College Chores
I had just eaten the very first of 15 dinners with my homestay family. All the American students had agreed earlier to meet after dinner to vent about our first days. So, after my parents had finished the evening prayer, I said, "Baba, deba madrasa. Wakha?" This is kindergarten-level Arabic for, "Dad, now school. Okay?" He nodded, so I grabbed my water bottle and started off. Halfway up, both of my moms came chasing after me, yelling and waiving their aprons. They start to pull me back, pointing to the roof, where a small outhouse stood, and said, "Hammam?" I thought it was awfully strange that time to offer me a shower, but I politely declined, and by the end of the twenty minute walk, I had forgotten the whole thing.
When I got home later that night, one of my moms, Fatimah, asked me again, "Hammam?" I could not explain to her by charades that I had showered before I arrived that morning, so I politely smiled, set the hose down, and went back down to the house.
When I woke up the next morning, the first thing both of my moms greeted me with was, "Hammam?"
"Madrassa" I replied, already running late for my Arabic lesson.
When I got home from lessons that day, they inquired, "Hammam?" Mom #2, Ittou, even brought me a bathrobe. When I offered to help prepare dinner they asked, "Hammam?" Before dinner was served they pleaded, "Hammam??"
I began to grow offended. Did I smell bad? My family members certainly were not showering more than once a week. Why were they so concerned about me? Three days went by, and out of perhaps fifty showers offered to me I had accepted twice. I just could not discern why these women wanted me to shower so often. After a while, they enlisted my brother as well. Every time we bumped into each other, he would ask, "Cassie, hammam?"
Finally, I had my fill of the shower-barrage. I asked my EIL friends while we were smoothing cement on the school walls, "Guys, do your parents ask you to shower constantly?" A few of them started to laugh. "It's not funny!" I said, "Do I smell or something?" They only laughed harder.
"Cass," started my friend Talya, "they just want you to wash your hands! When you get home from school, before you eat, after doing any chores..." I could not help but join in their hysterical laughter. It is hard to fathom how much anxiety I brought on my mothers, seizing cous cous from a common dish with hands I had repeatedly refused to wash. When I returned that night, I immediately trudged straight upstairs and scrubbed my grimy hands. My moms finally let me help them with dinner that night. It was one small victory in the war against the language barrier.
However, this story is more than just funny dinner conversation. It serves as a reminder, especially through this exhilarating, stressful college application process, that even when I am vexed near my limit, with patience and a sense of humor a resolution can be earned. Because of this and similar adventures, I have a flexibility to absorb other cultures and ways of life with my heart and mind wide open, and I cannot wait to see how that propels me in college.