Taza!

I started this post for you, and then didn't finish it. So, here it is now, and I will finish it... sometime.

So, I just got back from a long weekend with my host mom’s extended family. It started out as supposed to be just for Eid, the big holiday at the end of Ramadan, but then it turned into Eid PLUS a wedding.

Let me start from the beginning. Well, but without every little detail. We took a 3.5 hour train with my favorite 2 year old to get there, and our first stop was the grocery store. It’s a big chain, probably of European origin, that is sort of Walmart-like in the fact that it has about everything, but it’s more focused on food. So put yourself in the grocery store on the eve of Thanksgiving or Christmas, and that’s about right. But add the whole family because apparently sending one or two people to pick up what you need just wouldn’t do. You need kids to get lost or nearly run-over by shopping carts to make it a more fun experience. Yay? We got what we needed and at least some of us got out of the way to wait while the ones with money did the checking out. While that was going on I talked to Host Uncle 1, who said that his wife was light like me (there’s one word for light-haired, light-skinned, blue/light brown eyed) and I didn’t think much of it. I did ask how old his wife was and was told 24. WHAAA??? Was my thought. Because he looked much older to me. But I’m bad at ages here.

So, we pile into the car (two kids in the ‘far back’ with the groceries and no seats) and continue on our way. My Host Mom did tell me that they live on a farm, but I guess I didn’t think about that meant they were ten minutes OUTSIDE the city. Not just from the center, but really out of it. Everyone was hanging around, waiting, and so I got to be introduced and probably heard names but didn’t even register that, and was definitely told ‘this is my sister, this is my brother’s wife,’ etc. And was told to come and sit.

There was a lot of that. Sit! A bit more polite, maybe ‘have a seat!’ But constantly. Because I was a guest and guests should be comfortable, and that means sitting. Although this guest is TERRIBLE at sitting still for extended periods and had just been on a train for 3.5 hours where she…. sat.  But, whatever, I tried very hard and was pretty good at sitting for the first 2.5 days. I started to rebel a bit and stand after that, but even that was hard because someone else would walk into the room and be like, ‘have a seat!’ and I’d have to say no thanks over again, and eventually someone would literally bring me a chair from another room as if the ones available were the problem. I tried to explain that I like not sitting all the time, but either I was unclear, or the concept was too weird. Hard to say. But I know all of the offers of seats were well-meant, so that’s something.

It’s funny to be able to half-understand what’s going on. I mean, I could often understand things, and I wasn’t usually uncomfortable, but I couldn’t understand what was going on fast enough to really participate unless something was addressed to me. With all of the sitting in the room with women, there was LOADS of chatter and I caught enough words to not glaze over too often, but not enough to actually add anything or participate.