My host mom a series of vignettes

As the title suggests, this entry is dedicated solely to experiences I’ve had with my host mother.

Well, as I’ve written before, my host mother is too close in age for me to ever realistically be her child. I see her as the epitome of what my life would be like if I were born into a family in this part of the world.

The day before Valentine’s day, my host father, in accordance to Arab views of love, laughed at my host mother when she told him he needed to bring her flowers. Although I know they were joking, I remembered how my dad was always so sweet to both me and my mother at Valentine’s day, no matter how small a gesture or a gift it was. So I found some fake plastic roses and purchased some candy and gave them to my host mother and sisters when I got home. It might have been silly, yes, but my mother seemed to be happy about it. It was the least I could do.

In our day-to-day chats, Kifah has shown me a lot about the life and the values of where she comes from. One day I was eating lunch and Kifah was smoking and chatting about Annette, the girl who lived here before me. My host mother stated that Annette was way too young to get married (even though Kifah was about the same age when she got hitched) and that Annette’s life was basically too difficult it was a shame. Kifah basically stated that being a soldier’s wife was not a life at all. Well, not that Kifah will ever know that Fred is in the military, but it still upset me. She went on to state that love and marriage were separate things. You could love whoever you want, but usually that person’s not the ideal one to marry. A guy has to be rich, come from a good family, be able to take care of you, etc. I felt personally offended too because my dad did not fit any of those categories when he married my mother, but he is still a wonderful person nonetheless. And after all the support Kifah had shown for my relationship and telling me her previous story, I thought she of all people would not purchase into the whole “don’t marry for love” thing. I felt really disappointed.

A few days later I was sitting in my room, basking in the sun coming through my window when Kifah brought me a cup of Nescafe and sat down on my couch. I was working on translating some poetry by Nazar Qabani for my Fusha class and she looked over my shoulder. She took issue with the poem that stated the narrator’s true birthday is the day he met his love. Kifah stated yes, a like without love would be nothing, but love for her is not just, well, not existent, for her husband. She states there is the love of your home (or else why would you clean it), the love of your children. The kids part made sense to me, but is that really it? Love your house and your kids?

And for some reason Kifah got it in her mind that she was going to meet Fred before the end-of-the-semester dinner. She was trying to engineer a coffee date in Wadi Saqqara over the weekend, but she had to take the baby to the physician for a check-up. So, knowing that Fred lives in Khalda, she decided to go look for a new computer at Carrefour. Lara could not be dissuaded from going, so I continued mentally smacking myself in the forehead as I introduced my boyfriend to my host mother and sister. Kifah wanted us to have some alone time though, and I do not think she wanted us around Lara the whole time either. I do not think it was a PDA issue, but rather that she did not want Lara to get any ideas. That was the main reason she wanted to go out and not have Fred come over to our house.

So Fred and I wandered around City Mall while my mother and sister got groceries, even though Kifah was not satisfied without getting a meal for all of us. We carried the groceries up to the eateries on the top floor and got food from Burger King. I was surprised Kifah was not drilling Fred a lot more. He had a harder time understanding her, since he had just met her, but I think he did really well under the circumstances! She mostly just asked him questions about his family back home and his host family here. I was glad when it was over! Afterwards, Kifah told me that she liked him, but that he was very shy and polite. I do not think there is anything wrong with that. I’ll chalk it up to one really awkward cultural situation that I survived!

I do not really know how to deal with things in my host family sometimes. Ahmad, Kifah and I had a whole conversation about how ugly Kifah was because she works in the house so much (this of course was coming from Ahmad). Some mornings they snap so much at each other he grabs her by the cuff and shoves her around. I’m not saying that my host dad is abusive, well at least not physically. But emotionally, maybe. And I just do not get it because my gut states that he is a good person. But it has to be wrong! What is right is not relative to whatever culture you are from. Nothing gives you the right to disrespect the woman who you married and bore your children…

Sometimes I downright hate society here.

Van

Part of trip: Jordan: The Double Take

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Submited at Monday, April 5th, 2010 at 6:00 pm on Middle East by john
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