My New Host Family!

Some of y’all (can you tell that I used to be roommates with a Texan?) have asked why I switched to a different host family, and my reason is that I am greedy and want an entire host family all to myself, so I can speak to them in Darija as much as I want and not be compared to anybody else.

If you’re wondering if it was awkward leaving my first family after all that Omi had done for me while I was sick, it was definitely weird. But I told her, over and over again, that she is one of the best human beings I’ve ever known, and that Amideast (our implementing organization in Rabat) doesn’t like having two Americans living together. I also said that I love her and appreciate everything that she’s done for me, and wrote her a really nice note. I cried when she cried, but I had to do what I had to do. I’ll visit her soon, and bring onions or soap or something as a gag gift.

Anyways, I moved in with my new host family last night, and I LOVE THEM. I live with my host mom, and two older host sisters. My host mom is 60 or 70 years old, and my sisters are both 30ish. Actually, my “sisters” aren’t the daughters of my host mom (at least one isn’t), so I’m not sure how everybody is related but basically I live with 3 women.

My host mom only speaks Darija (kaching!), is super sweet and cute, calls me “Kika” (“Cake,” in Darija, like my last host mom called me, and like how some kids at school call me), and is so flexible and chill. She had so much patience when I could not figure out how to unlock the apartment door for the LIFE OF ME, is incredibly dramatic when she tells stories (picture a dramatic reenactment of an old cat tumbling off the balcony to its death by an elderly woman), and washed and folded my laundry, which was entirely unnecessary, but thoroughly appreciated. She also noticed immediately that I love fruit, so every day I come in my room, there’s another plate of fruit on my table. I am NEVER hungry here.

Also, I’ll be sitting at the dinner table, my mouth stuffed with food, and my host mom will say “cooli cooli!” which means “eat eat!” and she does this at every single meal, despite the fact that I eat 3x the amount of any normal human being. I’ve started to jokingly say it back, and my host sister does the same.

We also drink this weird “juice” that’s really just a bowl full of fruit chunks, so there’s more chewing than drinking involved. The fruits are pretty normal -- bananas, strawberries, apple -- but today there were avocado chunks inside! Didn’t add any flavor, but the sliminess was surprisingly nice.

My host mom is also so unpredictable. For instance, the other day, a bird flew in the house while I was eating breakfast and I pointed at it, super surprised. My host mom looked at me like I was an idiot, and then brought me into the living room where she had put out tons of bread crumbs for the birds. It was only then that I noticed that every single window in the house was open so the birds could enter and exit freely. So bizarre and funny.

My host sister Fatima is very nice, works as the minister of energy (I don’t know, don’t ask), and speaks French and a little bit of English. But, she asked me what language I wanted to communicate in, and is very respectful of the fact that I said “Darija,” even though I’m clearly struggling.

Lastly, I have another host sister named Amina who is mentally and physically handicapped, meaning she can’t walk at all, is fed by my host mom, and looks at me like an alien (to be fair, I am).

Amina is very sweet and I’d be surprised if anybody didn’t like her. She LOVES juice, soda, and tea, and the other morning, there was a tray of tea on the table, but it was really hot and my host mom made that clear. Did that stop Amina from lunging for it? Absolutely not. She lunged a couple times and had to be wheeled farther away, but then she whined for the tea after my host mom repeatedly told her that it was too hot, so she finally gave her a sip. Then Amina realized that it really WAS hot, and calmed down for a bit while it cooled.

My host mom and Fatima are so kind to Amina, it warms my heart. Unlimited patience in this household.

Also, cute little anecdote: today I finished breakfast and went into my room to get my backpack before leaving, and when I was just about at the door, my host mom picked her head up from the couch where she was laying and said, “bslama!” in the cutest way. She had been waiting for me so she could say goodbye, when she could have just gone back to sleep. It was a very sweet moment.

A little off-topic, but my new host family’s apartment is RIGHT next to a mosque and my bedroom window is pointed at it, so the call to prayer is extremely loud. This doesn’t really bother me because the mosque singer guy is pretty good, so the 4am wakeup call is not so unbearable, but today there was a new singer! A teenage boy or something! And “allah akbar” has never sounded so ugly. That poor kid just cannot sing. So I woke up at 4am, laughed, and then went back to sleep. I hope good-singer-man comes back soon.

Oh, and I kind of forgot where my new host family lives so I accidentally went to the wrong floor of the building and attempted to break into somebody else’s home for 5 minutes before some random man angrily opened it and yelled at me in Darija. Lol. #justmadeleinethings I told my host mom and she laughed and said something along the lines of “I’m not surprised, he is very mean. Sometimes I hang up my clothes to dry and they fall onto his terrace and he yells at me, too.”

Not everybody in the building is mean, though. I was on the elevator with a mom and her 15-ish-year-old son and they were carrying pizzas. After exchanging no words at all, just smiles, they offered some pizza to me and welcomed me into their home. It was very nice.

That’s all, folks!