Ahmed Hamid Ahmed Al Hamid Al Said

I knew going into this trip that Middle Eastern perception of Americans wasn't great. I have been proved mostly correct just from day-to-day conversation, taxi rides, and the occasional cat call from the street. It is sometimes difficult for me to keep my mouth shut; I consider myself a Patriot in the sense that I see the flaws in the American system but I still believe it is a great place to live.

I have an Omani friend here who does not see this as true, even in the slightest sense. His name is Ahmed Hamid Ahmed Al Hamda Al Sa'id. He hails from a northern part of Oman... I can't tell you exactly where because he doesn't speak English and I barely speak Arabic. Three out of five days of school, we have what we call "PF" session, which stands for peer facilitator. It's two hours of Arabic conversation after our FOUR hours of class. It's the most exhausting part of the day because we are both limitedly conversational in each other's languages. We spend a lot of time trying to translate each other and it is not uncommon for one of us to get lost in translation. But we make it work. To give you a better representation of who Ahmed is, and how is opinions came to be, I will start with a bit of his history.

First, his name. His full name, Ahmed Hamid Ahmed Al Hamda Al Sa'id, is so darn long because of the way Arabic names work. He takes his name, his father's name, his paternal grand father's name, and his tribal name. He is the same age as me, 20, and he attends Sultan Qaboos University, majoring in Economics and Business. In the future, he wants to work for a "big company" in Oman, I assume in the oil industry. His parents' marriage was arranged. His will be too. His mother and father were married when they were 14, Ahmed was born when they were 15. This is not the norm now, Ahmed will most likely get married after he graduates from university. He does not believe in marrying for love. He has five siblings, which is very unusual for an Omani family. Most of my teachers are one of ten/fifteen.

He doesn't have many positive things to say about America. He believes there is a "war with guns" against Islam on the streets in America, and that all Americans steal. He asked me if he would get shot if he left the house after sunset. He asked me if it was okay to go outside of my city without fearing for my life. I was more shocked than offended when I heard this, and I wondered where he got these ideas from. So began the long conversational trek of trying to understand how he came to be this way.

Spoiler alert: The moral ends up being that he knows only what the media and movies say about America much like we (as Americans) only know about the Middle East through media and movies. Needless to say, neither portrayal is particularly flattering.

I am his first female friend that is not a relative. Gender segregation is SO real here and I could tell from the very first day that he was unsure of how to act around me for an isolated two hour conversation. Max is the other student in my PF session, and he attends the US Naval Academy. It is easy to see how Ahmed's views of women and men differ by the way he interacts with Max and me. First, he will not shake my hand. Even if I were to hold it out, he would just nod at me instead. He shakes Max's hand every day. He will take pictures with me and Max but only post photos of Max on social media... a photo of a western woman would be really inappropriate for him to post. He asks Max if he watches the news, and asks me if I watch soap operas... I am not equal to Max in his eyes. So it goes.

When we talk about American culture, I've asked where he learns it from. He says that he only knows about American culture from what he sees in movies, and what people tell him. Keep in mind, the movies he watches are: Fast and Furious, Need for Speed, anything with Tom Cruise, and anything with explosives and guns. He assumed I knew people in the Mafia. He asked if everyone carried guns with them, and asked if he'd get shot for being Muslim. I told him that what he watches in the movies is imagination, which he so endearingly calls "ehm-agg-ingtion". He did not know how the US came to be, or that we weren't all white.

It was a staggering realization for a young, poorly traveled Katie. Ahmed is no different than my American friends who have no positive things to say about the Middle East. It is not that Ahmed is a bad person for thinking this- I mean, there is truth in what he thinks about Americans. Of course he is going to think this when all he sees and reads are negative things about America.  It is the same issue with my friends at home, who asked: "Will you have to wear a burka?" or "Do you think you'll get kidnapped?" while in the Middle East. Maybe in some areas, but not in Oman. They know nothing more than what the media says. I am safe and happy in both places.

While there are problems with America, with Oman, with the media, we must learn to live in peace. Ahmed is my friend. I am grateful for our friendship, even if it is conditional.