“I’m from Tunisia. If you don’t know where that is, it’s North Africa, next to all the northern countries like Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Libya. Tunisia is an Arab country. It’s very beautiful. We don’t have a lot of problems or troubles over there, so you don’t really see it on the news or hear about it because it’s just a nice country, I guess. We’re friends with everyone, I guess?
I’m actually half and half. So I’m half Tunisian and half Saudi Arabian. So I lived in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia too. The city I lived in was Jeddah. Saudi Arabia is a very conservative, religious country. Religion over there is Islam. People are very traditional – but not nowadays. That would probably be the older people over there. But the young generation nowadays are more open and liberal than conservative.
If I’m talking about culture, we have a huge, like a really big amount of different cultures and traditions and customs and stuff, that’s all mixed together. Because I’ve been to different places, and I love different cultures, I can’t say that I’m just from one place. I like to get a little bit of everything. So of course, I consider myself Arabian, but at the same time, I like to include some things of the Western part that I went to, like England. For example, dressing wise, I like to dress more Western style. I would have more of a Western look, but with a hint of Arabian style. Like, sometimes we have certain way of doing our makeup – Like we like to emphasize the eyes more than anyone else. We like colors, very much colorful. We like to be fancy all the time – dressed up all the time. Here, you see people dressed in casuals, in jeans and very comfortable sweatpants and stuff. That’s not common in my country. It’s more common to see people dressed up. Over there, they use a lot of perfume. Really good quality, but a lot. Like here, let’s say, if a person from my country would walk, the smell of perfume would stay another 15 minutes in the place because they really shower in perfumes. So, it’s a difference in culture, but it’s interesting. I like it.
I came about 3-4 years ago to the US. But I was like, in a language program. That was what I was doing mainly, ’til I got my acceptance and so on. I’m doing my pre-med at Northeastern. This is my second quarter. Hopefully, once I get accepted to medical school, I’m interested in plastic surgery and dermatology. So, whichever comes first. I’m not sure of that.
My mother’s side, they’re mostly doctors. And my uncle is a doctor. He’s a dermatologist. So that’s where I got the interest and because he’s a really good doctor, and he loves his job. He was actually one of the first to support me when I took that decision. I used to go with my mother’s brothers and sisters who work in the medical field – I used to go with them and see how it is like to work at a hospital. So I developed interest when I was young. I like the environment. I like that it’s hands-on. I’m very visual, so I like to see things instead of just talking about them. Of course, I also felt like you’re doing something. At the end of the day, you feel like you achieved something. You helped someone. You feel the change everyday.
I’m a very active person. I love to travel. I love to meet new people. I love different cultures. I love to be around people. The best place, I would have to say, is London. Because it’s full of history, full of culture. Elegance. It’s very beautiful. I feel like it’s very rich in different things, you know. Culture, sights, everything. And I love museums – full of museums! Everything is green. I used to joke about it, when I’m talking to mom on the phone, ‘Mom, everything here is green! Even the street is green.’ They just grow the, I don’t know, some kind of grass or like a strange kind of thing, I’ve never seen that anywhere else but England. It’s just a green cover that grows anywhere. It climbs buildings, it climbs everything. It climbs the streets.
I love to go on long drives – like long road trips – because you get to see more. You get to go to more places. You’re going to have to talk to people. You’re going to have to stop in different places and check the area. That’s what I find interesting. You get to see things, and not everyone gets the opportunity to go on a cross-country road trip. I actually feel lucky that I had the chance to. I actually drove from Boston to California. The trip itself took 3 days. And I was the only one driving. I had my family with me, but it was very interesting. We went to Chicago, and all the way down. Before that, I moved to Florida. And I drove from Florida to here. Lived in Florida, lived in Daytona Beach, Jacksonville, Florida. Lived in Orlando. I lived there for just for a little, tiny bit because I have family everywhere.
The thing that I don’t like about people here, sometimes – not just here, a few places that I’ve been to. They’re not very open to different cultures. They’re kind of scared, or because maybe they don’t understand your culture, they just immediately try to deal with you. Like I lived in Jacksonville, Florida, which is really not the best place. It’s really boring. I can’t believe I survived over there, honestly. But every time, I speak to someone that I lived there, they say, ‘Jacksonville? What were you thinking? Why?’ I’m like, ‘I know.’ Well, I didn’t know anything, and when I came, that was the first city that I went to. They actually, they wouldn’t try to say something bad, but what they would do is that they wouldn’t deal with you anymore. Like you would talk to them, or ask them something, and they would be like, ‘I don’t know’ because they just don’t want to talk to you. And I thought it was just me, or me being sensitive or something, but I lived in different places to notice and know the difference.”
Excerpt may be edited for clarity.