Wow, I watch a lot of TV Here

First of all, you should know that I really don’t watch that much TV at home or at Brandeis. Funny story actually, freshman year my family basically made me bring a TV to school saying I would want to watch it. I watched it once, then unplugged it and let it sit in my closet for the rest of the year. Needless to say, I did not bring a TV to school last year either. Anyway. Moroccans love their TV. Like in more than a platonic way. Its invited to more meals than most relatives, even the ones that live in the house. Seriously. The TV is on during every meal, and just in general during most of the day. There are numerous different shows on, and my host family seems to watch just about all of them. With the exception of 2 channels, my host family only watches TV in Arabic. The two other channels have English TV shows and movies subtitled in Arabic. Generally my family watches the news (either in Darija or Fus-ha), Mexican, Turkish, or Indian soap opera’s dubbed into Darija, Moroccan soap opera’s or sitcoms, or National Geographic Abu Dhabi (which is in Fus-ha). It’s crazy. Generally speaking TV is the main source of entertainment during meals (especially dinner). Now, some of you might be wondering, but Jeremy, do you understand any of the TV that you’re watching? And the answer to your astute inquiry is…No. But things are getting better. When I first got hear a month ago I couldn’t understand a single thing on TV. As in I couldn’t even comprehend when words were ending. Then after a little while I could hear words ending. Now I can actually hear a couple of distinct words or phrases and understand them, or at least recognize them. While it was incredibly frustrating the first couple of weeks, its now very exciting when I realize I understood what was just said, even if its as simple as “I want” or “lets go”. So while at home I give Robbie an incredibly hard time about watching TV during dinner, I’m not nearly as bitchy about it here. Another quick TV infobyte: While I’ve certainly already watched more TV here in the past month than I have in the past year at home or school, I do talk a lot with my Moroccan host family, they’re lovely and wonderful people, and they have been teaching me a lot, even if it is while watching TV.