I've mentioned my host family before, but I've refrained from going into depth about my host brother until this post. My host brother, whom I shall refer to as Host Brother, is the love of my (Moroccan) life. He's my best friend and biggest fan here in my community, and the feelings are mutual. He's always got a smile and a kind word for me when I see him, and has been known to fight tooth-and-nail with other members of the family to be the first to greet me at the door when I visit. He's supportive of my efforts to integrate into the community, patient with my language-learning and occasional cultural faux pas, full of questions about American culture, and now that I'm fasting, is even concerned about my post-lftur caloric intake!
He's saving his centimes to come back to
Oh, he's also five years old.
My side of the story reads like this: this country, community and host family were all picked for me. I specified 'Middle East/North Africa' and '
My new-found inner peace has attracted the inner peace that small children possess, and I have a thriving fan club of kids aged twelve and under in my community. Host Brother has asserted himself as the president of said fan club, and defends his position by being my right-hand man whenever we're together... literally. He demands a seat next to me at meals, insisting that I take the choicest vegetables out of the tagine, putting pitted dates into my harira without me even asking and offering up the chocolate part of his petit pain that is served at the lftur table during Ramadan. He also makes an effort to work on my language skills, constantly grilling me on pronunication skills with his favorite game: "say (this word/syllable/meaningless gutteral sound)." He constantly vies for my attention with cunning linguistic tactics such as smqald gigi [look at me] and wa Nicola [hey Nicole] and shooooooooooooof!!! [loooooooooooook!!!]. He's also very critical of my physical appearance, and is the first to notice if I'm wearing something new or if my scarf is wrapped differently.
He's recently taken it upon himself to monitor my progress in becoming a proper Berber woman, and has become insistent that I never sleep alone when I spend the night at host family's house (sleeping alone with the door closed is a very Western idea, and is misunderstood by many Berbers that I've met). He also has discovered that I am an expert dish-washer, and supports my love of this activity by accompanying me in the kitchen and even trying his hand at washing alongside me. It still takes him approximately four minutes to wash and rinse a tablespoon, but once he's tall enough to reach the sink, I'm sure he'll be more efficient.
Note: The transfer of skills is worked into my sector's project framework, and I'm considering listing this activity on my next quarterly Volunteer Reporting Form. :)
Unfortunately, Host Brother's apprecation of my expertise and blind loyalty to me and my interests has caused him severe ridicule from other family members. In my community, the kitchen is exclusively women's domain. For most men in my area, the kitchen is like a woman's menstrual cycle: they know it's there and (approximately) how it works, but they don't want to hear about the details. Host Brother is challenging his gender role by accompanying me into the kitchen after breakfast, lunch or lftur, and is teased mercilessly by the other members of the family for it. It's actually so blatantly not what he should be doing that I worry that my host mom will ban him from the kitchen in an effort to retain his 'manhood,' or will accuse me of enticing him into this hshuma, or shameful, practice.
Ya Latif, what I thought would be the ultimate act of community service is actually corrupting the life of an innocent, five-year-old Berber boy.
