Mindy Woodhead
 
 
 
My host dad knocked on my bedroom door and proclaimed “Sightseeing!” in English. We were going to go in his newly acquired, old car to the nature reserve and river for the day. We all piled in: 5 children aged 5-10, my host father, and me. These ages are mere summations, no one knows their ages or birthdays, and parents merely wage a guess. I thought children were naturally obsessed with the quantitative results of their maturity, and the day of their birth. However, those are values instilled by the adults in our society constantly asking. We stopped by the mechanic a few miles ahead of the nature reserve… Cut to 20 minutes later as my host father has dropped us at the park and is pulling away to take the car back to be worked on and I line the kids up to take a group ‘before’ shot. I have been left in their charge. It’s ok, I can handle 5 kids from the age of (roughly) 5 to (maybe) 10. Women in my village are raising as many at my age. Cut back to that morning. My host sister asked me to accompany her to the house of her friends who would be going with us sightseeing. My host parents looked so excited that she asked me to join her anywhere. I just sort of assumed my host siblings would be thrilled to have me around. However, it has taken them a long time to move past icy indifference to my presence. I do forget how obscenely foreign I am. At the house of her friend’s, no one would talk to me. I was sitting in the kitchen where each member of the family would need to pass in order to make their morning trip to the bathroom. Each one with blurry eyes would take a step into the room, spot me, jump into the air, and then freeze. It started to seem like a vaudeville act after the third one. I just sat there, with my sun-hat in my lap, trying to look unthreatening, though from their reactions, you would imagine I was baring arms and festooned in fatigues. By the time my host dad came to pick us up, three people were cowering in the bathroom, having run past me at advanced speeds, and two others were cowering in far corners as though I had a well-known history of eating the limbs of villagers. I slowly rose, holding onto my sun-hat and backed out of the room. So now that I am at the edge of a long riverside path with the children from that house, and two from my own, I assured myself that they are more terrified by this prospect than I am. Off we go. I know the path well, as in 3 kilometers it ends at the beach. The kids here are tough, but after a few miles the littlest ended up on my back. Once we neared the end of the river, the ocean was in view, and there was no turning back. The kids were fixated. I am always happy to wind up on the shore of an ocean, so with my funny foreign sun-hat, a babe on back, and four Moroccan children in tow, we galloped apace. The kids all took off once we got to the sand, and by the time I caught up with them the boys had stripped down to their boxers and were running into the surf. The girls looked at me anxiously as they tugged at their garments ‘Can we?’ Crap! I don’t know anything about what this culture considers appropriate apparel for 7 year-old girls playing in the water with 10 year-old boys. Quandary; how do I uphold customs I have no knowledge of?! In America, Europe, or even Russia, I would just let them strip naked and play. So I looked at the girls who were slowly and cautiously pulling down their pants, looking at me nervously. I said ‘What do you think?’ As redundantly as I could, then urgently diagnosed their reactions for what I could gather from their little senses of propriety. They pouted and gave up. I took off all their top layers to their tank tops, rolled up their pants, and sent them off. After a short amount of time one of the 7 year-old girls stripped off her clothes down to her undies and struck a freedom pose. Good for her, I thought! I would much prefer to not be asked permission. My little host sister then came up to me whining. Still in her polyester pants and tank top. I checked, and she didn’t have anything on under! Dear God, her mother feeds me every meal, I can’t possibly allow her only daughter to skinny dip in the presence of boys an hour after I’m first left in charge of her. Of what I know so far about Morocco and Islam, I can surmise that such an act is egregiously inappropriate. Her pertinacity increased with inventive suggestions, like using her handkerchief as a makeshift diaper. I was near the point of capitulation and decided to call her mother. Her mother answered the phone and heard ‘The ocean , children and me. Housien at the mechanics. They have all taken off their clothes, and Samira wants to. Samira naked?’ ‘WHAT?’ I heard. My vocabulary betrayed my intentions, and realizing I couldn’t really fix it. I thrust the phone into Samira’s sandy, wet little hand. She and her mom argued for a while, before she hung up and stomped back towards the surf in defiant resolve. Only later would I realize that though it was 75 degrees outside, my mother still considers it the dead of winter. That I called to inform her that her babies were playing in the ocean was as culpable a phrase as if they had been completely nude and playing on a freeway. Oops. In the end all was fine. Though the 45 minute walk to the beach proved a much longer journey back to the hungry, tired children. As we walked back and she was on my back, and two others holding my hands, and the boys lagging behind, I saw two men who I had seen ahead of us earlier that day. I had heard that two Americans were seen in town, and though I couldn’t make out many definable features, I knew it must be them. I listened with Jedi intensity as they neared and passed us, trying to make out if it was the typical French I hear from most foreigners, but sure enough they uttered some English. “Americans?” They were not only that, but Peace Corps volunteers! The said they were wondering who the fair red-head was carrying all the Moroccan children. “An anomaly like that,” I assured them, “Can only be the Peace Corps.” Even by the end of the day, the 5-year-old I had carried for miles on my back and clothed, stared at me with great trepidation whenever I would speak. I guess to a 5 year-old in a small village where she has never met anyone foreign, my language skills would make me seem severely retarded, though my actions would instill her with altered confidence. The entire day must have seemed quite strange in the eyes of little Fatima.
Adventures In Babysitting
Sunday, January 13, 2008