So after reading Amal's chicken story, it got me thinking.

What kind of surprises did you have when you SO arrived? Was your pet a problem? Did you have to wash the chicken a special way? Are they a smoker? What kind of things did you encounter that never even thought about?

My husband has to wear those rubber sandals in the kitchen because there is no carpeting.

I will think of some more.

Did he actually have carpet in the kitchen before?

No, in the home in Morocco, there is a constant sandal shuffle. Off on the rugs, on in tile in between, even if it is only a few meters I guess I should have figured it would be the same here and the kitchen happens to be our barest floor.

Hahaha, same thing in Jordan. I nearly died when they brought in the garden hose to clean the floors.

yeah, the always wearing chanklas, which of course is the mexican way to say flip flops/slippers, and somehow over the years I've only used this word.

No shoes in the bedroom. This lasted zero days.

No dogs on the furniture. This lasted zero days.

The ship ship shuffle

I wear flip flops at home all the time (I'm weird about bare feet) so that won't be weird for me. I do fear for my poor kitty. Moh doesn't like cats and really doesn't like black cats. I think because I lived with a ME man for all those years already I can't think of anything different I would encounter as far as culture is concerned. I'll just have to cook more Egyptian style food.

He'll only wear 100% cotton shirts. No really that's not a big deal. Just trying to think of something. It does get annoying when we shop for work shirts for him. So many work shirt have 40% polyester in them as well and he won't wear them. He says it will make him sweat. I have tried talking him into it so many times. "Honey, this is not India, there is a/c everywhere, and you work inside all day and then drive in a car with a/c..." But nooOOOoo it's only 100% cotton for him.

(by work shirts I mean dress shirts for the office)

yeah I think his family thought I was crazy walking around ALL over bare foot... I'm just to country

I totally understand you!! His family chased me around the house with sandals the entire week I was there the first time. I hate wearing shoes. Like you, grew up in the country and we played out side without shoes in the late spring and all summer!! I finally asked why they were chasing me with shoes and found out they feared my feet were cold!! NOT

If your soon to be mother in law finds out you now have a cold, I'm sure she will think its because you did not wear shoes and got cold feet

ok how about when I went to Morocco and never gave out any money to anyone begging.... Rachid could not fully understand why I was so strick on that.... well when he came here and saw how our beggers are (in my area anyways) now he understands

You'll have to explain this since I don't live where you live. How are they?

Don't forget the satan-inspired inventions: ceiling fans, a/c, and opening windows.

I always gave money to beggers in Jordan. It doesn't matter to me if they are lying, I am not there to judge them. I give to people and God gives to me. I did once see a lady begging in Jordan, I gave her some money and then saw her at the ATM machine an hour later.

What is it in Morocco and Sandals? My MIL will take of her sandals to give to me to wear. Now its 80 degrees, and she is afraid my feet will get cold?

One thing I think is crazy. My husband tells me to take out all of the carpeting in the house. He tells me that these are only for poor families. I tried to explain to him "dear, the carpet is installed with padding and tack boards, if I tear it up I will have to put something else down". So he said "tile, like we have in our house". Then I kindly had to explain "sweetheart, in the US the only places you will find tile is in the kitchen, bathrooms, and laundry rooms, the homes here that are for the rich quite often have carpet similar to mine". He is baffled at this concept.

I really can't wait to see how he reacts to everything when he gets here.

In California, we are seeing less and less carpet. People here are getting tile, hardwood floors, etc. Then they lay down an area rug.

I do know what you mean, it took me ages to explain why we don't use bidet's here. Then he wanted to know how much it would cost to re-route the plumbing in a bathroom to make room for a bidet.

ok my 2nd job is between a bar and 7-11.... it is not the best part in town... if you go to give money to the beggers and they see you have more than a dollar in your pocket they will hit you over the head and take your entire wallet.... I guess I should tell you I live in the meth capital of the world it's just not safe but in morocco I give I understand more about there...

Kansas City is the meth capital?

no Independence

I have seen many hardwood floors, and I do have it in my living room. Tile is a different story though here in Utah. I would bet people here want the warmth of the carpet over the cool of the tile in the winters. Just my guess.

I saw once an attachment you can add to your toilet plumbing for a special washing tool. I don't know if it would work with our plumbing, but I would do it if it worked. Now as far as re-routing the plumbing? I hope he can either find a great paying job or he has some hidden plumbing skills you don't know about.



Time to find a new second job.

Well he *can't* reroute the plumbing in an apartment Back home you can modify rentals very easily, you don't need permission. I have seen those bidets, I saw one at Linen N Things the other day at the bargain price of $500. It also took me a while to explain to him why he can't smoke in the house and I am still working on it.

Luckily as far as work goes, he has a job lined up and it pays really good. I wouldn't be able to cope if he was unemployed, not for long anyway. Not so much because of the money but because of the boredom. Thankfully he feels the same way. Well you should be getting that magic call soon, does he have any idea what he wants to do?

[/quote]


Luckily as far as work goes, he has a job lined up and it pays really good. I wouldn't be able to cope if he was unemployed, not for long anyway. Not so much because of the money but because of the boredom. Thankfully he feels the same way. Well you should be getting that magic call soon, does he have any idea what he wants to do?
[/quote]

I hope we get the call soon.

Thats great that he has a job lined up. My sweety doesn't have anything yet, but I doubt it will take him long, we have a great economy here right now.

As for what he will do in the meantime, well I don't even have to ask. He will go through the entire house exploring what treasures he can find. He is a snoop, and doesn't hide it. There isn't much to find though, I live a pretty average life now that I am a married woman. Maybe I will give him a dust rag and tell him while he is going through everything he might as well be cleaning it.

I hope he doesn't look under the bed though, I have his xmas present there!

birthplace of one of our former presidents. sad, eh?
(independence, missouri for those not familiar with it)

So I was the only one who was surprised by something, or were the sandals the only thing everyone was suprised by

I got to mine after he'd already given up a lot of the would-be surprises. Now he only tells stories about "other people" who have jinns or have been to the fortune teller or are struck by the evil eye.

No, not him, never, he'd never believe in any of it.

So that's why just a year ago the blinds rattled a bit when it was windy and he said "jinns!" but then laughed like he was just kidding.

The jinn are here too Lots of things tick them off.

Hicham's family is the same way about sandals. For him I think it's so that his feet don't get dirty. I think he cringes if I run out to get something from the car with bare feet.

One thing that he does and that his family did in Morocco is close the bathroom door when they are done. I am not used to doing that so now if I get up in the middile of the night or anytime really I walk towards the bathroom and see the door closed so I immediately think there is someone in there. There never is though, luckily.

One thing I have wondered about is men working when they get here. It seems that some jump right in and others aren't rushed to work. I have seen some women take second jobs and I am wondering if that is because the man isn't working or if he is but she just has 2 jobs...? Do you think that some men won't take certain jobs because they think they are better than working at wal mart or wherever?

good question ... I have had a 2nd job for about a year and half... I did it to pay off my bills... Rachid was blessed to find a job 5 min walking and really what he loves to do and was in school for in Morocco which was cooking.... I'm not going to complain about he free pasta and bread he brings home for me at night hehehe




ohh about the bathroom door... Rachid leaves it open for some reason but I always go behind him and shut it .. I hate it left open

[/quote]

I hope we get the call soon.

Thats great that he has a job lined up. My sweety doesn't have anything yet, but I doubt it will take him long, we have a great economy here right now.

As for what he will do in the meantime, well I don't even have to ask. He will go through the entire house exploring what treasures he can find. He is a snoop, and doesn't hide it. There isn't much to find though, I live a pretty average life now that I am a married woman. Maybe I will give him a dust rag and tell him while he is going through everything he might as well be cleaning it.

I hope he doesn't look under the bed though, I have his xmas present there!
[/quote]

m4e, you made me laugh. I have been getting Othman to help me clean around the house. Also, one day he looked under the bed looking and showed me a bag. I told him that is ur christmas present!

We are adjusting to each other. I find that I need lots of patience with him. Sometimes he calls something a name and I have no idea what he is talking about. But, we get it figured out. He speaks english but we still have some problems with what things are called. On the days that I work he wash dishes alot cuz I am sleeping during the day and work nights.

Lavon

I'll have to let you guys know the answer to this question in a few days!




Where did he go to school? Hamid studied cooking too.

One of my suprises to adjust to is the tissue in the pocket. Mohammed can't leave the house without a folded Kleenex in each pocket. Makes laundry day interesting if I miss one.

Jackie

Mine took all kinds of service jobs until we just decided to start a business. He couldn't stand NOT working, even more than he couldn't stand the crap hours of service jobs. Once we started the business we both worked 24/7.



This made me think of my grandma who used to keep a kleenex in the sleeve of her sweater, right above the wrist!

omg they brought in the garden hose...hillarious!!!




I saw this and immediately knew Missouri! I live in Central Missouri so yeah...I definitely know what you're talking about!!! sad when just the mention of meth makes someone think of Missouri...



mine didn't want to settle for walmart.. he was sooooooooooo sure he'd get a job making A TON of money right off the bat. He had to come out of the clouds and realize he came here to a ready made family and had to accept what was available. that was really hard for him but he did it...

I had to adjust to....
never eating american bread again...only pita bread in our home now
no pasta EVER
sandals and him always telling me to wear them (i hate shoes and refuse) .. if he knows i'll be getting up, he will come to me and personally put the sandals on my feet to make sure i wear them..he will also bring them to me if i'm in the kitchen and he sees i don't have them on.
he hated the dog in the house...
as stated before..washing the chicken a certain way , as well as rice and other favorites of his
ALWAYS having a blanket over me (i kick it off as soon as i know he's asleep) he is sure that if i don't cover up i will have a stomach ache in the morning. It doesn't matter how many times I tell him that covering up doesn't make a difference since we have heat in the homes..he still insists... if he wakes up with an upset stomach, he says it is coz he may have kicked the covers off once in the night.
no leaving wet towels on the floor (he can't stand that)
arabian music always in my car
he hated the dog in the house...
between he and my son the lights are always left on so I'm constantly running around turning lights off
he couldn't understand why we liked movies so much...he doesn't like them at all
he hates the dog in the house
since when is the tabouli box wrong..i still don't get it...
losing all my computer time since he took it over...It was just fine but he put all his programs on it.......now I hate it...
he can't stand my fetish with a clean computer (by this i mean..i like to know every file that is on it, where those files are located, and what they are there for.. He does work in graphics and computers so he was constantly adding files (his desktop is 100% filled up with icons) I say..put ur files in a categorized folder..whats so hard with that.... ... .... so he bought me a laptop..just mine and he is not allowed to add anything.
did I mention he hates the dog in the house???

done for now but I'm sure i'll think of others

Wow Amal, what a mess!

Why can't you have American bread in the house? If you like it can't you eat it? Hicham and I like the same things but there are a few things that I like and he hates but he doesn't care if we have it. We both choose things we like at the grocery store.

Did you have to get rid of your dog?

The tabouli box is wrong because we don't make it from a box.

we haven't gotten rid of the dog..but certain rules have definitely been met. It isn't as much of a mess as it looks... cross my heart
I could have american bread in the house but if I get it, half the loaf goes bad since now my son prefers pita bread. It isn't worth the money for me to buy my bread unless I know we are going to be having toast a lot or something. The pasta thing is the same...its not worth it to make it for just 1 (yep thats right, my son doesn't like pasta either) I have 2 very picky eaters in my house.
about the tabouli..Noor says the same thing....it can't be made from a box. I trust him on that but honestly didn't find any difference in taste between his style and the box. maybe I just don't know my tabouli
All I can say is thank God for cheese piza, chicken strips, and hamburgers. They are almost the only american foods we eat.
all the other stuff could have been lumped into a few categories ... I just lengthened them to give you all a laugh there were definitely a LOT of things we both had to adjust to that neither of us even thought of asking before he got here........ It has been a total blast though...I love him more every day

Falafel in a box isn't the same either.

J

Bread freezes very well. (Pita bread, too !) Buy whatever you like, divide it between 2 or 3 or 4 plastic ziplock bags, and simply freeze it. It'll be there when you want it, and it won't just mold on the counter.

Good luck with all the rest -- your stories make me smile !



-MK

good idea, I may try that..I sure miss grilled cheese on real bread.. and hey..If I make just 1 person smile, my day is complete

My husband HATES it when there is air on in the car... hot air, cold air... he hates it. If the windows fog up, he rolls down the windows. Whenever I say I feel sick ... "It's because you drive with the air on." Ummm NO I'm pretty sure it's because YOU drive with the windows down when its 20 degrees out.

I also have a big down comforter which I LOVE and have had forever. Its pretty hot, but I like to keep the heat low and then get warm under the comforter. Well, my husband does not like that one bit. So instead, we have turned the heat up in the house and taken the comforter out of the cover and now just sleep with the cover. I wake up every morning feeling like death because I have had heat blasting in my face all night.

One thing I find interesting is that my husband LOVES sweets for breakfast. Cookies, cake, pie, bread with fluff and nutella and caramel sauce. He loves it. I'm not sure if it's an ME/NA thing or an Algerian thing or just a my-mom-never-let-me-eat-cookies-for-breakfast thing, but he just loves it. Yesterday morning he ate 5 brownies and some hot chocolate. And for dessert at night he'll have yogurt. I've gotten into the yogurt for dessert, but he thinks it's weird if once in awhile I want to have a slice of pie or a cookie.

Since he got here I've also noticed that we're cooking a lot more Algerian meals and that my jeans are getting tighter.

What comes in the box for tabouli? Is it just the bulgur?



My husband loves sweets for breakfast too.

bulgur and spice mix which includes parsley, etc, if I remember correctly . . . i have some sitting around here somewhere but usually make it from scratch when I get the urge. LOL, I've even added chickpeas to boost the fiber content, hehe!!

Now falafel in a box seems so much easier . . . but I don't think I'll be doing that much more. When I was in Egypt, the hubster went to a store and bought some falafel mix . . . liquidy and in a plastic bag that had to be stored in the fridge before he cooked it. I can find falafel "powder" in the ME grocery store . . . when I tried to find fava beans to make it from scratch, the store proprietor said "no one makes it from scratch . . . go buy that powder and add your spices, etc" . . . what do I know???

He won't drink cold milk and thinks I am sooo weird for drinking cold milk.

When we are eating food with rice he has to eat bread with it To me this is completely bizarre and took alot of getting used to. I would make the food and serve it. First thing out of his mouth is "Where's the bread ?" In my family when there is rice there is no bread. In my new famil when there is rice there must be bread.

He calls the vaccum a Hoover although it's a Kenmore.(We're working on this)

He won't eat any hot food that has sugar in it like chinese food : orange chicken.


There are a mllion more but really Ali has adjusted soooooooooo well. I have made changes for him and he has made changes for me. He is doing so well and trying so hard to learn the language. We eat arabic food as well as American food. I don't sacrafice what I like and he doesn't sacrafice what he likes.

It's been an interesting ride

Well, I have to say, Amed has been terrific! We do have occasional issues such as he forbids the dog to get on the bed, he always fusses at me for walking around barefoot, and he has to have a salad and bread for every meal, but otherwise he has adjusted so well.

One thing that does kind of surprise me is his reluctance to leave my parents' house. We've been living there since he got here, and we finally had our wedding 3 weeks ago and are in the process of moving into a condo. Every day I've been asking him to help get this moved, and to get the bed over there so we can finally sleep there, and he keeps saying "we'll move the bed last. I don't want to sleep there until everything is in order." Well, we finally discussed why he is dragging his heels, and he told me that he feels bad about leaving my parents, and that he feels like their house is his home. He says he hasn't felt that way about a place since he moved away from his family home in Algeria 10 years ago.

We're finally almost moved in to the condo, and we've been sleeping there for a few days, but he's already said that he'd like to spend Saturday night at my parents' house. I think the big-screen tv with the soccer channel helps, but I really think it's a sense of family that is making him want to stay. In Algeria, most of his brothers still live in the family house, and the ones who don't are constantly there. Here, a lot of people move out of their parents' houses when they're 18-20 years old.

I'm lucky that he loves my family so much.

maybe that part is due to scorpions? (it's a good idea to not walk around barefoot in your house in south texas for that very reason)

Ha.

Actually, it's more dangerous to put on your shoe, at least without shaking it first -- they like to hide in dark places.

No scorpions in my house. Except of course my husband and I (we are both Scorpios)

It may differ from culture to culture, or even family to family, but Mohammed's deal with not walking barefooted is more a concern for what you're walking through and getting on your footies.

my dad lives in san antonio, remember? he's learned to wear shoes even inside for that reason

if anyone has them around, it's a good reason to have a cat

Whatttt ??? So they can sting the cat ????

I remember you mentioning that your father lives in SA. However, I have to say that I've never EVER seen a scorpion inside my house, or any place that I've lived here (although I did see one in a vacation condo I rented down at Padre Island... moseying across the living room rug.) Found some other "interesting" critters, but no scorpions. (*knock on wood*) I sometimes encounter them outside in the garden, but only very rarely -- usually when I'm moving rocks.