Orientation... take two!

I've only been in Morocco for 4 days, and I absolutely LOVE IT. The majority of the people on the program has been really friendly and genuine, not as cliquey and as exclusive as the people on my program in Paris, and everyone is just as excited as I am to get to know/move in with our host families in.. half an hour!! It was absolute craziness today when we met our host families yesterday-- all of us students gathered together in the center of a room and waited as scores of Moroccan men, women, and children entered our "school" (the CCCL- Center for Cross Cultural Learning). We all waited anxiously, wondering which Moroccan face was going to be our mother, father, brother, and/or sister for the next 3 and a half months!

About an hour before we met our host families, we were debriefed about our homestays and what it might be like living with them and also given a half page info sheet in our host families. Some of the homes don't have western toilets, so some people are stuck with Turkish toilets. Other differences include having a single room versus sharing a room, and having or not having hot water to shower with. I was really lucky to get a single room, a western toilet, and hot water! After reading the "cool" stuff and finding out that I was one of the lucky ones to get all three luxuries, I skimmed the paper to see the Arabic names of my family members, which of course, I could not really pronounce. Being so excited, I skimmed my paper a few more times before I realized that the space that said "Mother" on my paper actually said "Mothers," and indeed, I saw two names: Rahma & Fatima. I double checked to see if there had been a mistake and if maybe the father's name was missing, but nope, next to "Father" it said: Abdessalam. I was kind of in a shock/very surprised when I read that, because if I have two mothers, that means.... I'm living in a polygamous household.. ! It was just surprising to me because even though I've read and heard of polygamous families, it's hard to imagine that they still exist and that I'm actually going to be living in one! From past novels that I've read about kings who have had numerous wives, there always seemed to be lots of drama and tension between the wives, so I guess that's my impression of a polygamous household.. but I'm sure this experience will change my views. The families that our program uses are very reliable and known by our homestay coordinator, so I'm not worried about it not working out, though I am still a bit nervous.

20 minutes til my host brother comes to pick me up and take me away! So at the host family encounter/meeting yesterday, I was expecting to see my host mom, or moms, but I was greeted by my host brother and sister! My host brother, Abdelkarim (who goes by Karim), is 19, though he looks much older, and my host sister, Kawtar, is 13. Karim speaks decent English which was really nice and made conversing/getting to know each other less awkward. My sister, however, only speaks Arabic and French, so I felt bad that Karim and I were speaking in English the whole time and she was probably bored out of her mind. Nonetheless, she was very sweet and patiently listened to us jabber on in a foreign language to her.

Random tid-bits that I found out from my host brother:

- the house I will be living in is "very big"

- I am the 9th or 10th student they have hosted, though I am the first Asian they've had

- the family has no pets :(

- my first mom, which is Karim's stepmother, has 2 daughters who both live in Spain, one of them is about 56 and I think the other is 48 and they both have children, the older one even has grandchildren!

- my family loves to watch movies, sooo that means I will be watching lots of movies :D

Ahh! time to go, my family is here! More later :)

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