First weekend

(warning: this is long and potentially boring :O)

FRIDAY

What an evening. Yesterday, when my host sister came to pick me up, she bluntly informed me that her mother had died, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. I, of course, was stunned and felt really terrible for her. The homestay coordinator, Doha, pulled me aside to speak to me and reiterated what my host sister had told—that one of my host mothers, the older one, had passed away. She told me that I had three options: 1) I could move in with a different family 2) I could stay with the family but move in three days later (the funeral/death ritual lasts about three days) or 3) I could move in with the family as planned as they were in the midst of everything going on. I felt really bad about what had happened to them, but that didn’t change my mind about how I felt about the family, or what I had seen of it thus far. I asked Doha to make sure that I could still move in with my family—my biggest worry was that I would be an extra burden or stress for them, but she reassured me that they welcomed me to come into their home still. Doha told me that I would most likely be asked to put on a jelaba, the traditional Moroccan dress, as well as a head covering while I was there. She was concerned that I might be overwhelmed by it all and thought it might be a good idea to stay in a hotel for the next three days before moving in. She said that there would be a lot of relatives at the house and many women would probably come up to me, kiss me, and give me their condolences. I thought about all the things she said and decided that I still wanted to move in with the family, so I did.

My host sister and I dragged my two suitcases down the narrow streets of the Medina as storekeepers and other locals stared at us. When we finally reached home, I was a little scared and nervous.. many things were running through my mind—would the family blame my arrival as the cause of my late host mother’s death? Was my host family just being polite in saying that I was still welcome at their home, and perhaps really did not want me there? What would all the relatives think? My fears amounted a little more when I saw my host brother who quietly took my large, obnoxiously heavy suitcase up two flights of stairs to my room and didn’t seem to answer the few remarks/questions I asked him. Of course, I understood that he was probably upset that his stepmother had just passed away, but I was afraid that maybe he wished I would have moved into a different family’s home…

After I was shown my room, I began to unpack and settle in. As I opened my suitcases, I saw that there were no drawers or closet to hang my clothes in. There was an extra bed nicely made, so I decided to stack my clothes on it. My room consists of my bed, that extra bed, a small bed desk, and another table. It took a while to unpack and reorganize everything, but I managed. As I was unpacking, my host father came into my room to introduce himself to me. My host father, however, only speaks Arabic—no French or English—but I could tell from his gestures and smile that he welcomed me into their home and was happy to have me. Once I got into my room, he prepared some food/snacks for me and had Karim ask me if I wanted anything to drink. Though I only asked for water, my host father entered my room a few minutes later with a small table and a tray with dates, bread, honey, coffee, and cups! Talk about Moroccan hospitality! My host sister later came into my room and offered me a different cup of coffee with milk, and also brought a bowl of sugar. I don’t drink coffee at all, but I tried the coffee she brought me and mmmm! It was delicious! It didn’t taste bitter, like the way most coffee tastes to me. It tasted kind of like a Starbuck’s frappaccino, but way less sweet. Anyhow, as I was almost finished unpacking, Kawtar came into my room and asked if she could stay with me because she didn’t want to go downstairs and be with everyone else. Of course I had her stay with me and we spoke a bit—I showed her Portobello and blew up my yoga ball. Afterwards, I showed her the pictures I had brought of my family in friends and tried to explain to her who was who and where I was in each picture. It was really nice bonding with her, she made me feel very accepted, as if I had always been part of their family.

Kawtar and I stayed in a room for a bit before we were called out of my room to join everyone else. By that point, I had already put on the light blue jelaba and pink head scarf Kawtar gave me to wear, so we went outside. All the men sat on the first floor, listening or participating in the singing/chanting, the praying and the reciting of the Qua’ran, while the women sat on chairs on the second floor, listening and watching the men. When I sat down with them, it was already 7pm or so (Kawtar picked me up at 5pm). As I sat there, I figured that we would probably watch/listen until dinner time, 9pm. I sat with Kawtar at first, but she kept going off to do other things, so I ended up spending a good amount of time with the other female relatives who mostly only spoke Arabic. The clock on the wall was nearing 9pm and I figured dinner should be soon. 9 o’clock came and went and the chanting continued… okay, I thought, we definitely ought to have dinner by 10, right? Well, 10 came and went by as well. Luckily though, one of Kawtar’s relatives, Ikhlas (pronounced “air-lez”) sat with me and chatted with me in French! She lives in Tangier but was here to attend her grandmother’s funeral and the whole ritual. She was super friendly and a happy/enthusiastic personality and the two of us got along really well. She was also very chatty and good at keeping the conversation alive, which was good for me, because that kept me preoccupied for the most part until we finally got up to eat, at midnight.. !

All the women ate together upstairs on the second floor (I believe the men had eaten first, all together downstairs). We had a huge platter of couscous with a whole chicken for each table. Oh my goodness, that was THE most amazing and delicious couscous I have ever eaten!! Of course, I was starving at that point and thought I was going to faint (I hadn’t eaten much of the snack I was brought when I first arrived), but I honestly thought the couscous was just divine. I ate my section of couscous and made sure not to go past my section of food, but Ikhlas made sure to put extra portions of chicken in my section—Moroccan hospitality at work. After dinner, I pretty much just changed into my PJs, brushed up and went to bed.

SATURDAY

Today was less crazy than yesterday. After going to bed at almost 2am, I woke up around 9:30am and brushed up. I wasn’t sure if I should go downstairs or not, but I really needed to go to the bathroom, so I put on my jelaba and head scarf and went downstairs. When I came downstairs, the ladies in the kitchen quickly pushed me to the tables to eat breakfast. I was served coffee with milk, like last night, and there were different kinds of bread on the table—traditional Moroccan bread, baguettes, croissants, and another kind of bread-like food. Ikhlas and Kawtar weren’t awake yet, so I sat with the female relatives who spoke zero French. It was actually a fun experience having breakfast with them, they spoke to me in Arabic, which I didn’t understand, but I understood through their gestures that they wanted me to eat more. The female relative on my right kept checking on me to make sure I had enough food—she even spread some honey on a pancake looking bread and gave it to me and also put a croissant right in front of me! After eating some bread, we were served vegetable soup (Iklas had told me the night before that there would soup in the morning), which was quite good. I was stuffed for breakfast and eventually made my way out of the dining room and up to my room. My friend, Rachel, had texted me to see if I could hang out and I got one of the relatives’ permission to go out—it was really more like me telling her I would be out for a few hours.

I somehow found my way to the CCCL—I actually wasn’t really sure how to get there since I had only been shown how to get to my host family’s house once yesterday. Rachel and I ran into other students in our program at the CCCL, so we hung out with them for a bit but ended up splitting from the group. It was nice to be outside, the weather was nice, sunny and warm, a nice change from being inside the house all night yesterday. We walked around a bit, and I was sort of pushed into buying a pair of leather sandals.. I knew that once I started bargaining with the storekeeper, I would have to buy the shoes if he budged the slightest, so I ended up getting a pair for about $4.50 which isn’t bad at all. After hanging out for a little more than an hour, Rachel had to go back home for lunch and I decided to find my way back home. When I got home, I hung out with Karim for a bit—watched him play soccer on his PSP and also talked a bit about some differences in our culture, like what kind of clothes we/other people wear, etc. Kawtar and Iklas came up too, as well as their cute little cousin, Yasmine, who entertained us for a while. I ended up coming back to my room to blog and have some alone time. I was amused that Karim came to check in on me twice, asking if I was okay and stuff like that, and Kawtar even came up too and brought me some snacks and coffee to drink :)

I guess I might have been in my room for a little while, because Karim eventually came to my room, followed by Iklas and Kawtar, to keep me company. Even Yasmine found her way to my room too. I played some of my music for them and showed Karim pictures from my picture album, and when Karim was called downstairs later, Iklas and Kawtar played some of my Arabic music and were dancing to it haha :) Iklas ended up being called downstairs to help as well, but Kawtar and Yasmine stayed with me in my room until we went down for dinner. It was really nice that they all came up to my room to hang out with me—I really felt like they wanted to include me and make me part of their family. I think they might have been worried that I would be lonely, and I must admit that it was nice to have them, it really made me feel like I was with family.

Dinner was delicious as usual! We had some leftover soup with bread, fish and potatoes with this delicious sauce, and apples, bananas, and oranges as dessert. Delicious!! I love all the food I have eaten so far. The food and the company/inclusion into the family here in Morocco TOTALLY makes up for the lack of food and cold atmosphere I experienced in Paris. I really, really like it here a lot. I’ve been so happy lately and feel quite at home here.

SUNDAY

A summary of the interesting things I did today: visit the Hassan Tower and Mohammed V Mossoleum, and saw the Royal Palace from the outside. Not so interesting things I did today: stayed in for the majority of the day, doing mostly nothing as no one else was doing anything. I’m not sure if that’s part of the funeral ritual that goes on for three days or if Moroccans are generally so inactive. With no internet to keep me updated and, I suppose, entertained as well, I watched a movie my host brother gave me to watch and later hung out with my host brother and sister and their cousins.. we didn’t really do much at all except sit there are watch over the younger kids. As much as I enjoyed getting to know everyone, I must admit that after three days of almost the same thing, the whole sitting around and doing nothing was starting to drive me nuts. I even tried to sign up for a gym membership this morning, but unfortunately, the gym was closed! I would have loved to run along the beach, but my host brother told me I shouldn’t run alone. Oh, and I shouldn’t wear shorts while running if I didn’t want everyone gawking at me. Oh, dear. I also haven’t showered since Friday and feel very icky and gross. I thought I would be able to shower at the gym today, but working out/running didn’t work out today, so I’ll have to save that for tomorrow morning.

As much as I love my host family, staying in all day long makes me feel stuck and restricted. I need to be outside doing something, I can’t sit in all day.. I feel like my brain has slowly been rotting.. @_@