

·         Education

Somalia shares the same 8-4-4 education system with Kenya. Although the number of students enrolled and schools founded has increased since the transitional federal government was in power, due to various realities, inequalities on the quality of and access to primary education are still major problems in this country (Hare). A majority of children in Somalia aren’t able to gain education opportunities. According to the CIA statics, only 37.8 percent of Somalis can read and write, males holding 49.7 percent of that, females 25.8 percent (Africa: Somalia).

·         Languages

The Somali language is the official language of Somalia. In addition, Arabic is also an official national language. Many Somalis speak Arabic because of their tight ties with the Arab World. English is also widely used and taught. Italian, once a major language, now has lost its influence because of the independence of Somalia (Language).

·         Customs

Somalis usually greet each other with handshakes, but it is disallowed to shake hands with the opposite sex. Common verbal greatings include Assalam Alaikum (Peace be upon you), Subah wanaagsan (Good morning), and Galab wanaagan (Good afternoon). Somalis like using various hand and arm gestures when talking. There are some specific gestures, for example, “a swift twist of the open hand means ‘nothing’ or ‘no’, snapping fingers may mean ‘long ago’ or and ‘so on’, and a thumb under the chin means ‘fullness’." On the marriage, clothing, family, food, and some other customs and traditions, Somalis has much in common with Arab and other Islamic cultures. However, in some parts of this country, there are still some local traditions that Somali practice every year. DABSHID (fire burning) is an annual festival in Low Shabelle region, which the local people burn a big fire and dance around it (The Customs of Somalia).

·         Food

Somali usually eat homemade bread which is called Injera, liver soup, toast, cereal or cornmeal for breakfast. For lunch which is the most important meal of the day, Somali people usually have meat with pasta or rice.  For dinner, they eat a light meal or barely eat.

Somali eat all kinds of meat, except pork which is forbidden in the religion. Meats are the main dishes. There are also many ways cooking the meats. For example, goat, beef, lamb, camel, and chicken can be fried, grilled, or broiled. They are often spiced with turmeric, coriander, cumin, and curry, and eaten with basmati rice.

Vegetables are the side dishes. Often time, they can be combined with meat to make a stew. Green peppers, spinach, potatoes, carrots, and garlic are the vegetables most eaten. There is a large selection of fruits in Somalia. Bananas, dates, apples, oranges, pears, and grapes are the popular fruits. Some types of fruits are even made into fresh juices.

Somalis also like black tea with milk and sugar, sambusas which are stuffed triangular dumplings coming with all kinds of fillings, and so on.

Like all Muslims, in the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, Somalis fast from eating from dawn to sunset. One that is considered healthy over the age of 15 is required to fast. (The food of Somalia).

Photo gallery

Location of Somalia (photo taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia#Cuisine)

The flag of Somalia (photo taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia#Cuisine)

Somali man (photo taken from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-552829/British-UN-aid-worker-kidnapped-Somalia-wounded-gun-battle.html)

Somali women greeting each other (photo taken from http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/CV001093.html)

Somali Sambusa (photo taken from http://www.mysomalifood.com/appetizers/somali-sambuuse/)

Somali Injera (photo taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injera)

Somali children (photo taken from http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/30b4a/f9b/)



Reference

"Africa: Somalia." 18 October 2010. World Factbook. CIA. 25 October 2010 <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/so.html>.

"Backgroud Note: Somalia." 14 May 2010. U.S. Department of State. 25 October 2010 <http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2863.htm>.

Hare, Harry. "ICT in Education in Somalia." December 2007. infoDev.org. 25 October 2010 <http://www.infodev.org/en/Publication.428.html>.

Language. 25 October 2010 <http://countrystudies.us/somalia/51.htm>.

"Somalia." Infoplease. 25 October 2010 <http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107979.html>.

The Customs of Somalia. 25 October 2010 <http://www.somaliculture.net/customs/index.html>.

The food of Somalia. 26 October 201 <http://www.somaliculture.net/food/index.html>.

Preparations For The Second Interview

One day when I was sitting in a sofa waiting for my bus in the library, I saw a seem-like Somalis male student sitting by my side waiting for something too. Therefore I decided to approach him. I asked him if he was from Somalia. He said yes.  Then I began to explain him the interview thing and asked if he was willing to be my interviewee. By coincidence, he said at the end of this semester he would be doing a final project for his communication study class which also required him to interview a person from other countries.  And he wanted me to be his interviewee too. Happily we said yes to each other. After that we talked about something else.

He introduced me a little about himself. His name is Yahye Samatar. He has been here since 2006. He lives in St. Cloud by himself and he has a part-time job in Boys and Girls Scott Club. He is majoring in pre-medicine at SCSU.

To make him feel more secure and not worry about the sensitive topics that he thought I might be asking, I told him the goal of my interview which was just to know Somali culture and customs; to find more connections with him, I told him something I knew about Somalia and I also brought up Issa Gure, the first interviewee whom I conducted with and he happened to know. In order to make each other feel more relaxed during the interview we agreed to conduct the interview in Atwood in which there were many quite and comfortable spots. I also told him what types of questions I will be asking and asked him to think about those for a little bit.

Based on the experience on the previous interviews, I went home summed up some interview techniques that could help make a better interview.

Before going the interview, I made sure I had everything for the interview.

At noon, Nov, 3^rd, I conducted the interview in Atwood with Yahye.

Transcription of The Second Interview

Interviewer: Heqiu Liu

English 191

Interviewee: Yahye Samatar

Interviewee's country of origin: Somalia

Interview date: 11/03/2010

Interview #2

Me: Could you please tell me a little bit about yourself, such as your name, the country you are from, how long have you been here, and your major?

Yahye: My is Yahye Samater. I’m from Somalia. I have been here since September, 2006. I’m majoring in pre-medicine at St. Cloud State University.

Me:  First, I would like to know your greeting customs. We know that people in the United States say, “Hi, how are you” and shake hands when people first meet.  But, how do you guys great each other? Is there anything special there? Let’s say that if I was a stranger to you, and we meet in a meeting, how would you greet with me?

Yahye: First, when we meet someone. You say setahay in Somali and shake hands. But you can only shake hands with men. You cannot shake hands with women or girls. That is forbidden. And when you meet someone is a stranger, you still shake hands and you can ask and get to know him later. It doesn’t necessary that you have to act to know them to shake their hands. There is something special about shaking hands. It’s important in Somalia’s culture. If you don’t shake someone’s hands, that is a sign of rejection. If there are three boys sitting, you only know two of them, and you shakes their hands, and left the other one. That’s a sign of disrespect, that’s a sign of rejection. You shake all of them, sign of approval, and sign of friendship. It’s very important in Somalia’s culture. 

Me: So if I was a very close friend of yours. Do we just shake hands? Can we do anything, like hug?

Yahye: If we are close friends and we haven’t seen each other for a while. You can hug. But there is nothing kissing in the cheek like some other cultures. But you can hug, shake hands. It depends on how close you are to the person.

Me: How do you hug?

Yahye: (showing me how they hug). But if a family members, a cousin, someone that is close friend to you, and you haven’t seen him like four years or five years. You may hug all the way. It depends on how close the person is. But if you are greeting someone you went high school with, it’s ok to hug under shoulders. You know shoulder to shoulder.

Me: If I was a good friend of yours and I want to pay a visit to you one day, how would you treat me as a guest in your house?

Yahye: The guest is very important in Somalis culture. When the guests come over, you may also them your bed, some of your clothing. We treat them very respectful. If you don’t treat the guests very respectful, and they may not come back. In Somalis culture, it is very important to respect the guest. When someone comes over, first thing we do, we welcome him to come over the house, give them a seat, and bring beverages, like drinks, not alcohol drinks, bring lemon juice, or mango, something sweet. And at the end, we bring some sweat, cookies, and some Somali desserts. And that shows them that they are very respected. Sometime we give doolsho, it’s Somali cake, it’s sweet. It depends on how close they are. If they are next to the neighborhood, they live next to you, you see them every day. Just bring them water or a cup of tea.

… (We are talking about something else)

Me: Next, I want to know what you guys usually do for entertainment.

Yahye: For entertainment? Uh, story-telling is a very big part of Somalis culture. When someone comes over your house, you know you can talk about the politics; you can talk about the good day back into Somalia, it depends on how close they are. If someone is from Somalia, and they live in Somalia for a while, and then come over your house, you can talk about what they do. Or you can show Somali movie, you can watch Somalis movie called …, it is very funny. You can watch with them. Also, you can play games. Like my friends, they come over my house. We are watching movies, playing game with play station. Elder, Somalis elders, they talk all day, they can talk all day. Actually, someone comes over, and they are talking to you. You don’t just talk to them. You bring tea. You don’t even know you have drink five cups of tea. You are just talking, and you are also drinking tea. That is what they have for entertainment. But we don’t have parties or something like that. But there may be some, back into Somalia, they have government working, there are some councilors that people used to go. When I was in Somalia, we would go the soccer fields, we play soccer. Or go to beach. We like soccer and basketball. Basketball is also for girls.

Me: But when women play basketball, do you usually play without the (scarves on)?

Yahye: They have their hijab on all the time but it is smaller. And they also play … like in a gym. And no male will be there. But boys always play basketball.

Me: Then, I would like to know something on your family structure. What are some of the roles that family members play in your house? First, let talk about father.

Yahye: The father is the breadwinner of the family. He is the provider. He works, uh, and he brings foods. He pays our bills, clothing, and everything. And the mother’s job is to take care of the kids, to cook.

Me: Do you work?

Yahye: Not a lot of time. Thing has changed. Back into when Somalia had a government, men worked, women stayed home. But now it is other way around. Woman works.  My mother is the bread winner of the family and she has two jobs. She is working hard to provide for the family. My father didn’t have a job because all of the men’s jobs are out of windows because the government collapsed. There is no office to work. There is no factory to work. Women’ jobs are available all the time. They can sell clothing. They can have a restaurant. That is how the family plays roles. And if the father passes away, the whole family’s responsibilities become on the older son’s shoulders or older daughter. Mostly the sons because daughters don’t work too and they don’t go to school.

Me: Daughters don’t go to school?

Yahye: Mostly. Mostly they don’t go to school. Things are changed. In my generation, we went to school with a lot of girls. And in my family, all of my brothers graduated and all of sisters graduated in high school because they are living in cities but it is different in the countryside. In every culture, I think in China too. 

Me: How many family members usually live together?

Yahye: Uh, families they can have up to twenty two kids. I have a friend, a high school friend. His mother gave birth to twenty-second child. It is normal in Somalia. It is not something like, ‘wow, you have twenty two kids, oh my God.’ It is not like that. In my family, we had fifteen, fifteen kids. But two of my brother and one my sister passed away, so now have twelve, so seven girls and five boys.

(I didn’t listen quite clearly on this sentence in the interview; otherwise, I would be very sorry to hear that.)

Me: Do you live with your grandma and grandpa?

Yahye: Granma and grandpa can also live in the family, it is be respected. When you have your father’s mother living with you, the chance is that you are getting into trouble... In Somalis culture, they have great respective family. You must show respects to your grandpa and grandma. They are the family. You never kick them out or say anything that they don’t like. You have to be respective. I didn’t get a chance to live with my grandma but my brother told me that she passed away before I was born. They used to live in the house and that is common in Somalis culture.

Me: In here, you said you live alone by yourself?

Yahye: yeah, I live by myself. My vice sister live in St. Cloud but she lives in close to the north and I live in eastside. It depends. I have grown up. It is my choice. But a lot of Somalis boys live with their sisters and mother. It depends on if you can survive out there. If you are a survivor, you work hard. You move out.

Me：you can survive.

Yahye: I will call that.

Me: You have a job?

Yahye: Yeah, I do have a job.

Me: Where do you work?

Yahye: I work in Boys and Girls Scott Club in St. Cloud. I work 20 hours a week. I have a lot of bills to pay. That is why I work 20 hours a week.

Me: Next, I want to know something on you food culture. What so you usually have for diet, such as breakfast, lunch and dinner?

Yahye: Back in when I was grown up in Somalia, we have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But here is different because you don’t have the same schedule. Back in Somalia, we always eat 9 a.m. breakfast, and 1 p.m. lunch, always, because that is everybody’s schedule. If you are in school, meals are available at 9 a.m. and also 1 p.m. That is everybody’s schedule but here we don’t have the same schedule. My sister works one day and she comes home at 5 o’clock so the breakfast and lunch go out of windows. But since I live by myself I can cook anytime if I want, anytime when I get hungry. In Somalia, we have the thing pancake called anjera. Usually you can eat with meat because Somalis have a lot of animals, such as goats, camel, cows, sheep, chicken, everything. So you always eat with meat. Mostly cameral meat because camel meat is very cheap. And you can get kilos of cameral meat in less than dollars. So the family always eats meat and pancake, also tea or mild. At lunch we eat rice with meat and vegetable. We put everything. Sometimes we eat spaghetti. Before Italy colonies came to Somalia, we only ate rice and called soor, which is corn, it looks like flower. And you eat with meat and vegetable. When Italy colonies came to Somalia, they brought pasta which is spaghetti, it is also a type in Somalis culture for lunch. You go restaurant at lunch time; they are serving rice with meat or spaghetti, that is common.

Me: how about dinner?

Yahye: Dinner depends on some family. If wealthy have a lot of money, they have a lot of things available for them. And one thing you eat is spaghetti. The other thing is …. the thing is not pancake. Or some things like that. They eat with cameral meat, vegetable, and milk. But some families like my family, we have rice with beans, it is called Anbulo. It is good type because if you eat Anbulo you can stay full for up to 12 hours because the beans have a lot of protein and you will drink a lot of water and you won’t get hungry. That is also a good type for Somalis dinner. The finger food, sambusa, is very traditional, it is serving every restaurant you go.

….

Me: which one is the important meal, lunch or dinner?

Yahye: like I said before, it depends on family’s schedule. Back into Somalia, all of them are important, except the dinner. You don’t have necessarily to have dinner. But it is very important to eat at lunch. Because you can skip dinner if you want or you can eat with the family. It depends. But nobody cares. They eat everything they want.

Me: Are there any types of food you usually don’t eat in your home country, but you eat here?

Yahye: let me think. American food, like hamburger, fried chips that are available back into Somalia. The things you don't’ eat here and you don’t eat in Somalia too is pork, like ham, bacon. It is religious. All of Somalis are Muslims, and they don’t eat pork. Some of the food that we eat here not Somalia is pizza. We don’t have pizza in Somalia. You can go to Pizza Hut and get large chicken pizza or cheese pizza.

Me: Finally, I would like to know your body languages. Do you have any special and interesting body languages?

Yahye: Yes, we do have body language. As you know, Italian colonized Somalia for 4 year, and they left their language and their body language into Somalis culture. If you see Italian, they usually shake hands, right. You used to shake hands all the time. And you can go and check it out too. In Somalia, we use our hands to explain things. You use your hands to make message. When you see someone, it is rude to stare into their eyes. You don’t stare into their chest and butts. You have to avoid all of those things. When you are talking to someone, someone is older than you, your father or your brother. You don’t look directly into their eyes. You look somewhere else to show them you are respectful. We can communicate to the eyes.  

Me: Thank you very much.

Yahye: You are welcome.