The Second Interview

Country report:

Geography:

Somalia is located on the east of Africa, which is bordered by Djibouti, Kenya, Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. "It has the longest coastline on the continent, with a seaboard that stretches more than 3000 kilometers.(1)" In addition, its total area of constitutes land is more than 600000 square kilometers, with more than 10000 square kilometers of water.

Location of Somalia (image source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LocationSomalia.svg)

Climate:

"Due to Somalia’s location, which is near the equator, it does not have much seasonal variation in its climate, and the maximum temperatures of mean daily range from 30 to 40 °C.(1)" Although the weather is hot throughout all year-round, the relative humidity has huge difference between coastal regions (humid) and the hinterland (dry).

Animals in Somali:

Because Somalia is located in the tropical zone, Somalia is home to wild animals. It has a large number of birds and has over 170 species of mammals. It is also home to a variety of marine life, including the endangered dugong, manta rays, the Nile crocodile, black marlin, cheetahs, ostriches and so on.

 cheetahs (image source: http://www.bing.com/featured/content/search?q=Animal+Moms%3A+Cheetahs)

Languages:

The official languages are Arabic and Somali, which is the mother tongue of the Somali people, and the second languages are English and Italian, which used to be a major language.

Religion:

Most of residents believe in Islam, which is the state religion. Less than 0.01% of Somalis are Christians. Islam is the monotheistic religion which is taught by Koran and Holy. And its adherent, called Muslims, they believe in the one and unique God, whose name is Allah. Muslims’ main purpose in life is to worship God, who sent many prophets to mankind, including Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Isa (Jesus) and so on, but ultimately, Muslims believe that the last message is sent to prophet Muhammad. Islamic law actually touch each level of somalia’s life and society, from diet to law. 30% of muslims are located in South Asia, and 20% of muslims in Arab countries. Most of the muslim countries are Indonesia. Nowadays, there are about over 15 billion muslims, so the Islam has already become the second largest religion in the world, which is considered to be the largest growthreligion. 

Muslims from all over the world to pray together. (image source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kaaba_at_night.jpg )

 Cuisine:

Somali cuisine is influenced by native Somali, Ethiopian, Yemeni, Persian, Turkish, Indian and Italian. Usually, they drink tea (shaah) to start the day, and the main dish in breakfast is pancake. For lunch, "which is an elaborated main dish, somalisoften use spiced rice with cumin, cardamom, cloves and sage.(1)" In addition, pasta is also widely eaten, which is often served with a heavier stew than the Italian pasta sauce. Samalis often have dinner at 9p.m. However, during Ramadan, which is the ninth month of Islamic calendar, the regulations in Koran requires muslims must keep fast, and stop eating from sunrise to sunset, what’s more, they also need to pray before dinner, so sometimes they eat as late as 11p.m. after they are done with pray. During their dinner time, they often eat cambuulo. "Cambuulo, a common dinner dish, is made of beans mixed with butter and sugar. "(1)

Rice (image source: http://www.google.com/imgres?q=Somalian+cuisine&hl=en&biw=1613&bih=813&tbm=isch&tbnid=AA3Sr8-fgq6ekM:&imgrefurl=http://www.pashtunforums.com/food-31/your-favorite-cuisines-21432/&docid=Nr4DxB_j5djOQM&imgurl=http://images.publicradio.org/content/2008/11/25/20081125_somali_food_33.jpg&w=650&h=433&ei=-F6oTrqNHummsQKS9qTnDw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1164&vpy=194&dur=1264&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=68&ty=49&sig=115048743504919728147&page=1&tbnh=134&tbnw=193&start=0&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0 )

Pasta (image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chicknspag.jpg )

Cambuulo (image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Somali_food.jpg )

Education:

Since the war in 1991, the schools in Somalia are almost closed, adult illiteracy rate has soared 76%. However, in recent years, there is a significant increasing in the number of schools, many areas begin rebuilding primary schools. What’s more,it aslo remains the basic system of traditional religious instruction in Somalia, such as Qu’ranic schools. "They provide Islamic education for children, thereby filling a clear religious and social role in the country. "(1)

New Mogadishu University campus

 (image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mogadishu_university.jpg)

Economy:

"According to the data of CIA and the Central Bank of Somalia, Somalia has a healthy informal economy, which is consists of both traditional and modern production. About 80% of the population is nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoralists, who keep goats, sheep, camels and cattle. The nomads also gather resins and gums to supplement their income." (1)

Government:

In 2004, the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs), the key foundation government,was installed. The TFIs includes the Transitional Federal Charter (TFC), the Transitional Federal Government, and the Transitional Federal Parliament.

The flag of Somali (image source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Somaliland.svg )

Work cited:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramadan

http://www.listofcountriesoftheworld.com/so-animals.html

(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalian_cuisine

Preparations:

To prepare the second interview, I removed some questions which was amphibolous for me, such as ’ how has your culture influenced your family values’, and I added some questions about religion. Since I were interested in religion, I would focus on questions of religion more than others.

Then I decided to interview my classmate, whoes name is Abdilcadir. He is from Somalia, and he is nice and helpful. His major is applied statistics, which is similar to me, so we have the same two courses this semester, and we have more time to talk to each other.

I talked to him if he was willing to be my interviewee, and he said yes. Then I asked him was it ok if I asked him lots of questions about his religion, and he said it was fine to him. So I gave him a copy of paper about questions and let him prepare it.

After one day, we made an appointment on computer lab in ECC after math class. Then we started to conduct the interview.

Interview:

Interviewee: Abdilcadir

Interview: Qing Ren

Location: computer lab in ECC

Time: 11/08/2011

Me: What’s your name?

Interviewee: My name is Abdilcadir.

Me: And where are you from?

Interviewee: I am from Somalia.

Me: Which part?

Interviewee: South side.

Me: How about the weather there?

Interviewee: It is hot and humid.

Me: Which part of view do you like best in your country?

Interviewee: The beach, Somalia is near the Indian ocean, and it has a long coastal line, so the view is beautiful there.

Me: What kind of sport do you like to play?

Interviewee: Soccer, I play soccer with my friends near gym.

Me: How about your education system?

Interviewee: It’s normal education. Eight years for primary and middle school, four years for high school.

Me: And I also heard someone said you had religion schools…

Interviewee: Yep, we have the religion schools, maybe when you were 4 years old, you went to complete religion school. So we have two kinds of school, one is normal school as the schools in U.S. and another is religion school, where we learn religion, Islam. what’s more, we also have a school, we call it ‘dugsi’ in our language, where we learn the basic knowledge about Islam, it is our former education, and we learn it in early age about 3 years old. Maybe you go there at about 5 o’clock in the morning, it takes about 2 hours and you go back home, eat breakfast, then you go to the normal school, and in the afternoon, you go back to the islamic center and learn it for about 3 hours.

Me: That’s cool, so do you read Islamic book in that afternoon?

Interviewee: Yes, we do that.

Me: And do you also pray during that time?

Interviewee: Not really, we pray 5 times a day, such as we pray in the morning, at noon, or in the evening. So we don’t need to go there, we can pray everywhere.

Me: So when you pray, do you go to the temple?

Interviewee: Yes.

Me: Do we have the temple here?

Interviewee: No, not at school, but we have it in the St.Cloud city.

Me: Could you please tell me more about the Islamic book?

Interviewee: We follow the teaching of the Islamic book every day, the book tells us to help poor people, to be nice and respect to other people, to worship only one God. We just pray for one God, whether you are rich or not, we are equal, we all pray at the same time side by side.

Me: That’s so nice. In addition, do you have some rules when you pray?

Interviewee: Ok, it’s a long story. In general, we pray toward northeast. But actually, there is a city called Mecca, which is in Saudi Arabia, and if you are Musilm from China, your face needs to toward this city when you pray, if somebody else are in other place, when they pray, they also need to face to this city, so all the Musilms around world need to face to this city when they pray.

Me: So do Musilms go to this place together every year?

Interviewee: Yep, someone goes there every month, if you have enough money. You know, last Sunday, it was our holiday, called Eid adha. We also have a holiday called Eid fitr, which is a big holiday for us, just as Christmas in U.S. During that time, we go to Mecca and pray. We wear the same dress, for example, for men, they wear a long white clothes and scarfs, and women can wear whatever they want.

Me: Ok, just one more question, do you have some rules about eat animals or something forbitten to eat?

Interviewee: Yes, we eat fish, chicken, turkey except pork, and we also don’t eat dead animals outside because it’s unhealthy.

Me: Ok, thanks for your time

Interviewee: That’s ok.

Personal impressions report:

I was very excited about this interview. Not only Abdilcadir told me lots information about his religion, but also he was a talktive person. I were relax when I talked with him, I didn’t need to figure out much more other questions to conduct him to talk more. He naturally told me lots information which I want to ask to. What’s more, because of the country report of Somalia, I knew some background about Somalia, which helped me easily understand what Abdilcadir were trying to me. In addition, I improved my reaction to interviewee’s answers. I used ‘that’s cool’ or something else to avoid awkward when my interviewee stopped talking. Next time, I think I need to prepare some gifts, such as candy, after we finish our interview.