Host Family

(CAPTIONS: 1-My host brother, Hatim. 2-I henna-ed my host mom, Nezha, for the end of Ramadan holiday. 3-My host dad, Yassin, and his mom, Zahara, at the meal to break fast. 4-Other PCV/PCTs, aka my American family, made lunch at a current PCV's house. 5-My bedroom.)

I live on the 3rd floor of a beautiful house, complete with my own bedroom, tiled floors, a comfortable salon, a well-equipped and well-stocked kitchen, rooftop with chicken pen and herb garden, and great view of olive trees and the rest of Aminaville. I’m not roughing it at all: sitting on thick sofas, drinking cold water from the fridge or smoothies from the blender, taking hot showers, and staring lovingly at the washing machine. It seems like my set up is a lot more comfortable than most of the other PCTs and ten times more relaxing than my PST house in RIM. A visiting American researcher actually wrote a book about my family. They were/are pretty prominent in town. My mom's sister, who live's fifteen minutes away, lives in a hillside mansion/palace. I kid you not.

Peace Corps assigned Zahara to be my host mom, but her daughter-in-law, Nezha, has been a surrogate mother to me as well. Nezha is 32 and also a housewife, which means she’s unbelievably busy cooking, baking bread and sweets, puttering around, managing the household, tutoring me in darija, and cleaning up after her son. Hatim, 6, is a ball of energy: constantly jumping around, riding his bike in the house, dancing, and making noise. He adores his parents, and so do I. Our dad, Yassin, owns a teleboutique, which is a store where people can make phone calls. He also sells his home-made honey (at 300D=$35 a liter!!!), olive oil, gaudy gold jewelry, and perfume.

My family’s so patient with me, and they constantly want to review whatever I learned in language class each day. Zahara and I smile and play charades with each other. We’ve cooked spaghetti together, cleaned house (with soap!...RIM folk will know how significant this is), and had dance parties with television music. Last night, Nezha made pasta alfredo and fish pizza. Wow and yum, is all I can say. After almost three weeks, I feel so lucky to have had only great moments with my family. PC calls this time the honeymoon period, and I am very smitten being here.