Week 2: Introductions

When I first sat down with Mouhamadou, getting him to talk was like pulling teeth. He was very shy and probably intimidated. I did find out that he is from Senegal and that he likes to draw. When he said he liked to draw, I got out two pieces of paper for an activity I learned as a Link Crew leader in high school. We folded our papers into six sections, with a question assigned to each square. This gave me a way to get to know Mouhamadou in a way he was comfortable with. I learned that his favorite sport is soccer but he also likes basketball, he likes fighting movies and watches WWE: Monday Night Raw every week, and his favorite food is cheese pizza. The more he drew, the more comfortable he became around me. He started talking more and would ask me questions about what I was drawing. Right before they had to go back to class, he showed me some of the drawings that he had done at home. They were way better than something I could draw now and he's only in fourth grade.

Clearly there are distinct differences between Mouhamadou and I but there are also some very important similarities. When he found out that I spoke a little French, his eyes lit up. Whenever he couldn't explain something in English he could switch to French and eventually I would figure it out. We both also really like soccer. He was in awe of the fact that I played for 14 years. Soccer is a huge part of his native culture. In the United States however, it isn't as popular. I think it was kind of shocking to him that we had these things in common.

Between the noise from the other side of the gym and the slight language barrier, I wasn't able to learn very much about his family. I don't know how long he has been in the United States or how many brothers and sisters he has. He would try to answer my questions and when I asked him to repeat what he said because I couldn't hear him, he thought I just couldn't understand him and would get frustrated.  He understands English pretty well and I know a decent amount of French so as long as we can hear each other we will be able to communicate better.