Host families. Arguably the most important people in shaping our
experience here during both training and into our final sites. Requiring a
level of patience unheard of in most people, our host families are very much in
the running for sainthood (except that I'm not sure there actually are saints
in Islam...). I'll fully admit I'm not an easy person to put up with, let alone
live with back in the states, I'm sure it really helps when I'm in a foreign
culture with zero language abilities.
But yet, my host family took me
in as one of them. They put up with my responses of “yes” to questions like “when
are you going to be home?,” or, better than that even, my blank stare, followed
by an overly enthusiastic smile, nod, and walk away after being told something,
in the hopes that it wasn’t too important. They cheered me on when I was so
proud of the fact that I said “I want water” before I filled up my water
bottle. They give me a hard time when I still can’t remember a word they’ve
told me at least 50 times, then tell it to me, just once more. They do my
laundry for me. They got so excited when my final site city comes on the news
that they called everyone into the living room to watch with me, even if I
couldn’t understand what the reporter is saying about my city. They take care
of me when I’m so sick that I refuse to leave my bedroom. They double check my Arabic
script homework and politely tell me I wrote my name as “Honika” instead of “Monika”
and this is what an “H” is supposed to look like, and this is what an “M” is
supposed to look like. But more than anything else, they take care of me when I’m
at my most vulnerable.
The first day I arrived at my host family for Community Based
Training, I was exhausted. It had been a long day of traveling from Rabat to
Fes. Then attempting to go from Fes to our CBT site, ending up somewhere in
Seffrou instead, and finally arriving in Bouderhem after dark, in the rain,
carrying everything we own on our backs. We got dropped off at the Dar Chebab,
then, as a group, we all walked to our host families together, stopping as we
went through town as we hit each house. Knocking on the door of my host family
and having the door open, it was, more than anything else, a feeling of “Here’s
the American you ordered! Feed her three meals a day, bathe her once a week,
and please return her in good condition at the end of March. She does not come
with a manual, all sales are final.” My feeble attempts at simply stuttering “My…
name…is… Monika” in a language foreign to me was overshadowed by the immediate
swarm of hugs and kisses and all of my bags being taken from me and up to my
room, while I was led to a couch by the TV, given a blanket and 2 pillows, then
stared at for the rest of the night to make sure everything was perfect. If I
moved at all, everyone jumped up to ask if I was going to bed or the bathroom
or what I needed (all communicated through hand gestures and pointing, since I
had no idea what they were saying). I just wanted to pee…
But 2 months later, saying goodbye to them only further proved to
me how incredible they really are, and how much they really did care about me
and want the best for me. As I packed my bags Friday evening with my host
sister helping, my host mom walked into the room and asked: “When are you
coming to visit?” If I knew how to say “Dude I haven’t even left yet” in
Darija, I would have. But sadly, my new site is 8 hours south, and it’s not
exactly and easy day trip to pop in for lunch with them. I explained to her
that my parents in America were coming to visit in December, and they defiantly
want to meet the people who took such good care of me, and we would be there
then. She counted it out on her fingers, and informed me that was 9 months
away, all with a very dissatisfied look on her face, waiting for my new answer
to the question of visiting. I honestly do wish I had a better answer.
When I head to my final site on Thursday, I will, once again, be
moving in with a host family. It’s a really strange feeling to know that I’m
going to suddenly be moving into another family after getting so close to the
first family. In many ways, it feels like I’m cheating on my first host family.
But when it comes down to it, there really is no way for the new family to have
the same impact on my life here in Morocco as the first family did. This time,
I’ll be going in with enough language to communicate, and with more confidence
to survive day to day life here. This family isn’t going to see my change and
improvement like the last family did, and won’t be the ones to take me in when all
I wanted to do was cry a little bit while wondering what the hell I got myself
into this time. The connection all of us trainee’s make with our CBT host
families is completely unique, and cannot be duplicated.
But that’s why we have host families in the first place. If it
wasn’t for them, our experiences here in Morocco would be crucially different,
and our task of integrating into a community would be vastly more difficult. We
can be taught lessons on cultural norms and faux pas all day long, but it’s a host
family that truly teaches us the culture of this beautiful country. By living
with a family, we are given the amazingly unique chance to experience a
countries culture from the inside. From behind the doors that normally hide
what we shouldn’t be seeing. We learn how to interact on the most intimate
levels with the people of our new home.
If we had spent all of training in a hotel, then immediately moved
into our own apartments in final site, we would have missed out on a huge
aspect of this culture. And when our job is to integrate into a community and
work with the children of that community, it’s vital that you understand how to
do that. To understand that having tea at someone’s house is just as much, if
not more, important than teaching an English class in the Dar Chebab. And host
families teach us that. Along with the knowledge that you’ll ruin the meal for
everyone if you eat with your left hand, and that shoes should always always
always come off before you walk on the carpet, and that you should not under
any circumstance eat the meat in the meal until the head of the house has
divided it up and given it to you. Without a host family, how would we know
these things? Even being told them doesn’t teach you how to do them. It’s my
host family that taught me these things.
I’ve been told that for many volunteers, the last people they say
goodbye to when they Close of Service after two years is their CBT host
families, and I can definantly see that being a possibility. I will forever
have 2 mothers, 2 fathers, and 2 sisters. 1 set American, and 1 set Moroccan.
No comments:
Post a Comment