The Halimi Sisters

Chapter 1; Trying to find a home

I honestly do not get the "New York Life '', at this point I don't understand any life. We decided to get Malak to knock on doors to try to get someone to let us live in their empty garages, but apparently, nobody has garages, unlike in Morocco, where everyone and their mother had a garage attached to their houses. The point is, Moroccan houses are quadruple the size of New York apartments. Seriously, Moroccan balconies are wider than some of these houses.

For the first few weeks of living in Manhattan, all of us slept on Metro station grounds and benches with our big fat suitcase, and let me tell you, some crazy stuff goes around there. This one time, Malak and Hawa went to go use the bathroom, when a drunk old man smashed a alcohol bottle on Malak's foot, let's just say it ended up in a lot of blood, tears, and toilet paper bandages. It took me 2 hours to take all of the little bits and pieces off of Malak's foot, just thinking about it again makes me shiver.

Finally, one day Khadija and Jannat went to go find a house, and they came back with a small piece of paper with many doodles on it. They have thought of a master plan; to get good grades at public school to apply for a scholarship for a boarding school.

"Boarding schools are aayanin." Malak says, "Why can't we just actually work for a house?"

"You're aayanin Malak, plus Lina isn't old enough to work at McDonalds without parents ' consent, duh," Hawa responds, for those who don't know, aayanin means boring/not good in Moroccan Arabic.

"1st Grader," Malak says.

"Thumb Sucker"

"Deformed"

"Glass Foot"

"Can both of you shut the hell up!" Marwa yells.

She yelled so loudly even the middle-aged men turned around to see what happened. At least Hawa and Malak finally zipped their mouths shut. If you're wondering why Hawa and Malak have such good vocabulary for a 1st grader and a toddler about to enter kindergarten, it's because Moroccan children are taught 3 languages as kids. Moroccan Arabic, Regular Arabic, French, and English. However, I find English better than French. If I liked French more we would probably be in Paris right now. Anyways, Operation: Get into boarding school was in action.

"Wait! I have a better idea!" Malak chimes in.