Post Service

The theme I noticed the most across my experience with both Arabic families was that the Arabic stereotype does not do them justice. The way people in America think and perceive Muslims or Arabians is typically in a negative way due to 9/11. They have the common stereotype of being terrorists, so you would think these people would be ignorant or mean. However, these families we worked with were some of the nicest and strongest people I have ever met, diminishing my racism and increasing my respect for their culture. Their values and behaviors represent their friendliness and politeness to everyone who walks into their home. I had never been treated so nicely walking into a strangers home as I did with these families. Also, their stories and descriptions of the day to day struggles them and millions of other Arabians face in their country shocked me. I knew it was bad due to the war but I was dumbfounded by the severity of it and for this, I respect these people more than anyone I know. All in all, the lesson learned throughout my service was that stereotypes are cruel and we should never judge a book by its cover.

This experience will and has shaped my future interpersonal interactions by being able to observe other culture's values through their social practices in a more effective way rather than making assumptions and seeing them based off of their stereotype. The experience has shaped me as a better person and has greatly increased my communication skills all together. With future interactions I will be able to use these skills I have become accustomed to throughout this experience, especially dealing with the BASIC's and nonverbal communication. I will also be able to look deeper into the individual instead of making judgments and I will be more confident to take small actions to make a difference in their lives.

During Service #3

This was our second and final visit with our new family. We got to the apartment and knocked on the door and no one answered. We thought we heard a baby crying from outside the door, but we knew they did not have a baby. So, we waited a couple of minutes and knocked again. Nobody answered. We did not know if they didn't hear us or if they just weren't home, so after waiting a little while Carly called the father and finally he came to the door. He greeted us and told us his wife was just crying on the phone with her mother because she misses her family and her home. We felt really bad as if we were intruding on what should have been their alone time, however, the family continued to be super welcoming and friendly. This was yet another way I saw the true values and social practice of the Arabic culture. Luckily, it was a sunny 50 degree day so we were able to walk to the park which was only a block away. The little boy brought a kite and it was a perfect day for it because it was super windy outside. The son ran all around the park, up and down the slides, and flew his kite. He couldn't stop giggling and truly looked like he was having the time of his life. The mother went from crying to grinning ear to ear with happiness. We continued to talk with them and helped them recognize words for each item at the park in order to increase their english and vocabulary skills, which enlightened me to the nature of language. The father couldn't stop thanking us for simply bringing them to the park. He said his son now gained 20 pounds and is becoming obese from being stuck inside with nothing to do and just being able to see him running around was a blessing. The family ran around and constantly laughed with one another for a good hour. I had never seen someone so extremely happy. It was truly a perfect day at the park. As politely as they could they asked us to leave so that they could have their own family time. With tears of joy the mother thanked us as well as the son and father. When we were leaving we drove past the park and noticed them having a blast and interacting with another Arabic family. The rest of my day I couldn't stop smiling. I felt like I had made the biggest impact on this family by simply bringing them to a park, it was the greatest and most rewarding feeling I have ever had.

Social Practices are the behavior patterns that members of a culture typically follow. It is the demonstration of values. Arabic culture values politeness and hospitality much more than American households. In both families we worked with, the mothers waited on us and served us drinks and food on a tray as if it was their job. This is an example of the Arabic social practices. Also going off of politeness and hospitality, the mother immediately stopped crying when we came to the door and warmly welcomed us. This exemplifies how much they value their reputation based off of manners.

The Nature of Language: Language is subjective. Also meaning words can be translated completely differently or have their own personal meaning in different cultures. While we were at the park, the father pointed to his son trying to get on the swing and asked me what those were called. He recognized the swing as a completely different word that I was unsure of, so when I told him we call it a swing he continued with, "Oh because it is suspended?" as he held his hands up. I wasn't really sure what that meant, so I explained to him that we call them "swings" because they swing back and forth, as I showed him the motion with my hand and said, "this is what swinging is."This was very interesting to me because it showed how words can have different meanings in different cultures and I had never realized that before working with this family.

The main and most important thing I learned in this visit is that it isn't always the big things that matter, that the smallest acts can make the biggest difference and impact in a person's life. This can be used in future interactions with other cultures because I feel as if we are always trying to impress people of different backgrounds than us and now I know that it is not that complicated. The smallest actions can go a long way.

During Service #2

Our previous visit with the Al Qay's was quite interesting. It was a great representation of time orientation. We arrived to the house to find a moving van full of all of their belongings. It turns out they liked Ohio so much more than Moline, Illinois and Mr. Al Qay even found a job there. It was the first time I saw the mother happy, she was grinning from ear to ear, and the son was super excited to move near kids he knew from his country. They said how this was a great opportunity for them and they could not turn it down, so we helped pack the remainder of their things, said our goodbyes, and they were off to Ohio.
We were given a new family for what will be our last two visits. This service was our very first time meeting the family and it taught me even more about intercultural communications along with a large array of intercultural and international differences. There is a mother, a father, and a nine year old son. They are Arabic and from Iraq like our other family, however, this interaction was much different. They have only been in America for 5 days now and they barely speak english. The only english the son knows is simple vocabulary such as animals and food and the mother knows little to none but tries her best to understand and speak to us. The father speaks just enough for us to understand him with the help of hand gestures, greatly increasing my knowledge of nonverbal communication and how it is done. As we began to converse with them I was astounded by what they have been through and what they are going through. While living in Iraq, the father was an engineer and worked for an American company, because of that the government was out to kill him. He had to leave his wife and new born baby for six years while he went to Jordan to stay safe. The wife is the sweetest thing. As the father told his story she did her best to explain how hard it was on her, but she still continued to smile. She is such a strong woman. We then came to find out more about Iraq and they told us about the weather, how it can get up to 130 degrees fahrenheit. You can only imagine how much they dislike our 20 degree weather right now! Also, they said they are not allowed to leave the house. They have no TV, no computer, the son cannot go to school yet, and all they can do is eat. The son has already gained about 11 pounds in 5 days because he cannot be active and his diet has drastically changed. He is becoming overweight. We continued to spend the rest of our visit getting to know them and I cannot even begin to describe how inspiring and kind this family is. After all they have been through they have an amazing spirit and mind-set and they are simply happy to be safe. It is the greatest feeling in the world to know how wonderful our country is and how lucky we are to call it home.

Time-Orientation is one of five cultural patterns. It is defined as how people conceptualize time. Some cultures choose to describe the future and most important, others emphasize the present, and still others emphasize the past. The Al Qay family greatly emphasized the future throughout our whole time with them. They were always looking ahead and thinking about finding a job and a better place to live. They valued their future as most important and I was able to realize this specifically when they quickly decided to get up and leave Illinois in hopes of a brighter future. However, I would say our new family conceptualizes time differently. They emphasize the present. They are living day to day not worrying about the future and trying not to look back on the past because they are simply happy that they are finally safe.
Nonverbal Communication is messages expressed by nonlinguistic means. Because they don't speak english very well, this experience was a way to test my nonverbal communication skills. I really had to pay attention to they way they speak in order to figure out what they were trying to say. I did this by looking at their facial expressions, their eye behavior, how they convey their emotions, and their hand gestures. Not only could I tell what they were saying, but it was a way for me to understand their culture.

Learning to see language in a different way (nonverbally) will really help me in future interactions with this family and even other cultures I'll run into throughout the rest of my life. Also, I learned a lot of international aspects relating to climate and things of that sort in Iraq, which made me a more knowledgeable person of the world around me. Because this family is so used to being outside in Iraq and have yet to really do so here in Moline, we would like to take them to a park or even on a walk next time we visit, if the weather is nice. I hope this will make the family more comfortable with their new surroundings and give them a better image of America.

During Service

It is now our third visit and we are starting to get to know and understand our refugee family on a higher level. Throughout these first three visits I have observed how the father sits in the "talking-seat" while the mother sits silently during our conversations. I believe this type of behavior deals with the values and norms of the Arabic culture, where the father has all the power in the family. Along with this, the mother not only sat silent but I could sense a feeling of unhappiness and hostility that had something else to do with other than the Arabic's values/norms. This led me to believe she is in cultural shock. For the father it was more difficult to tell what stage he could be in. However, I was astounded by his intelligence. Back in Iraq he was a wealthy engineer, but it has now been two months since they have been in America and he is still unemployed. Because he searches for jobs on his own, speaks pretty good english, and is an intelligent man, it was difficult for us to think of activities we could do with them since we did not want to offend him. This is where orientation of knowledge came into play along with some other BASIC's of Intercultural Competence. Interaction management, and task role behavior also stood out for me as I attempted to achieve intercultural competence during this specific visit. After helping the mother with her English homework and playing Legos with the son, we continued to converse with the father, which involved interaction management for me. Along with this, he was looking to buy a GPS because they are going on a road trip to Ohio to visit friends. We told him what brands we recommended and helped him research it. This dealt with task-role behavior. Going off of this conversation, I could tell how eager they were to see life outside of Moline.They talk a lot about how they do not like it here since they are from a big city with which I've assumed a much wealthier, larger home. I am excited for their journey to Ohio and interested to see what their next step to a happier lifestyle here in the United States will be.

Values: involve what a culture regards as good or bad, right or wrong, fair or unfair, just or unjust, beautiful or ugly, clean or dirty, valuable or worthless, appropriate or inappropriate, and kind or cruel. Cultural values stood out to me in this visit and the past two when the father sat and talked as the head of the family. It showed that the Arabic culture values the man of the family to be of most power which is what they consider "right" and "appropriate."
Norms: are the socially shared expectations of appropriate behavior. As discussed in values, the norm for Arabic culture or the appropriate behavior is the man of the house speaking for the family, which I have observed very much over the course of the last three weeks with our family.
Cultural Shock: is a typical reaction to time spent in a different culture. It shows frustration while trying to navigate through day-to-day activities in an unfamiliar setting. Because the mother constantly has a look of distress and unhappiness on her face, I am beginning to believe she is in this stage since it has now been about two months in a new culture.
BASIC's of intercultural competence: what you actually do rather than internalized attitudes of what you might do. There are three out of six of these in which stood out to me in this visit.
Orientation of knowledge is to recognize that other's experiences shape what they know. I was able to display this behavior noticing that the father has a very intelligent background in which shapes everything he knows about finding a job here in America. Luckily, I was able to recognize this so I did not belittle him, since he knows much more about America than I had previously assumed.
Interaction Management is skill in regulating conversation and taking turns. As a group we were all able to successfully achieve this, since all of our visits so far mainly consist of conversing. We would ask questions and let the father answer them and then build the conversation off of that and vice versa.
Task Role Behavior is behaviors involving group problem solving. I experienced this during the visit when the father asked us about which GPS he should purchase. As a group, Carly, John, and I took what knowledge we had on the topic and helped him research it in order to solve the problem of which brand works the best and is most reasonable. Our final consensus was to buy a SONY GPS system.

From this visit and the two before, I have learned more and more ways to communicate appropriately with the Al Quays. I have also recognized their level of knowledge towards our culture and I am starting to broaden my knowledge of theirs. This will be applied in the future to create more intense and descriptive conversations with the family in order to form a better relationship with them.

Pre-Service

1. My hopes for the service learning project is to get to closely know the Al Qays, which is the family we will be working with. I want to get to know them on a personal level in order to truly understand intercultural communication. I think it will be extremely interesting to learn about them and their culture and really try to help them adapt to their new living situation.
2. My assumptions about my learning site are actually very unclear. I do not know what to expect in this situation other than what Kelly has told us in class. However, I do know it will be a safe environment and I am anxious to see what it is like.
3. The family we are serving is Arabic. I know that there is a child and a mother and father. I went to high school with a great amount of Arabians, so I have a little insight but not much. I've learned that many Arabians normally live with not only their immediate family but also cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. Otherwise, I do not know much else about the population they serve but I cannot wait to find out.
4. I would love to make connections with the son. I would like to build a relationship with him because I have always enjoyed working with children. I am passionate in teaching children and I hope to help the Al Qay's son with adjusting to America and schooling in America because I know it will be a lot different for him. I also think it will be very interesting to help the mother with her english skills since teaching is a passion of mine. Although I am excited to teach and help the Al Qay family, I am thrilled to learn from them as well.

How does service relate to learning?

 Service relates to learning because it can be more effective to learn by doing rather than reading and writing. By doing service you are able to put yourself in someone else's position, which then shows you how to deal with certain situations or struggles. Helping others also educates you on different cultural aspects. It provides you with a wide range of information on all types of people in the world around us. We can read about others' struggles and cultures to such an extent, but we will never fully understand until we put ourselves in that situation and that is exactly what service is. Service makes a huge impact on our lives. Just as learning helps us grow as an individual so does service, which is why service is closely linked to learning.