My Host Family

We spent yesterday afternoon and evening with our host families. Mine has:

• Mohamed, father, who is some sort of laborer. I'm not sure if he works in the fields or has another job. I don't know enough Tamazight to ask yet.
• Khia, mother, who works in the home preparing meals and taking care of the baby.
• Mina, daughter, who is in her mid-20's and not yet married.
• Fatima, daughter, also in her mid-20's and not yet married.
• Zia, daughter-in-law, who is in her early 20's and married to the family's son. They have a baby, Ouaseem, who is 7 months old. I don't know where the adult son is, but I assume he works in one of the larger cities in Morocco. It is not uncommon for men to work in construction or labor jobs in the cities to support their families still living in the rural villages.
  

The women in my family spend their days preparing for and cleaning up after meals, tending the fields, where they grow wheat, alfalfa, and some fruit-bearing trees like almonds and olives, and tending to the animals. My family has a donkey, about 10 sheep, some goats and chickens.

I walked down to the fields with my host sisters yesterday and we gathered green figs (ikoran). They are small and green and not yet ripe, so I don't know what they do with them, but we spent about an hour picking all of the green ones off the tree. We left many purple ones on there, so I hope we get to eat those at some point, too! I love fresh figs.