Kailon TS #4

During the second tutoring session that I had today with Amaury, the subject of the conversation varied greatly. We compared and contrasted the culture in Burkina Faso to the culture in America. Amaury seemed to understand the fact that I am from the United states, however, I don't think that he really considered me to be "American", so to speak. So, I explained to him that America has several cultures within itself, and that there is not really just one whole "American culture", as there may be in Burkina Faso. So, I told him that I am Black American, or African-American. Next, he proceeded to ask me if Black Americans wore traditional clothing like the people in Burkina Faso did. I told him that sometimes Black Americans wear "dashikis" in appreciation of West African culture, but due to the nature of America's history, you would hardly see Black Americans wearing any form of culturally appropriate traditional apparel. Next, we proceeded to converse about our future goals and our parents' occupations. I told him that I wanted to work with immigrants and advocate for their rights, and that my major is International Affairs with a minor in Social Work. He told me that after learning English at CIES, he would like to study agriculture and medicine in order to return back to Burkina Faso and work at his mother's agricultural business as an "inspector" (I believe this is what he meant). He also told me that his father is a professor at a university. He also told me that back in Burkina Faso, his family has a maid that comes to cook and clean for them every day. after getting over my shock about the maid, I explained to him that my mother is a medical coder. The purpose of the second session was to not only learn about cultural differences, but for me to also ask him to explain more about certain topics. I noticed that if he didn't know the English equivalent of a word that he was familiar with in French, he would give up on saying what he wanted to say. However, I informed him that "there is more than one way to skin a cat"; so, if he didn't know how to say a particular word in English, I would ask him to use other words to describe it so that I could understand the meaning of what he wanted to say. Overall, our two tutoring sessions were very productive today, and I look forward to our next two sessions next Friday.