Things Are Better... Sort Of

I realized that I hadn't really been trying that hard to interact with my family. I have taken some small steps towards fixing this. I asked my mother how to do laundry (they have a washing machine; they're so rich), I lost my multivitamins and asked the family to help me search, and I seek people out, wherever they are in the house, to let them know that I have returned to the house or am about to leave. It's better already. I still eat a surprising number of dinners by myself, but this week is odd because the children do not have school (they had finals last week). I've eaten lunch alone all week because no one is home at that time, and I have eaten breakfast alone every morning because no one else is awake at that time. The milk here, even when not heated and sweetened, tastes quite different from American milk. It's still pasteurized and kept cold in the fridge, but there's an aftertaste that is hard to describe. It's still delicious, and it kills me that I get only four ounces of it every morning. I bought a carton of milk from a vendor the other day and chugged it all right then and there. The man stared at me, but I didn't care. Matt and I found a man who sells freshly-made donuts for 1 1/2 dhm. We stop by every evening on our way home from Arabic. Before we found him, there were virtually no sweets in our diet at all.

Yesterday in Arabic we had a field exercise at a café. We were split up by class and given a budget of 10dhm. Well, nothing on the menu was less than 12dhm, so I was slightly annoyed about that because I had no money on me and had to bum from a classmate. Still, it was the first time that I was able to order in Arabic and be responded to in Arabic, though we were given funny looks for speaking in Fus'ha (standard Arabic) instead of darija (Moroccan Arabic), but it is progress. We have a quiz today in Arabic that covers vocabulary from four chapters and nomical case endings. Arabic syntax is the craziest thing that I have ever seen. Take the verbal syntax of German, put in the nominal syntax of Gaelic-Irish, the adverbial syntax of French, and the writing system of Hebrew, and you have Modern Standard Arabic. I can't tell if my linguistics background is beneficial or not in trying to grasp this language.

Most everyone in the group has gotten sick at some point so far. One girl had to go on an IV in a clinic from dehydrating so much after an instance of food poisoning. Half of us, myself included, just cannot handle drinking the water here, and as bottled water is incredibly expensive (30dhm for a standard bottle of water), we're very carefully keeping ourselves slightly on the dehydrated side. The weather is warming up slowly, so those with colds are finally being given a chance to recover. However, the pollen count goes up with the temperature, so the poor souls with allergies are suffering more and more. Pharmacies here are very oddly arranged, and it is next to impossible to get a pharmacist's help because they ignore white people on average.

The readings for our gender class are scary. They go into detailed description and justification of Islamic practices of the veil, marrying the paternal cousin, ird (familial honor), patrilineal loyalty, and such things. Reaading them makes me feel like such a terrible, promiscuous, provocative harlot. Women are regarded as carnal beings constantly seeking physical pleasure, and while a man has no choice but to succumb to her seduction, he must not invest himself emotionally in her because he must save his emotions for God. Even music sung by women is seen as musical, even if it just a woman singing a Quranic verse. A few times I have worn a scarf on my head in public, and while it does generally deter men from calling on me, if they get a close look at my pale face and eyes, or if any blonde hair sticks out, I may as well be naked in the street for all the unwanted attention put on me.

On a lighter note, I found the one grocery store in the city that sells cereal. I am hitting that up this afternoon, for sure, and will probably consume the entire box in one sitting. If people want to send me cartons of milk, I would have absolutely no objection to that whatsoever.