I forgot to add my favorite parts of the host family life:
The 12 year old makes me tea and brings cookies when I come in in the afternoon, I wish some 12 year old cousins I live with did that...
The five year old smiles and solemnly greets me with a handshake and a assalamu a3lekum every time I come in.
The one year old will be temporarily tranquil when I hand him my cell phone, which after a minute he promptly throws on the ground. But its better than the lighter or pen he was playing with before.
The father makes tea or coffee every morning and whenever we do anything for each other we communicate in a series of mish muskila's, or mashi/ ma3 fee muskila - thats when he brings me something or I clean something or bring something or anything.
Fez is a tough city to live in and with this amount of classes it gets doubly as exhausting. Obviously I'm always a tourist, and in an old city like this that gets you a lot of attention, and its impossible not to be treated like you just arrived today. It's an old city, so that means lots of walking (no cars in the old city), lots of me being hangled in the streets (although its better here than Jerusalem), finding taxis (harder than Jordan and way harder than Egypt), and jumping to places where I can find internet, all around my host family's schedule and without being rude and eating/ditching and trying to find time to chat with them and etc. to actually get the experience and improve my Arabic, I still really can't understand a word they say to each other, but when they clean it up and speak more Egyptian style to me I understand pretty well. Frustrating.
I'm reading Spider's House by Paul Bowles, it was recommended on the ALIF (program's name) reading list. The writer is an American who was French educated and ended up in Tangier then Fez for a long time. It's written during Moroccan independence time in the 1950s and definitely has some overt Orientalist/racist tones but its a great book for anyone wondering what Fez is like and not satisfied with my writing, because I wouldn't be.
More after class
The 12 year old makes me tea and brings cookies when I come in in the afternoon, I wish some 12 year old cousins I live with did that...
The five year old smiles and solemnly greets me with a handshake and a assalamu a3lekum every time I come in.
The one year old will be temporarily tranquil when I hand him my cell phone, which after a minute he promptly throws on the ground. But its better than the lighter or pen he was playing with before.
The father makes tea or coffee every morning and whenever we do anything for each other we communicate in a series of mish muskila's, or mashi/ ma3 fee muskila - thats when he brings me something or I clean something or bring something or anything.
Fez is a tough city to live in and with this amount of classes it gets doubly as exhausting. Obviously I'm always a tourist, and in an old city like this that gets you a lot of attention, and its impossible not to be treated like you just arrived today. It's an old city, so that means lots of walking (no cars in the old city), lots of me being hangled in the streets (although its better here than Jerusalem), finding taxis (harder than Jordan and way harder than Egypt), and jumping to places where I can find internet, all around my host family's schedule and without being rude and eating/ditching and trying to find time to chat with them and etc. to actually get the experience and improve my Arabic, I still really can't understand a word they say to each other, but when they clean it up and speak more Egyptian style to me I understand pretty well. Frustrating.
I'm reading Spider's House by Paul Bowles, it was recommended on the ALIF (program's name) reading list. The writer is an American who was French educated and ended up in Tangier then Fez for a long time. It's written during Moroccan independence time in the 1950s and definitely has some overt Orientalist/racist tones but its a great book for anyone wondering what Fez is like and not satisfied with my writing, because I wouldn't be.
More after class
This is pretty much the immediate surroundings of the host family's apt.
Store on the left is one of my landmarks to know I'm going home.
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