Preparation for my Interview
I did a few different things to prepare for my interview. The first thing that I needed to do was contact Mohammed, so that he could talk to one of his friends for me. Once I got the word from Mohammed that I could meet up with him and his friends I looked over my questions. I looked over them for about 10 to 15 minutes before meeting my interviewee. I really focused on the questions that everyone in the class had to ask. I approached my interviewee by meeting up with Mohammed and he introduced me to his friends so that it would not be awkward. I conducted my interview on Tuesday, October 17th 2010 at Caribou Coffee. As you can tell this is the same day and place as my first interview because I did both of them one right after the other. The name of my second interviewee was Majed Alotaibi. I used my cell phone to record my interview and it worked great and was very easy to understand.
Describing the Interview
I liked doing the interview with Majed because he was from a different part of Saudi Arabia than Abraham. I got to learn how their areas are different but still they are very similar. During this interview I don’t think we joked around as much and it was more serious. I don’t think I had as good of a connection with my interviewee. I believe it is because at times I had a little bit harder of a time understanding what he was talking about. During my first interview we got off topic a few times and talked about random things, but that was not the case with this one. The interview was much shorter and I didn’t get as much information as I did from the first. That is why I decided to make this my interview that will not have a transcript. Even though it seems like this interview was not as helpful as the first, I still learned some valuable information and I am grateful for that. One of the surprising things that I learned while talking to Majed was how their holy day was on Friday and not Sunday, and that their weekends were Thursday and Friday. I learned that on the holiday of Hajj most Muslims, who are capable of it, will go to Mecca for their god. When it comes to marriage I learned that it kind of depends from family to family if they get to choose the bride or the groom does. Before the marriage the bride and groom are engaged for about a year so that they can get to know each other better.
Report On Country
Saudi Arabia is the birth place of Islam and is the area for its two holiest shrines. These shrines are Mecca and Medina. The Saudi state was founded in 1932. Saudi Arabia is located in the Middle East by the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. The area of the land is approximately 1,960,582 million sq. km. That is a larger area than any other country in the Middle East. Most of the area though is dessert. The discovery of oil reserves was in 1937 a few years after the founder of the Saudi State. The weather in Saudi Arabia is usually very hot and humid especially on the coast. Also it has many sand and dust storms that occur.
Saudi Arabia has a population of about 28 million people and around 5.6 million of them are foreigners. The birth rate is still on the rise, but so is their economy. The language spoken is Arabic, and a little bit of English. More than 200 million people speak Arabic. The religion that people believe in is Islam. Saudi Arabia has a political system called monarchy. The way it works is a King is chosen from the Al- Saud Family. The King will then work with the councils of Ministers. The work week for people who live in Saudi Arabia is Saturday through Wednesday because Thursday and Friday are weekends.
The people who follow Islam are called Muslims. The word Islam means “submission to God”. Muslims follow the book called the Holy Quran. The Quran mainly focuses on the beliefs of the religion. In the world today the Quran is the only book memorized completely by more than 10 million people all over the world. The holy day for Muslims is on Fridays (which is like being a Sunday here in America). Muslims are able to eat any type of meat they want as long as it is not pork and they are not allowed to drink liquor. The foods that are not allowed to be eaten are called Haram. Muslims celebrate Ramadan which means they cannot eat during the day for one month. They are not able to eat from dawn to dusk.
Work Sited
www.cia.gov 10/28/10
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