My third interview:

A (me)

C (interviewer)

A: Hi, thank you once again for according me your time, this won’t take very long I promise I just have a few questions for this project that I’m doing for my class. I have to ask questions most to get to know your culture stuff like that, if that’s ok with you.

C: yeah sure, that would be a pleasure

A: so where you from?

C: I’m from Ivory Coast; I have been here for 2 years now.

A: nice, tell me more about Ivory Coast

C: Ivory Coast is this beautiful country in West Africa, you know first of all lets change to the original name, which is in French Cote d’Ivoire people like to put in English but we don’t like it I’m sure if it was  the US they would never accept to put their country’s name in any other language. But anyways, it’s pretty much big, developed more than most African countries even though we have been having political issues for the past 3 years, hope everything works out well for my country.

A: how would you describe your country’s government?

C: Cote d’Ivoire is a Democratic republic; we have a president and a prime minister, congress men and senators. But it would be ironic to say that Cote d’ivoire is democratic republic considering the things happening there. I’m talking about a country where elections are frauds, presidents cheat in order to win, Muslim people are fighting with Christians, you can die just because of your religion and journalists still go to jail because they said something people don’t want to hear.

A: believe me I know what you are talking about, earlier you mentioned political issues, what caused the troubles, what were they about?

C: the troubles started like in 2005, we had elections and the president who won apparently wasn’t from Ivory Coast he was from Burkina Faso, so basically people got mad, then a civil war started between different ethinies, people from the north were fighting with the people in the south. From then we’ve been having issues, civil war even though now the UN is trying to find a solution and the war has stopped we still need to work on some other issues.

A:I guess it was a relief for you to come to the US?

C:to tell you the truth it was, first of all I always liked the US even if there wasn’t going to be a war in ivory coast I think I still would have come to study here. since I was a little kid I always I admired the united states, I always seen it as the country were dreams come true, you know the American dream.

A: since you are mentioning education, what does school like in your country? And as you talk I feel like a disappointment in your voice since you’ve been here am I wrong?

C: well, I don’t much about the Ivory Coast education system since I went all my life in a French school, I started there, I can tell you about that, ok so we start at 3 years old in kindergarten, then at 6 we start primary school then high school at 11.because we only have around 12 then we graduate at 17 with the baccalaureat. And to answer the last question, well how should I put this, when you get somewhere and you have your expectations so high, then reality comes and you find out that everything is not as you imagined so yes there is always a little bit of disappointment.

A: I can imagine, how did you find about SCSU?

C: I heard about the school via a friend

A: do you like it so far? What can be done by the school to make your stay better?

C:yeah I like the school it is fun, I like my major and it hard to find the exact major that I like so on that point I’m pretty happy and umhhh… let’s see what could be better? Maybe the can lower the tuition and the money we pay in the dorms because it is really expensive. And maybe they can improve the food in Garvey it’s really not all that.

A: talking about the food, what are your favorite dishes?

C: my favorite food id atikie with fish it a dish from my country and I like mostly everything else, except American food that I find really unhealthy.

A:Yeah most people say that about the food.how about your culture is there anything you can tell me about it?

C:Waouh ummhh dont see anything special about we are lieke everybody else i guess,hahah nothing special

A:how do you guys greet?

C:We greet differently it depends on the poeple,where they from etc,if they are from the village they will greet differently with lots more respect towards everybody,if they are from the city it is going to be a little bit different.it also depends on your age,women or men many factors i should say i cant give you a straight answer on that one sorry.

A:oh no no,you are fine,how about the holidays?which ones do you guys celebrate?

C:well in my family we celebrate christmas,and all the christians holidays,we celebrate independance day and new's eve as well,after that it depends on poeple and they beliefs,but new's eve and independance day are celebrated by everybody.

 A:well this what I had for questions thank you very much for your time and help, good luck with  everything it was a great pleasure meeting you.

C: Thank you very much, the pleasure was all mine and good luck with everything for you as well.

A: Thanks much see you around

C: yeah see ya…