seriously. i can't eat any more.

Salam uAlakum!

I'm in Morocco now, and enjoying my homestay immensely. My host family consists of Jamal, our host dad and the man of the house (28 ish), his wife Fadua (young, although I'm not sure how young...younger than Jamal, I would say), his two children SiMohammed (Simou for short - 6 years and 9 months) and Zizou (I'm sure this kid has a full name but I have no idea what it is - he just turned three a few days ago), his sister Majda (21), and his mother whose name Jill and I have yet to determine. We call her Grandma.

Here is what a normal day at the House of Jamal looks like.

Jill and I get up around 7:45 and get ready in our room, which is a floor below the main house. The house itself is more of an apartment, taking up the top floor of the building with one room (our room) on a lower floor. Then we go upstairs for breakfasts, saying hello to Jamal and Fadua before we eat what is normally a meal of bread, butter and jam. Jamal recently got into a car accident (around 10 days before we arrived at his front door), so he's been confined largely to one room in the house. Jill and I feel really bad for him - he broke his arm and leg and has multiple face lacerations and who knows how many other injuries - so we try to sit down and talk a bit with him whenever we go to the "Big House". He knows a bit of English that he learned in high school, and it's been really nice to get to know him and the family without an extreme language barrier.

We walk to class then with a big group of people, which usually takes around 45 minutes. It's really hot here on a fairly regular basis, but we've been trying to cover up as best we can to be more culturally aware of the modesty required for most women here as far as dress is concerned. Then we'll have Arabic language class or a class on Moroccan society at the Arabic Language Institute in Fes. Class mostly consists of us staring semi-intently at the teacher while we pretend to know what they're talking about. Really we have no clue. They're not very good at explaining themselves or having a point to their lectures at all...

At around 1 we go back to our house to eat lunch. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day for Moroccan families, which is hard to stomach sometimes because it isn't such a big deal in the states. We eat with out hands out of a common bowl and use bread as our utensils. Jill and I both had colds coming in to the homestay experience, and now that we're getting over ours, our host families are starting to get the sniffles. Wonder why. Lunch usually consists of some sort of salad (not with leafy greens, mind you - sometimes salty carrots, sometimes a mixture of parsley and tomatoes and onions) and a main dish of potatoes and chicken, followed by fruit. We eat until we're full, and then Grandma grabs my thigh (because I inevitably sit next to her) and says "Kul! Kul!" which means, "Eat! Eat!" and pushes more food towards me. This goes on until I absolutely refuse. By then I'm so full it's obscene. Grandma is going to be the death of me.

After lunch we'll go back to school for evening classes, or we'll stay in the living room and do homework. at some point the kids come over and bother us, and we play with them for a while until they get bored. Or I start to ignore them. I'm not really good with kids, but they seem not to notice. One of Zizou's favorite games, by the way, is to run over my feet with his little bike. When I put my feet up on the couch, he hefts the bike up just so he can put the tires on my toes. He's an adorable little brat.

We eat dinner around 10 at night. Last night we had brinner, which I'm not sure Fadua, Grandma and Majda were aware of. Jill and I were ecstatic. The meal was a bowl of creamed rice that we added sugar to, with pomegranates and vanilla yogurt as side dishes. Grandma is diabetic but she was ladling sugar into her bowl like there was no tomorrow. Her diabetes must be selective. As long as she's happy and continues to giggle at us, Grandma can have all the sugar she wants.

Our family is super sweet. Grandma and Fadua laugh at us when we do funny American things, like eat too little or ask how to work a wash board when cleaning our clothes. Majda speaks English, so it's so wonderful to talk to her about what it's like to be our age in Morocco. She's so modern - she wears skinny jeans every day and talks on AIM to her friends. We're Facebook friends, which obviously means we'll be bffls.

All in all, I'm having such a great time at my homestay, even if it makes me miss Minnesota. I'm collecting such stories and memories, though, that it makes the trip completely worthwhile.

I hope you all remain in good health.

B'slama!