Day 6, Part 1: A New Beginning

Oh. My. God.

I love my host family so much. They are so amazing!

For any former Rabatians following along, my host family was Matt’s from last semester. For all others, they are Zhoura El Brouhmani and her son, Yassine. And, since it’s Ramadan, all of their extended family. And I love them all, even if we don’t understand a word the other is saying.

To start at the very beginning (Sound of Music reference aside) I had a few concerns when I first got my sheet of paper with their names and a few quick family facts. For example, the Turkish toilet. And the (relatively) small size – a father, mother, and 2 sons.

When Yassine and I met at the short, hour-long time set up by the CCCL for first impressions, most of my fears melted away – he was an incredibly friendly guy who seemed to know half of the other host families there and spoke almost perfect English. Score! He told me that the family had been hosting students for quite some time – 6 times before (or maybe he said 6 years… it was loud in there and I still had some stress floating around and distracting my thoughts.

However, he also gave me the unfortunate news that my family had recently become even smaller: the first was for a very good reason – Yassine’s brother Adil had gotten married and moved into his own place. However, there was also less happy news – his father, Abdelgani, had died recently, in August if I understood him right. Allah yarhamhu.

Needless to say, I remained a little unsure of what the household would be like when I walked into it this afternoon. Following a morning of overly pretentious theoretical discussion on diversity and other orientation wrap-up, Yassine and I set out through the slim medina streets with my backpack and 2 suitcases in tow. I was grateful for the help – the morning’s walk from the Hotel Majestic across the medina to the CCCL had been a bit taxing to say the least. It was the first quasi-exercise I’d had since arriving, and the sweat pouring down my forehead in the early morning heat made that fact rather apparent. (Of course, it didn’t even begin to compare to a certain Parisian suitcase adventure – I’m looking at you, Rebecca and Monica!)

We pulled up to the house around 3 or 4, and I found the brown, studded door to be fairly large, but otherwise unassuming. However, the minute it opened, I was astonished. The entrance hallway was a vision in blue, with gorgeous navy-and-white patterned tiles and teal accents leading down at least 20 feet until it turned the corner into the central atrium. Here, the already massive ceilings shot up through the second floor to a translucent plastic covering above that let sunlight stream in while barring the elements. My host family owns the entire building, but they rent out the second floor to another family (who seem much louder than we are…). The tiles continued to line half of the wall in this room, with the upper half painted plain white and spotted with a few decorative plates, photos, and a clock. The second floor’s balcony is supported by four stunning teal columns with teal and silver relief carvings which broaden out into teal-rimmed white arches. The entire room is bordered by white carvings in elaborate patterns, and the doors are large made of a beautiful, dark wood. If you can manage to yank your eyes away from the ceiling, you will notice the fairly simple black-and-white tiled floor. Mom would be in heaven with the absolute lack of “clutter” – the sole furniture are a simple table just off center, surrounded by 6 chairs, and 3 fluffy navy sofas arranged in the shape of a “C.”

On each of the atrium’s 4 corners is a different room: two sitting rooms on opposing ends, completely bordered by long continuous sofas (one in red, the other in green). Both rooms also have small tables in the center, and the red one contains a television. When I came in, Zhoura and a few others were relaxing and watching tv, weary from a still-continuing day of fasting. Zhoura was incredibly nice, and I tried my best to remember all of the formal Darija greetings that we had practiced a few days before in our classes. All in all, I think it went well. Zhoura is older, maybe in her 60s, with faded blue eyes, fairly pale skin, and white hair with what seems to be a touch of blond tucked under the hood of her cream-white gallaba (a loose, robe-like dress very popular among both sexes in the region).

On the same side as the entrance lies my room, which is small but perfect for what I need it, really. There’s a bureau which I can use half of, though I’m unclear whether they expect me to use it for clean clothes or laudry (the other half seems to be filled with laundry…). On the left side of the room lies a small cot which my host brothers seem to be dividing amongst themselves while they are visiting for Ramadan. My area is a small offshoot to the right, and consists of a small nightstand and a small bed with white, red, yellow, and blue patterned sheets.

On the final side lies the bathroom, completely green-tiled and rather long but thin. Inside is a sink, a shower, and – to my ecstatic surprise – a Western toilet! I’m not sure when these family description papers were last updated, but they really need to be… On that same side is the kitchen, huge by Moroccan standards, with cabinets and appliances and a microwave and spices and all sorts of fun food paraphernalia.

Inside the kitchen lies a stairway leading up to the first-and-a-half floor. As I said earlier, my host family rents out the second floor, but kept this room for themselves. The ceiling is absurdly low (I’d put it just under 6 ft., since I graze my head on the ceiling tiles if I stand up fully), and inside there is a blue-and-white L-shaped couch. But in the corner lies a veritable treasure among medina houses – a computer with a solid (and fairly high-speed) internet connection! Yassine seems to use it to check his facebook and chat really often, and he says I can use it as I wish. The only awkward thing is the international keyboard – it allows you to type in Roman and Arabic letters, which is really awesome, except they switched the keys for “A” and “Q” as well as “Z” and “W,” and moved “M” up to the colon’s spot next to “L.” It doesn’t sound like much, but trust me – it’s just enough of a shift to make it a bit of a nuisance when you’re trying to type quickly. That, and all of the punctuation marks are moved around, and I can’t figure out for the life of me how to get the keyboard to produce a simple period. Again, it’s just enough to make typing in any website’s address just that much more difficult. So for now, I’m going to continue to write on my laptop and go to the internet café.

Navigating up the tight stairway from this room gives you direct access to the roof terrace. Since ours is among the highest in the neighborhood, the view is beautiful! The first time I went up was around 8:30 PM, so the sun had set and the moon hung low and full, just barely obscured by a thin veil of clouds. Down below, the cramped and dimly lit medina roofs slowly gave way to the brighter, more open spaces of the colonial city and finally the modern sections. The outline of minarets and palm trees dotted the skyline, and I could see the blockish and elaborately carved tower of Hassan II out near the shore. For the first time, I felt the week-old knot in my stomach abate a bit, and I calmly breathed in from the light breeze which drifted in from over the ocean.

I apologize for all of this description, I realize that I’d promised some of you I’d try to keep these shorter. Well, take it in installments….