Part of the Family

Unbelievably, I have already been in Morocco for three and a half months. I know it seemed like I dropped off the face of the planet for the first three of those months. I would like to fill everyone in a little bit on what I’ve been up to! I will address other aspects of my training soon, but I want to paint a picture in this post about what it was like for me to live with a Moroccan host family.

On January 23, 103 new volunteers gathered in the lobby of Hotel Oscar in Rabat and boarded three buses to begin our journeys outside of the capital. Along with five other volunteers, I was assigned to a small town of about 4,000 people fewer than 15 miles outside of Fez. We had only heard horror stories about Ain Cheggag before we arrived on that cold, rainy afternoon. My initial fears were that it would be a boring, dirty, close-minded small town, but we were all in for a surprise.

I spent the next two and half months living on the edge of town with the most incredible host family I could have dreamed of. Never in my life aside my from family did any group of people make me feel more at home and welcome than did my host family. I will forever be grateful for them for their understanding and patience with me, as I tried to adapt to life in Morocco: the food, how to interact, where to buy things, who to trust, and who to avoid. Their one-on-one Darija lessons were the most helpful language sessions of my life. Perhaps most unexpectedly, I watched them live their lives as faithful Muslims and came to understand their religion in a way in which I never dreamed.

Me and the groom, Samir, and Hmed.

My host mother, Aicha, inspired me beyond words with the way she humbly raised five sons and a daughter alone after her husband passed away almost 20 years ago. Despite her lack of formal education, she stands out as one of the wisest people I have ever met in my life. My brother, Hmed (26), and I formed an immediate bond. He is my best Moroccan friend, and honestly the best Darija teacher (with amazing English) in the country. My two youngest host brothers, Jamal and Jawad (19), are twins, and Aicha and the neighbors would often joke that there were now two sets of twins in the family when they would see me and Hmed. I was so lucky to be living with the family this winter/spring, because Samir (25) got married on March 1, so I was able to experience the preparation and execution of a beautiful Moroccan wedding. We spent a lot of time together before his wedding and shared so many laughs. He showed me an entirely different side of the Moroccan military. Tarek (23) is the best Darija rapper Ain Cheggag has ever seen. I know he has great things ahead in his future. He also owns the coolest barber shop in town and was the first person, other than myself, to cut my hair since 2008! It’s a shame that Wahiba (21) lives ten hours away with her husband and little daughter, Miriam, because we got along great when she was in Ain Cheggag for the wedding. I can tell the family isn’t complete when she’s not around. And the twins – we had so much fun laughing at each other when we had no idea what we were saying to each other. They made fun of me for my ugly boots and dirty clothes. They definitely thought I was the weirdest person who ever came into their house, but they would help me out with all of my random requests and clarify any confusion I had about the family or the neighborhood.

The whole neighborhood is involved in the wedding!

Along with my family, the neighborhood comprised more than a dozen families that all cared for, respected, watched out for, bickered with, and, above all, cooked for each other! I never fully comprehended the idea of community until I lived in my small corner of Ain Cheggag. Every family opened their homes to me – a complete stranger – and taught me how to live in Morocco. Sometimes I wished for a little anonymity, but nothing helped put a smile on my face on a hard day more than the greetings from parents sitting on their stoops and the squeals of the little kids running full speed at me to kiss my cheeks four times each and grab me with muddy hands. The respected and appreciated me immensely, yet at the same time treated me like a two-year-old. They taught me to appreciate the people around me and to be satisfied with what I have. It hit me hard to know that the amount of belongings I was able to pack into two suitcases to bring with me for two years in Morocco is far more than many people own here. I am forever grateful for the lessons these people – many of whom I don’t even know their names – taught me on a daily basis. 

The thought of having a host family for many months was perhaps what had me the most worried before leaving for Peace Corps, but now I realize it may end up being the most enriching part of my service as a volunteer. Their respect for my way of life and their passion to show me theirs made a lasting mark on me, and I hope to be able to live more like them in the future. 

Covered in Cookies

“Smahali, wesh katarf ila kayn si dar f la-kra?”

Excuse me, do you know of a house for rent?

I had the phrase perfected. I already had mumbled it to every corner store owner in Errachidia that week, and now, in my desperation, was beginning to throw it toward anyone who dared give me a second glance or seemed unoccupied at the moment: the group of men chatting in front of the hanut; the young man watching his grandfather smash a brick into a oblivion with an aging hammer; the woman carrying her olive oil and fresh laundry; and the children in the middle of a war in which a mushy, dirty sphere was the sole object of their attention.

I stood patiently for a moment behind the customer making small talk with a woman and her husband – the owners of this pressing shop. I hadn’t a moment to waste. Unaware of the rudeness of my action, the phrase cut the man short, and suddenly everyone within earshot saluted to attention.

Who is this foreigner? Why is he here? Should I respond in French or Arabic? Darija is for us.

The couple sent hesitant glances back and forth, and the man set his iron aside. The steaming jellaba on the ironing board would have to wait.

“I’m sorry, sir, there’s nothing around here,” he eventually murmured, seemingly exasperated by his consideration.

Despite this firm statement, I saw in his eyes that he hadn’t yet consulted his full mental rolodex, so I lingered. I glanced sideways to see the customer ushering me out with his intense glare.

“Actually, there’s a man who smokes cigarettes all day two corners up from here. His name is Brambabil.” The silence was broken with the owner’s statement. With my mind racing to understand the desert Darija I had been abruptly thrown into just days before, my face clearly showed resignation that I could not possibly remember that name after picking my way across broken cement tiles for two blocks as the sun lashed my skin outside – apparently unconstrained by any atmospheric barrier my body had become accustomed to in the U.S.

A moment later I was in heat holding on to the tiny square of paper with too many Arabic Bs scribbled on its surface. After a week of searching, my golden ticket had just been handed to me by the kind shop owner.

Two blocks later: a leathery man on a broken lawn chair. An ashtray. “Brambabil!”

He looked around as if maybe I were talking to someone sitting beside him he had noticed, and upon verifying that he was indeed alone, as he had probably been all morning, he pointed down a narrow alley and garbled something about a blue Mercedes whose tail light I could see behind a tangle of flowers fifty yards down the curving passageway. A quick thanks, and I scurried off.

Just like Charlie, I handed my ticket the man oddly sitting alone in the back seat of his once luxurious means of transportation. I understood that he could not read the name written on my paper and referred me to his daughter unnoticed and silhouetted in the doorway of his home. Her French was flawless as far as I could tell, but it did little to aid me in my search. The motion of her hand alerted me that I must proceed two doors to my left.

Finally, my knock on Brambabil’s door pierced the hot air of the alley.

“Shkun!?,” I heard from within.

No one you know.

My unsatisfying answer led to an inquisitive crack in the door and reassurance that I had again missed my target. However, before I had a chance to step off the tiled stoop back onto the dirt path, the door opened further, and the woman within identified herself as Brambabil’s wife but stated that he was not home. Two young boys inquisitively peered at me through from behind the woman’s dress.

After explaining my role as a Peace Corps volunteer at the local youth center, I saw two small coins fall into the hand of one of the boys’, and he took off toward the main street. By the time he returned with the coins still in his hand a few minutes later, a group of small children had begun to congregate around my feet – each one tugging on my clothes and inquiring incomprehensibly. The woman emerged from the house with a yellow chair that somehow made its way from a post-war American kitchen to this scorched corner of the Sahara. I was ordered to sit, and a silver tray of hot tea and cookies was thrust onto my lap.

As she made her way to try her luck at contacting her husband, the children swarmed me. Suddenly I was aware of the prying eyes laid upon me from every house lining the alley. It was probably not every day that an American sat on a house chair in the middle of the road drinking tea and giving cookies to ravenous children. Little girls giggled as they snapped cell phone pictures of me, and two little boys shouted names of every vegetable they could think of to see if I know them and eat them. Twenty minutes or more passed before the woman – mother, aunt, neighbor of the raucous crowd – returned to pull children from me and refill my glass of tea. She assured me to wait just a while longer.

Moments later, a small, white hatchback rattled across the rocks and broken tile and came to a stop directly in between my comical resting place and the threshold of the home.

“Brambabil?”

He warily shook my hand and asked what I was doing here, pretending to be unaware of the reason he was summoned. He gestured toward the next door down the street and frowned. If only someone weren’t renting the house, it would be mine.

Why did you come just to tell me no?

“Please come inside. Marhaba,” he said.

Wonderful, there must be another option he is planning to show me.

More tea was poured along with a shockingly orange beverage which tasted unsurprisingly like the thin plastic bottle within which it had been stored. His children climbed on us as he pulled an old laptop from a faded side bag. The first picture to display was just a mistake in my mind. A group of ten Moroccans singing at a festival in the desert had nothing to do with my episode of House Hunters International, right? Right. The pictures and stories went on until I had consumed a half liter of the electric liquid. I then politely listened to his quick attempt to convert me to Islam before pointing to the clock and announcing that I must be on my way, declining the family’s invitation for lunch. Another day.

I brushed the crumbed left by the children onto the bright red carpet and kissed the kids twice on their cheeks. I hopped into Bramabil’s car, certainly not refusing a free ride back to my host family’s house. We exchanged phone numbers on the way and passed by his shop in order for me to see where I could find him most days.

A friendly handshake, and I stepped back into the sun. Still homeless, but suddenly very at home.