Meeting #3

Woo hoo! Hussain and I worked out another time to meet, and this time it was somewhere other than the Recreation center! I couldn’t stand meeting where it was so loud and distracting. It was really difficult to hear Hussain in this environment as he speaks very softly and never raises his voice. Oddly enough, Hussain never seemed seem to mind the cacophony in the Rec. Maybe it was due to his family environment.

Speaking of which (I know, nice segue right?), He talked a little about his family today. Compared to the first time we met, Hussain was much more talkative, seemed much more relaxed, and was ready to share his experiences with me (Guess talking about the weather can do that to ya). He brought up that his family was very large (Dr. Dan: yes I know that it is a bad word but he used it so I am sorry but I must reference it). He mentioned that some of the families he knows have over 5 wives and 50 children. Naturally I recoiled a little bit and thought of what that must be like. One in fifty children, each with the same father, it seemed impossible.

However, I took a moment to reflect on this. In class we were told to not view things the way they were. We were told to question why we felt a certain way and to understand these feelings. Looking back at this moment, I realize that it seemed weird to me not because I had decided it was odd, but because I had been told it was odd. But, that is a deeper conversation for another time.

Back to the father of 50, he was a very wealthy man and had built his own apartment tower to house each of his families. The tower was divided by floors with each family having their own floor. I was much more content when I heard he was taking care of his families, as I was afraid he simply had sired a lot of children with no means of supporting them. That being said, this was a point where I truly began to grasp how different our worldviews are.

At this point Hussain seemed to shy away, I must have seemed too shocked by the story; I really hoped I hadn’t offended him. The next few minutes involved me trying to reconcile my ideas with Hussain’s. After a while I mentioned that my mother was in a family of 9 children and he seemed to perk back up. From this common ground we found it easy to compare how our family lives were fairly similar, if a bit different in ideology.