Community is king to sophomore Nidal Kahl, who likes to spend his time with his family and practicing traditional Greek dance through his church, where he participates in a regional Greek dancing competition, but for him, the competitive aspect isn’t the point.
“We all have a competition, but it doesn’t feel like a competition. It really feels more like a gathering,” he said.
The church’s program is run through volunteers, who teach Greek songs as well as dance.
He has participated in it since first grade, saying that he was originally interested in the activity because family members, including his mom, his aunts, and his cousins, had done it too.
Academically, this year has been rigorous for Kahl, who works hard to keep up with his classes and works with math teacher Ms. Rose Adkisson in the mornings to preserve his math grade.
“I’m always trying to have my grades up,” he said. “I was always usually good at math, but this year, it’s kind of hard in Honors Algebra 2.”
Kahl is also interested in chemistry and history. “My dad, he went to college for microbiology, so I kind of have a foundation of science,” he said. Since the history of the Middle East is covered this year, he finds his World History 2 class interesting.
Half Greek and half Syrian, Kahl has lots of family in the Eastern Mediterranean, although he has not met many of his cousins.
“Through my Greek culture, we have something called name days,” he said. “You’re named after a saint… and so basically the saint you’re named after — their patron day — is your name day, and you have a big feast with your family.”
Referencing the church on the Syrian side of his family, he said that, “they host kind of the same thing as the Greek church, where they host something called a Hafli, where basically everyone gets together.” After which they have dinner and people take part in a traditional dance called Dabqe.
On both sides of his family, Kahl finds each culture to be similar in their food, dance, and traditions.
Kahl has tried a fair share of sports in his life.
“I played recreational volleyball with my cousins’ coed team since third grade,” he said. “I played a bunch of sports, but I wasn’t really good at them, so I didn’t like pursuing them.”
Alongside volleyball, he has played a huge range of sports such as baseball, basketball, soccer, and tennis, but recently he’s been trying to get into golf, adding that his cousins play it.
Kahl has always played video games with his father.
“That’s what we kind of bonded over,” he said. “He’d wake me up super early in the morning on weekends, and we’d just play video games with each other.”
Because his dad went there, Kahl may go to Oregon State University, and is interested in potentially pursuing software engineering.
“I’ve always been a techie guy,” Kahl said.
Kahl may be academically oriented, but what he cares about most is his family. Family and communication, he said, are the things he holds closest to his heart.
