I was invited to an association from here which tries to help women and children with problems - like violence in family, divorce, etc.  It was a small part for the children. I hoped to meet their mothers there but I didn’t. But it was interesting to see how the party worked. At the beginning it was a choir of children. The girls were dressed with white shirts and a red scarf around their necks.  The boys had the same white shirts and red scarf at neck, and those things reminded me about the time of communism in my own country, when I was a child and I wore the same clothes. But here it isn’t the same situation. After choir they played a drama in which they blended a spiritual life with social life, but the spiritual life was specific from here. In the end some of the children received some certificates from their drawings. It was special for them.

Women here are so hospitable. I was visiting my neigh borough and they were friendly. They didn’t speak English but I was surprised because we understood each other. I stayed there  2 hours and I could speak. Of course, they laughed about my pronunciation but joined with them. When I can speak better I want to tell them the story of my life and how I was saved, and many things.

People from here are so dependent on one another. They have baths together. Here are so many public baths - they call them hamam. I was there twice. There the women have a bath in the same room, no private spaces. They don’t feel so shy. For us it was difficult to go there but we overcame our timidity. There we met some women who visit us.   They have community ovens. Most of them cook their meal, or cakes, or bread to those ovens. We use the same the community oven, because our oven didn’t work for a while. Now, our oven is fixed but we still go to community oven sometimes, just with the cakes.

We were invited by some women from here to their house to take lunch. I am so happy about how easy we can make relations here. They come to our house without advance notice and we have to be flexible. But the first obstacle for me is not the lack of notice about visits it is the language.

On Tuesday we will have a test at school and for me is a little hard because I learn Arabic from English. I know that at school it is not a competition with the others but the competition helps me learn more. And I cannot afford to lag behind because I cannot retrieve it very easy. I need to find a language helper. I need to find a woman who wants to spend time with me to learn language, just to talk. I do fine with the languages; I am not the last one, but sometimes I need extra time than the others. I read more slowly in English than the Americans and we have in this culture program a lot of books to studied, but until now I read all they require and I am so happy for this opportunity to study and to find out new things. Really I feel so blessed with these and with this culture program.

I don't complain about anything just I share with you my every day struggle. In the same time I am struggle with two new cultures for me. I leave with 3 American girls in the same house and for me it is something different. But I am so surprised because we understand each other very well, and we have such nice relations. And I love these girls. I admit I was afraid about that before I came here in case we would not understand each other.