Locked

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

Tonight my relationship with 3-yr old AbdeHaman hit an all-time low. As usual, he came into my room in search of anything interesting he could possibly get his hands on. He slammed the door shut and locked it, despite the fact that I consistently tell him not to do this because it gets jammed and then we can’t get out of my room. (There is no handle on the door, just a little latch to pull on.) So now we were stuck IN my room without the help of someone on the other side of the door. I tried to get it open but failed. I wanted him to realize what he did and tell HIM to open the door. Do I know how to say this? WAIT, we JUST learned the adjectives and commandes for “open/close” in class today! So I pull out my notebook and try “hehl l’baab” ! I think he understood, but he of course couldn’t get it open either. I turned out the lights to try and frighten him into getting someone else’s attention to help get us out. He just whined. I finally figured out that the bottom right corner of the door is a little rotted away, so I can get my fingers under it and pull the door free. I’m pretty irritated by this point and so I gave him a little shove out of my room, firmly said “Safi” (“enough”) and shut and locked him OUT of my room. Now HE is mad at me and I hear him pull a stool up to my door – I need to remind you all that he is only THREE years old – and then fidget with the padlock on outside of my door. OHHH NOOOO YOU DON’T! I open the door as fast as I can, grab the padlock, and lock myself into my room with the padlock. I triumph over the crisis I just averted which was NOT getting locked into my own bedroom with the padlock I was ironically given to keep AbdeHaman OUT of my stuff when I am gone. BUT WAIT. HE STILL LOCKED ME IN. I didn’t realize he could still slide the lock into its groove, even though he couldn’t padlock it in place.

Quick recap of what has just happened:

FIRST, my host brother LOCKED US BOTH IN my room. THEN, once freed, HE LOCKED ME IN from the outside.

Conveniently, the parents and oldest brother are at the mosque, and the younger two are asleep. So I yell through the door for OTTMAAAAAAAAAAAAN! Nothing. Then I try my darija again and demand that AbdeHaman:

“hehl l’baab! hehl l’baab!” [Open the door! Open the door!]

The response on the other side of the door is a defiant:

“Laa!” [No!]

I am fuming. I give it a rest and send a frustrated text to my friend Stephanie who I was supposed to be meeting, while hoping he would become bored by my silence and let me out. Then I got tired of that plan and resorted to banging my fists on the door like a tantrum-ing toddler until one of the brothers woke up and freed me.

AbdeHaman and I then had a stare-down in the doorway of my bedroom. He swung some kicks at me that I blocked. My disciplinary vocabulary severly lacking, I made a frustrating “Arrgggggh” sound at him to express my anger. Then he mocked me by imitating the sound back at me. “SAFI. I’m outta here!” And I left the house. After padlocking my room of course.

At this point I was thinking, “This is not acceptable. I can’t be living in an environment where anytime the 3-yr old gets upset with me he can lock me in my room. So I just wake up every morning and HOPE I can get out of my bedroom and to class on time?”

But I was able to vent to my friends, then later I returned, he was scolded by his mother, and we were best friends again. I figured out a way to prevent this from happening again and life in the Bnyessi household continued as usual...

Here's a photo of AbdeHaman all dressed up in his new outfit during the Eid (end of Ramadan). Isn't he cute? This is why they have trouble disciplining him...