Arrival in Sefrou

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Sefrou is a wonderful town, and my host family is even better! While I’m in Sefrou I’ll be staying with Malika (which means Queen) and her daughters Assma and Aisha. Malika’s husband is a farmer and works out in the country. I haven’t met him and I wouldn’t be surprised if I never do. It’s a women’s house and it’s a lot of fun. During training we got a lot of information about how gender relations are different here, but we didn’t get any prepping on how different relations are intra-gender. The women here are very close and I joke with the other Volunteers that I’m living in a harem.
Our first day here we arrived late morning and went to the Dar Shebab (Youth Center) where our host families picked us up. Both my sisters showed up and they were a big surprise to me. After all the lectures we got about how conservatively women dress here and how we as PCVs are expected to dress appropriately (no matter how hot it is) they were a breath of fresh air. They are younger and their family is fairly modern so they can get away with more than I can, but it is funny to see them wearing tight jeans and t-shirts while I have on a long skirt and loose long sleeve shirt. As a teacher I really have to put on a different persona when I am out in public. The contrast between the American who really wants to wear a tank top and my Moroccan sisters who are supposed to be conservative is sometimes more than my little brain can comprehend.
That first day the group experienced another exciting bit of culture shock. Michael & Nada (pronounced Nedda) ‘s host family invited all of us to a relative’s party. On the seventh day after a baby is born they celebrate naming the child. Since it was all one family the gender interaction rules we had learned didn’t quite apply either. Young men and women were dancing together to very loud music supplied by a live DJ in a very small house. Their were separate rooms for men and women to sit and talk in, but as foreigners we didn’t fit into either room. I think they sat us in the women’s room to start with.
That first day we also learned about Moroccan hospitality, i.e. the propensity to stuff guests until they can’t fit in another mouthful. We had all been fed large lunches at our respective host families’ homes. Assma had excused herself, saying she was going to a party so I lay down to take a nap, exhausted after the morning’s travel and giant lunch. I might have slept five minutes when Assma came back saying I had to go to the party also. I didn’t understand exactly what the party was for or that the other Volunteers would be there also. Remember, I had been learning Darija for less than a week at that point. Assma and Malika proceeded to dress me up in a traditional kaftan dress, but decided that none of my clothes were appropriate to wear under and gave me some kind of spandex pants and top to wear. The dress went over than and then they wrapped a very tight girdle kind of belt around me which really wasn’t my size. This whole week they keep insisting I am the same size as Assma and dressing me up in her clothes. She is definitely smaller than I am. Over the dress and belt went a jellaba, the traditional hooded coverall dress/ coat that women wear to go out in the street. They also tried to put high heels on me, but luckily they were too big and I got to wear some pointed red flat slippers which I could actually walk in. I can’t even begin to think about how I would have danced for five hours if they had succeeded in making those heels fit. To wrap it up, the party was fun though we had to sit through a three course meal as soon as we arrived despite our protests about the size of our recent lunches.
Malika and her girls have really taken me in as one of their own. Family is very important here and anybody without one is either pitied and/or taken into an established family. People don’t live on their own here. In some ways this aspect of the culture is very beneficial to me as a PCV. I really am allowed to integrate into the family and learn about their culture. They answer all the questions I manage to communicate and feel responsible for my integration and comfort in the community. I have begun helping as much as I can in the kitchen also since I will eventually have to cook for myself when I get to my final community. The food here isn’t too different, but they ways of preparing and eating it definitely are. Breakfast is similar to a French breakfast, lunch is a huge meal, then there is a tea/ coffee time somewhere around 6pm and a light dinner right before bedtime. Some variation of tomato soup is a common dinner. I’ll write more about food once I start cooking.
My women are also very enthusiastic about teaching me Darija (da-REE-jah - Moroccan Arabic) and they are so patient with my attempts at speaking. They’ll sit and wait while I try to piece together a sentence or run to get my books to look up a word. The sisters are also a lot of fun for little word games and songs. Assma came to some of my English lessons at the Dar Shebab and also attended one of Brian’s lessons when he taught the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes”. That night she and I worked on the English version, then Aisha wanted me to teach her the French version, since she claims she doesn’t like English. After that I got the Darija words from them to write my own version. Malika even taught me a few words in Tamaizight (her native Berber language) and we worked with that. I’m really trying to focus on the Darija for now, though the Berber languages and Standard Arabic are tempting. They’re up next.

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Photos

My New Home
My family lives upstairs, so the top three windows are ours, as is the laundry on the roof and the satelite dish. I hate to admit I have now seen Dr. Phil, though we usually watch Moroccan programming, American and French are available.

Assma, Aisha and me
They took me up to a waterfall that is just outside of town on my day off. It was a fun hike and the other PCVs came too.

Henna
Assma is a great artist and drew henna designs on my hands - both sides - then wrapped my hands up to sleep all night. Luckily they told me to go to the bathroom and brush my teeth first. Over a week later the designs are startin gto fade.