New House

Following yesterday's last bit of orientation, we had plenty of time to pack our belongings and then we were picked up by our families. My host family consists of the father, an engineer, the mother, and two children at home and one in the US.

I am living in the Deir Ghbar (I need to learn to pronounce that before the end of the semester) in a large condo-style house apartment. Dwelling place. There we go. There is a main trapezoidal room, surrounded by a hall connecting the rooms. At one end of the semi-circle is the family room, with one couch to the side and one in front of the television in its ornate cabinet; on the other side is a French window. Past the second couch is the ample kitchen with its grey granite tops, curved around the main room. The main room is not used often: there is a living room set, covered with sheets and only used for receiving non-family guests. The son uses its tile floors for practicing basketball with a plastic basketball net. There are three bedrooms, a laundry closet, a guest bathroom and the kids’ bathroom. My room has the high ceiling like the rest of the house and the tile floor. A large window looks out on the other apartment and down into its small patch of green grass and shrubbery. The walls are plastered and painted in blue and orange, reminding me strangely of a French orphanage or private school for girls. Not that I have ever been in a French orphanage or private school. But it reminds me of one. I have a large white desk and a a white closet; the closet and the bed are charmingly childish in style, like a little house with a roof on top. (It was the older sister’s room from childhood.) The bed is comfortable and warm. Alhamdulillah!