Week 3 or Maybe 4 in Morocco:

I have not been keeping up with this at all but I finally got some time to write things down. My introduction to what is going on around me is just beginning. At this point the major cultural divide is still the language barrier. My host family is where I am supposed to be learning the most yet I often find myself being so exhausted by the end of the day, searching my brain for Arabic phrases to communicate is the last thing I want to do. However, the effort is there and especially in daily settings my Arabic is improving. I also feel that in a family where everyone works long days, their effort and enthusiasm to push us to use Arabic is missing. The dynamics with the family is interesting. Two of the daughters are out of the house so there is just my one host sister, Sarah, host brother, Ayman, parents, and maid. For most of the day no one is home and the house is quite. Around 7 the whole house wakes up. The tvs come on and everyone is interacting except for our host brother, who is usually in his room. Our host brother also has never eaten dinner with the family, and I have had little interaction with him besides him changing the tv station to MTV Arabia. The rest of the host family usually eats together, except for my host dad who sometimes doesn’t. Dinner time is an experience that’s for sure. It usually starts with a medley of fresh vegetables. Then some sort of tajiin which starts off as an enjoyable experience but ends with me hiding the hoobz, Moroccan Arabic for Bread, from my host mom so she can’t force me to eat more. The tajiin is eaten with bread and your hands. The contents of the tajiin are packed into the bread for each bite. Which is perfectly fine with me because it is a much more efficient way of eating. Dessert is either an orange or banana, and randomly we will have cake or cookies. Sometimes there will be tea after dinner. Conversation goes on for about 20 minutes and then everyone goes to bed on extremely full stomachs. AND that sums up my experiences with my host family day in and day out so far.