The First Weekend

I hardly even know where to start. My mother is a French teacher, so from the get-go my house is pretty westernized. I spoke French to everyone the entire time, so that is a mixed blessing. I helped Maha with her French and English homework a lot, so that made me feel smart. We ate pizza, pasta, and fish for all the dinners, bread with Nutella and milk for breakfast, and there was couscous the one evening. There is no such thing as decaffeinated coffee here, so even though my parents insist on coffee with dinner, I have to refuse if I want to sleep at all. Despite having eaten my fill at most meals, I think I have lost weight based on how my pants fit.

My siblings love my stuff but not me per se. I had to lock all my stuff up when I left because Fayçal has no class today and Maha is sick, so the parents are gone and they are home alone. Fayçal is a very mean big brother, and I pretty much act like another mom to him. Maha has just started her English studies in school and Fayçal has been studying for three years. They love to come to me and ask, "what is this?" while pointing to an object in their hands. I taught my mother a bunch of kitchen terms.

The house itself is not like a normal house with a central counrtyard. It is all white with nothing on the walls. The echo is so terrible that one can drop a pin and here it anywhere. I noticed that my family members never changed their clothes all weekend long. I may start wearing some shirts twice before putting into the laundry but I will be changing regularyly. They don't even change into pajamas. No one took a shower either, though the BU contract states that we need to have our own rooms and access to a daily shower. I felt weird taking just one this weekend. I will take one every other day, but it's quite an ordeal to even turn on the hot water. There are only two trashcans in the whole house, and they're maybe a cubic foot each. There is no floss here, so I sure am glad that I brought my own plus back up.

Everyone wakes up at 7am via the small alarm clock in the parents' bedroom. SO LOUD! O my god, I cannot handle the noise level in this house. I do have my own "room" but really it is an alcove, as in there is no door. I have the option of sharing Maha's room so that I have a door and maybe even access to a closet but I lived with enough eight-year-olds this summer, so I will stick to my alcove. The bed is fine but the pillows are rock hard and leaving my neck aching, so I need to get a soft pillow.

Fayçal and Maha wanted to get some Coke, so I went with them to a vendor to buy a liter. It cost 7,50 dhm (8 dhm = $1) because they bought Coke in a recycled bottle (the new bottle price is 9,50 dhm). The Coke here has so much more sugar than that in America. Everything that one drinks has lots of sugar. Milk is served with breakfast but it is served hot and with a sugar cube, so it's delicious. Coffee is either black or with milk but always with sugar. Nobody else drank water but me. I am not made to feel like a foreigner but it is still taking time to adjust. We sit at the very low table in the kitchen on stools to eat. I am taller than the dad by about five inches, and I don't fit well at the table and my feet stick out the end of the bed if I have my legs straight.

I did a lot of letter writing and book reading over the weekend, as I quickly tired of Pog and backgammon playing with my siblings. My father wasn't really there during the day, I suspect off in a manly area like a café, smoking and staring at women. He did take me, Fayçal, and Maha to the supermarket to buy pizza crust. He pointed excitedly to Oust and Tide and said "American products?!" I nodded. He seemed happy. The children and mother speak French fluently; the father is pretty competent but it is mostly darija.

Today is the first real day of school. I had my post-colonial aesthetics and politics class this morning. He lectured mostly on the significance of poetry. Education, until the 1950's, was taught wholly in verse including the sciences and mathematics. Kids, err boys, had to have the entire Quran memorized by age six or seven in that age. Even foreign languages were taught in verse, often accompanied by music. We will have our Arabic class this afternoon at the CCCL annex, which is apparently not even in the medina. I haven't figured out exactly how to navigate by myself, and the fact that I get harassed and proposed to every time I go out alone does not encourage my wanting to explore on my own.

I have to leave now to take passport pictures to extend my visa. I will write more!