CBT greatness!

Bonjour! as all the little kids say as I or any of my classmates walk down the street.

What a whirlwind the past couple of weeks have been! Oh my goodness. So I have started to learn Tamazight and have been staying with a host family for the past couple of weeks. It has been so enjoyable. But before I get into that let me explain CBT. CBT is a two month long (in some other countries it’s up to 3 months) crash course in whatever language you will be learning and using for the rest of your service. This is a time where I and 5 other people get a better grip on what we might encounter in our service, and provides a great atmosphere for us to make mistakes and cultural faux pas, without it having to affect the integrity of our service. Everyone gets a host family in their CBT site and in my group it is quite a mix. I have a family that is fairly young, a host sister who is 5 and a host brother who is a little past 1. The mother is about 30 and the father a little older than that. I also have a grandmother who lives in the same house, but she is not out and about all the time. Mohamed’s (host father) sister also lives with us. I have my own bedroom and we also have an evil cat that eats bread and hides under the table during meal times. It is a really happy, loving, and hard working family. It has been so wonderful to have the kids around; I am still trying to master the basic commands. My sister LOVES the crayons that I gave her, and I will draw pictures for her to color in. I am wishing I would have remembered to bring those gosh darn coloring books. Oh well. I have also discovered that my host mother does not read, which I thought was interesting. Each one of us PCT (Peace Corps Trainees) has a different family dynamic and its cool to see and compare the different aspects of Moroccan culture.

OK story time… also some cultural stuff I have noticed:

1. We flooded my LCF’s (language teacher) house. The classroom for us is upstairs and the kitchen and bathroom and stuff are downstairs. One day the water wasn’t working, so somebody accidentally left it running in the kitchen. Well, as it turns out the drain was plugged, so when the water came back on it went over the sink… Good thing the floor is cement.
2. I got henna done on my hands, along with all of the other girls in my class! We went over to Roxy’s (classmate) house, had amazing lunch, then all these ladies came over and we got henna done all over our hands! The design was cool, and its defiantly something I want to do again and again. While our henna was drying, which they made us do for at least an hour, we got fed some bread. We are such princesses!
3. I saw the “Mama’s little shortening” song dubbed over in darija (Arabic), it made me laugh something fierce. My family was slightly confused.
4. They watch kind of a lot of TV here and LOVE their soaps! My host aunt likes to watch the English movie channel sometimes, so I was also able to watch part of Robocop 3, in case you were wondering, the part I saw was awful.
5. I made a paragraph yesterday in Tamazight describing my typical day. It was so cool! I feel like I am starting to get somewhat of a grip on the language! HORRA!
6. This last Sunday all of us when over to Heather’s house, and her host mother made us the biggest meal ever! So all of the meals are communal eating. It was so filling that we all went on a walk for a little bit then came back and ate some more. During the final course of couscous (seeksu) we were all so full and so we were just sitting there trying to let it all digest, and then Heather’s host mom hands me something. I instinctively hold my hand out, but then I realize I think it’s food. I look at it, and ask her what it is. It was an ear. I looked around and tried my best to not look nastied out, but I don’t think it worked. I laughed and said that I was really full. She took it back and it was no big deal. Soon after this Heather’s host sister got out some outfits and makeup and we played dress up. There was a bunch of ladies there and they were having a blast dressing us all up. It was fun, but I was so tired.
7. I was walking home one day after school, and there was a bunch of kids out, I think school just finished, so I was saying “ssalam” to one of them and then almost biffed it hard core, but luckily I saved myself. Close call.
8. I am tall, I have hit my head quite a number of times, and thank goodness it has been nothing serious. It gets worse when I get tired.
9. Mustaches are really popular.
10. They might be paired with a semi mullet. Such a hot combo.
11. So the gender boundaries are really divided. Men are usually the ones that are out on the street with little to do. They hang out at the cafes or the little foosball arcade room things. Its typically 80% guys out when I am walking home from school, and the women that I do see are typically going somewhere. Just something I have noticed.

There is so much more, but alas, there is not enough time to explain it all.

Safi! (done)

I hope this keeps you for a little bit.