Blog 30: Janet

My host mom’s name is Fatima. She is an amazing, sweet, kind, and welcoming person. Whenever I see her, she immediately bursts into a smile and a kiss on the cheek. When I met her for the first time, she led me to the prettiest salon in the house and brought out a whole chicken just for me to eat. And when I said I was full, she said zid, zid! Cooli, cooli, afek! (Add some! Eat please!). I could tell she was just such a warm person, even though I didn’t know any Darija. I felt like I could always depend on her smile to make me feel welcomed, but I noticed that she and the whole family rarely sat with us to eat meals. And listening to the experiences of my peers and how so many of them had a close connection with their host parents, I began to feel a little jealous, hurt, but also regret. I was hurt because I wanted her to sit with us and talk to us and tell us about her life. I want to learn about her. Perhaps this space is because they want to treat us guests with respect. And that includes giving us our own space to eat food. But we’ve also been here for so long, living in their house and being with them 24/7. To me, I feel like we’re family. Our long stay has blurred the lines of being guests and family for me. I wish she treated me like family, but I’m still a guest. And because the culture is different for different families, perhaps my family has just kept the guest culture for longer than others. However, I didn’t put all the blame on them. I regret that I haven’t done more to connect with her. I’ve been so worried a lot about being culturally offensive, I’ve just been focusing on myself. If I just relaxed a little bit more, allowed myself to make mistakes, I would’ve had the courage to ask more questions and potentially connect more. 

After two weeks of getting to know her, I began to fall into a routine. She always made the meals, so in order to help, I would do the dishes. One day, as I was washing a particularly large set of plates, I see my host mom sit down on a stool. I look over out of the corner of my eye and she’s rubbing her head with one hand and holding a cup of water with the other. It turns out she had a headache and she has no idea where it came from. Seeing her in such a vulnerable state broke the rosy image I had of her. I began to notice how tired her eyes looked and how her smiles followed her eyes. I noticed how she was always doing something, cleaning the floor, cooking food for 10+ people three times every day. And then I saw how the kids in the family, specifically the boys, didn’t do any housework, and because of this, I assumed that this was because of the gender norms in this household and I felt almost angry. Why didn’t the boys try to do just a little bit to help Fatima? She was letting us guests help, why didn’t they just ask? But then one day, as I was in the kitchen trying to help, Adem, one of my host cousins also comes in. We’re just seeing how we can help, but Fatima tells Adem to “seer” or go/leave. Fatima was the one who didn’t want Adem to help, not Adem. And Fatima let us help because we were guests. She wanted us to feel welcomed and like we were helping because, to be honest, we didn’t do much every time we would go into the kitchen. Fatima wanted to do everything, she didn’t want her kids and her niblings to work. She was just wholeheartedly selfless. 


A few days later, we went to the Nahda Cooperative to learn about the weaving artisans. I sat on the carpet, waiting, and then my eyes widen with surprise as my host mom walks in. Fatima did even more work than I thought. She does housework and works and weaves. And when I asked her how she’s able to do so much, it’s because she actually isn’t able to. She said she prioritizes her weaving and if she doesn’t finish housework, she doesn’t finish it. That just shows how much she’s overworked and tired. She tries as hard as she can, and sometimes, it’s not enough. And Omar helped me realize this, but maybe the reason she doesn’t eat dinner with us is because she works so much and maybe being with just her family can help her destress. And maybe she’s already trying as hard as she can to connect with us. Maybe these times in the kitchen before meals where I try to help her is the only time she can connect with us. Maybe that’s why she lets us stay in the kitchen. As much as I want to know about her life, I don’t want to cause her more work. All the experiences I’ve had with her makes her an even more powerful and impressive person than I initially saw her as. She does so much for everyone. Maybe instead, she needs someone to give her something. Maybe all I can give to her is washing the dishes, respecting her needs, even if she doesn’t explicitly say it. Maybe these kitchen meetings are enough.



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