Hajj and Hajja are my host parents - those aren't their names, it's a title of respect given to those who are older and have been on Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca, which is one of the five mandatory pillars of Islam). They are really sweet and understanding that we are here to study and need time to get work done. They've hosted about 4 or 5 other girls before us and talk about them as if they're family. The villa itself is HUGE - lots of beautiful, wide-open sitting rooms in the basement (where the kitchen also is) and on the first floor. Anna and I have the second floor to ourselves; it has our bedrooms, a bathroom, and a couple of sitting areas. There is a third floor however I haven't been upstairs yet (still wearing the walking boot unfortunately but I'll get up there eventually!).
In terms of food, we eat lots of fruit and there's yogurt for breakfast which is really all I ever wanted. Just kidding ... but seriously, Hajj I think has diabetes so they don't eat a lot of food with added sugar (who knew that the juice they make for iftar and the famous Moroccan mint tea tastes fine/better without it?). Hajja keeps everything clean and always makes sure we eat enough. So far we've had chicken, fish with Old Bay, and four different kinds of soup!
Honestly the only complaint I have is that we are not as close to the train station as I thought - we are actually unable to walk to anything, not even in Hamriya, because we are a little far out. Anna and I figured out how to take the bus to school so we're set there (30 cents per trip, gotta love it) but sometimes the bus can be inconvenient especially when it is almost iftar as well as at night. Hopefully I can keep transportation costs low, although everything is really cheap in general - and it's probably better that I'm not walking long distances with the boot too!
Going off of how cheap everything is, here are some examples of what I've paid for in the past week:
5 liters of water: 80 cents
Petit Taxi rides: anywhere from 70 cents to 2.5 dollars
24 rolls of toilet paper: 4 dollars
6 hours + 1000 texts + 3 GB of data for my phone: 10 dollars
The 10:1 exchange rate is definitely a godsend!
Darija/Moroccan Arabic is still challenging at times, especially with how fast it is normally spoken, but I've definitely been getting a lot of practice through class time, talking with my speaking partner, public transportation, and time with Hajj and Hajja. This would be one of the drawbacks of moving out of my host family's home - not as much linguistic exposure to Darija. I definitely need to figure out how I would keep up with it if I were to get my own apartment - however I have until the end of the summer session to consider my options.
There's so much I want to talk about but I'll try to save some material for future posts! If there's anything you want me to talk about as well, comment and let me know! To sum it all up: so far, so good!