from both sides now

Be your best self in passport photos

2011-09-21T09:53:00.002-04:00

I went to a photo store, kind of like a family Glamour Shots, in the Ennasr neighborhood of Tunis a few days ago. I needed to get a handful of passport photos to submit as part of my registration for Arabic language courses. To that end, I spent the morning and most of the afternoon downtown and then swung by the photo shop on my way home.

The photo shop is by no means, it should be said, an inconspicuous building. It has a black marble slab overhanging the entrance with its name in stylish, jagged letters. The letters are red, like many of the walls inside. 3ft x 2ft photos of previous clients decorate the pillars guarding the glass entrance doors and larger-than-life photos of clients' weddings, smiling babies, and pretty college-age women act as a backdrop to the front counter, where employees busily type away on the store's various desktop computers.

One of said employees, a young guy with jet-black, gelled hair, took me into the photo-taking room, where I sat on a black stool in front of two huge lights. Each time he took a picture, he showed it to me for my evaluation (so much better than Walgreen's!); I disliked the first five, so we kept going. On one of the pictures, wisps of hair were curling off randomnly over my headband, maybe because of the humidity; my photographer reassured me, "Once I touch it up, it will look fine!" I nodded vaguely. A touch-up? This is a professional job!

We settled on the seventh picture. He took his digital camera out to the front and began to upload the pictures. Before me were about five pictures of a woman wearing a purple hijab, smiling, unsmiling, until she had the picture she wanted. A large screen TV was on the side left wall of the shop, and while I waited I sat down and began to watch an American movie, subtitled in Arabic, on a Lebanese satellite television station.

All of the sudden the employee next to the big screen TV switched off the movie, and next I see: my gigantic face, slightly oily hair (I have spent all day in the polluted downtown, so forgive me), slightly lopsided smile, on a big screen TV in front of all bystanders. My photographer opens up the edit function and begins to retouch my passport photo, with every edit broadcast on the shop's BIG SCREEN TV. I am fascinated if still totally unprepared.

First, he lightens my photo to make me go from somewhat tan - I've been wearing sunscreen everyday but still, I've gotten quite a bit of color - to white, white, white. Now I understand how pictures of G and his kids always seem so unbelievably pale to me; I used to wonder if they purposefully used more powerful lights when taking pictures, to achieve the desired (and culturally valued) light complexion. Now I see it just a simple question of some function on photo editing software. [A function that I, as an American, have never opted to use, though I may in my day have altered a few photos to deepen colors and make my complexion more tan.]

Next, he removed all of my smile lines - I mean, all of them, so my face became completely taut and smooth. He removed a few blemishes and lightened under my eyes.

Then, he removed what I think he thought was a bra strap. I tried to explain to him that it was simply the shirt that I was wearing under the shirt he could see, but he didn't mind or perhaps understand. It was a tan piece of cloth visible on one shoulder, under my blue shirt, so he smoothed it out, trying to make it blend into my skin and hair.

Honestly, this last edit looks a bit weird - especially in the large picture he gave me to keep, in case I should ever want to make more copies of the photo. I don't think I'll be doing that - the 6x8 itself is enough of a cultural treasure.

But I did appreciate seeing how conceptions of beauty can be different - and why every one seems to look so "awesome" in their passport photos.

Kuwait

2010-04-20T07:02:00.019-04:00

In mid-March, I traveled to Kuwait, a tiny country in the Gulf bordered by Saudi Arabia in the South, Iraq in the North, and the Persian Gulf in the East. According to wikipedia (my main source of random information these days), Kuwait has the world's 5th largest oil reserves, and 80% of the government's revenue comes from the export of petroleum or petroleum products. Petroleum in Kuwait is understandably super cheap - my friend Ayesha, who hosted me during my 3-day visit, filled up her gas tank for about 8 USD. That was pretty cool.

Originally a poor pearl farming community, Kuwait has the highest "human development index" in the Arab world, as determined by the UN. [In 2009, Norway was ranked 1st, the US was ranked 13th, Kuwait was ranked 31st, and Tunisia was ranked 98th.] The estimated population of Kuwait is 3-3.5 million, while 2 million of these inhabitants are non-nationals.

Who are the "foreigners"? Some of them, as you would expect, work in the oil business. Some are Europeans or North Americans. Many of them, as I would later see also in Dubai, were from South Asia - Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka.

That was probably the most interesting part of my experience in Kuwait. The permeation of South Asian culture and language. My friend Ayesha is American, but her parents were born in India and are Muslim. They thus speak Urdu. Despite the fact that Kuwait is an Arab country with Arabic as the official language, Urdu was more useful than Arabic or English. Many of the individuals staffing Kuwait's infrastructure, in restaurants, grocery stores, and in the downtown souq, were from South Asia and spoke or could understand Urdu (Ayesha explained that Urdu and Hindi, the official language of India, are mutually intelligible). Many people working as household help are also, as in Dubai, of South Asian nationality.

Ayesha's excellent Arabic (modern standard and Jordanian) along with my ok Tunisian Arabic also helped us a little bit, when we did encounter some of the many Egyptians, Jordanians, etc. who have moved to Kuwait often for economic reasons, or because they are married to another resident there.

What did Ayesha and I do? We went to the mall a lot. I saw some stores that I had last seen in some of the nicest malls in Cincinnati and Washington, DC. We only bought stuff on sale from H&M. The prices, even discounted, were still a bit expensive.

Here is a picture of Ayesha in front of Cinnabon at a mall. That's right.

And here is a picture of a delicious avocado smoothie drink we had at the mall, along with Ayesha's berry drink (we also spent a lot of time eating. i had a wrap and several smoothies during my stay for the first time in months!!)

We also spent a day in the souq, where, with Ayesha's expert help, I bought a beautiful black abaya embroidered on the sleeves with gold-colored thread. Ayesha helped me figure out what was the most recent style for abayas, and dissuaded me from picking anything that was too last season. :)

After abaya shopping, we got a sandwich from a stand run by an Egyptian man.

Ayesha and I also spent an afternoon at the great mosque downtown, which was one of the more beautiful mosques that I saw in Kuwait. While I've almost always been awed by the beauty of mosques in Tunisia, Egypt, and later in Dubai, I didn't find the exterior of the Kuwaiti mosques very beautiful. However, the inside was lovely. Here is a picture of the women's room. [Because prayer for Muslims involves prostrating on the ground, most mosques have a separate room for men and for women.]

And here is a picture of me in the women's prayer room, in front of some stained glass windows.

Here is a picture of the wash room, where Muslims perform the ritual wash (hands and arms up to elbows, feet/ankles, and part of the face).

In the malls, there are also prayer rooms. Here is a picture (albeit of rather poor quality) of a prayer room at one of the malls in Kuwait City. The sign reads, "Women's prayer room," in English and in Arabic. The shoes outside are of the women who have gone in the room the pray. I sat on the carpeted floor at the back of the room and waited for Ayesha to finish.

Ayesha is living in student housing, and it is super nice. Here is a view from her balcony.

My last day there, Ayesha and I went to a "Kuwaiti" restaurant, though Ayesha identified most of the dishes we ate as Indian food. It was tasty. :)

We also, true to form, had a final mall trip.

Ayesha, an overly accommodating host, also drove me to the airport early the next morning. I then took off to Dubai, which means a new post and more pictures.

New House

2010-03-06T08:52:00.008-05:00

I wanted to show all of you some pictures from my new house, which is about a five minute walk from the ocean. We are near public transportation, which is great, and protected from any serious humidity by our distance from the ocean (and our position on top of a hill). I still commute several times a week to my old neighborhood (for painting classes and English lessons), but the change has been nice.

This is the view from our roof.

And another view:

And another view (you can see the president's mosque in the distance):

And the beach, a five-minute walk down a big hill:

And more of the beach:

I am leaving for a quick trip to visit 2 friends, one in Kuwait City & one in Dubai, in the Arab Emirates. More to come on that when I get back.

House hunting

2010-01-28T11:32:00.003-05:00

I am back in Tunis, though sans Fulbright, sorting through the day-to-day issues of returning, getting back the qatusa (she gained some weight due to overindulgence at the hands of her 2 babysitters, and now back with me she's enjoying dry cat food), and house searching. Yes, we are moving. The day has finally come (after over a year and 3 months in our current second floor "étage de villa").

We have settled on another second floor "étage de villa" (floor of a villa) in the northern suburbs, about a five minute walk from the beach. Though I will now have to commute back to my old neighborhood for paintings lessons (2x a week) along with teaching (on the same days as my art classes), it will be nice to be in a different part of the city. I am attached to the Menzahs but I am also ready to get to know another area of the city - and its cafés, vegetable stands, restaurants, "hanuts" (corner stores), etc. The bus ride will be about 45 minutes, but it is comfortable and I can read, and it's not something (how ironic?) that I haven't done before. I used to commute to the northern suburbs, from the Menzahs, not 2 but 3 times a week to meet with my Arabic teacher. Now, the commuting has just been reversed :P.

We have begun moving and I will finish up this weekend, with a few planned dinners thrown in. I have a few concerns (including that Jess & Ruth, my roommates, have an unhealthy attachment to Elvis and plan on putting his picture up all over our apartment - they are both into "kitsch") though these are mitigated by the fact that our new landlady and her husbands are both, in the most sincere way I can express this, "sweethearts." They are really easy-going and seem genuinely happy to have us there. They have also delivered on all of their promises thus far, including fixing the satellite, the buzzer, and several outlets. They also had their electrician wire their phone line into our house. All in one day. (We need their phone line for an internet contract).

The qatusa seems a bit anxious and in the evening, as we are stuffing odd items into bags for our next day's trip over to the new apartment (we are trying to spread out the moving over several days), I hear Jessica reassure her: "Don't worry qatusa, we are taking you with us!"

Hopefully, this weekend it will all be finished up. The couch in this particular apartment will be repaired and the apartment itself will be empty of all of our things, and I will be out by the beach. And of course I will post pictures - of our rooms and of the beautiful view of Sidi Bou Saïd - white houses, greenery, and the ocean - from our rooftop.

Out & about in the neighborhood

2009-11-16T06:41:00.009-05:00

Since I've been teaching English a bit lately, I've been walking to the houses of my students (some of whom are university professors :P ) and taking some photos of the area.

Some neighborhood houses:

I love this house's garden. I'll try to get a better photo next time, but you can see how much landscaping they do.

I love this one - see the tiling & the minute details that decorate the beige part of the house? And the style of the roof?

And here's an apartment building:

Plus, an ad for the local cell phone provider (you can see the pretty Arabic script) on the side of the bus stop on the main avenue of the neighborhood:

Plus, some innovative advertising for Activia!:

Here are some photos I took while walking back from the house of a little boy I tutor. His mother is a decorator and traveled around Tunisia salvaging tiles from old homes to put in hers. Her house is so beautiful - hopefully I'll get a picture of the actual interior of the house to show you. Here are 2 photos I took on my walk back.

Here's a picture of a hill next to a hospital in their neighborhood. You can see the ads on the sides of apartment buildings in the distance.

And a florist, on the big avenue in the neighborhood across the intersection, at dusk.

Larry's Going-Away Dinner

2009-11-16T06:18:00.009-05:00

Last weekend we had a going away dinner for Larry at a restaurant on the top of the hill in Sidi Bou Saïd. Larry was the reason I first came to Tunisia, or at least part of it. He was the director of an American research center from 2006-2009 in downtown Tunis. I was his intern, which meant I worked in the library, fixed his computer (he was minorly computer literate, like many of us), and did some article translation. He was fantastic - the Tunisians loved him and the Americans benefited enormously from his suggestions, his personal contacts, and his knowledge of Tunisia.

Larry first came to Tunisia in the 1960s through the Peace Corps, and has been doing research here ever since. His dissertation, for a PhD in Anthropology at the University of California - Berkeley, won second place at the Annual Meeting of the Middle Eastern Studies Association, right after uber-famous & respected scholar Lila Abu-Lughod. Larry has spent the rest of his life doing interesting stuff - heading a center for Middle Eastern Studies, teaching on the Semester at Sea program (where he gave a cultural anthropology talk on eating - "if you think about it, it's really weird - we are creatures that put things in our mouth and smash them with our teach!" - that made South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu fall on the ground laughing), and being paid to take other cruises with his wife on which he gave talks on the parts of the Middle East or North Africa that they visited.

Here's some of the tasty food we ate:

Several different type of Tunisian salad:

And Jessica's amazing stuffed Calamari:

Then we also amused ourselves by stacking glasses, which the waiters participated in:

After dinner, we went (sans Larry), to Plaza, the only "bar" in Tunis - a real "bar" because you can just order alcohol there, since it is also a "hotel" (not sure how many people actually stay there). It's pretty funny, though, since it has indoor and outdoor seating decorated with strings of lights, pink flamingos, classical statues, etc.

We found a table in the midst of a very crowded patio:

And to keep warm, they have little pits of barely burning coal in between the tables:

Some Happiness Necessary

2009-11-12T06:05:00.005-05:00

Makia's Luteeaa

Here are some of the pictures I have yet to publish. Just to get your appetites working.

Here are a few pictures from the wedding of my friend, who lives in the countryside outside of Kélibia, in the NE part of the Tunisia. She comes from a family of farmers, but studied English in college. She just got married to a Car Mechanic from her hometown, and her wedding was beautiful. Her Luteeaa - the woman's party the night before the wedding - was the most fun Luteeaa I have ever been to. They played Arabic music and British, French, and American music. They even played the Macarena. Everyone watched my friend Christen and me to see how we would dance. We still remembered how to do the macarena.

Makia, her mom on the right, and some of her aunts.

Makia on her throne, at her Luteeaa. lots of fun.

Internet & other such trivialities

2009-11-12T05:15:00.002-05:00

You don't know what you've got until it's gone.

And the internet is gone, again. I am currently at the office of the language school I teach for occasionally, sitting in a side room with a big glass table, 2 windows, and shelves full of teaching materials (the shelves have white doors though, so the room seems quite in order).

Applying for college online is not as easy when the internet isn't working. Only one of my schools though is asking for the application before January - UVA. I'm almost finished with that online app.

Last night, our friend Jeber came over for Thai food, and again, it doesn't top Thai Namptip but it sure is tasty. The night before I had French class and then met Jessica at a café called "Le Montmatre" - a reference to the big hill in Paris's 18th arrondissement (neighborhood) where the Basilica of the Sacré Coeur (Sacred Heart) is found, and where lots of artists from Van Gogh to Monet to Salvador Dalí used to work. There is another church on the hill, called Saint Pierre de Montmartre, where the Jesuits were allegedly founded - responsible for my post-secondary education thus far!

In any case, this café is nice but expensive. I had a banana and date "cocktail," pretty much like a smoothie. Cocktails means juice cocktails almost everywhere, and only certain restaurants with licenses can sell alcohol (these restaurants are mostly concentrated downtown and in the Northern Suburbs, where lots of expats live).

Today, I'm having lunch at a Lebanese restaurant a short walk from our house with a friend who works for some version of International Planned Parenthood - in Tunis (she's worked all over Africa and Eastern Europe before this). Then I'm tutoring a bit. Tonight, Jess's friend - she has friends in the art world here since she is an artists and art historian! - is having an opening at her gallery downtown. We are both going to that, and then we are headed to another Fulbrighter's house for a potluck dinner. I will be doing work tomorrow and this weekend, though, no worries.

Waiting for the bus

2009-11-03T17:21:00.003-05:00

I was in Ennasr today, a part of Tunis that is like, they say, L.A.

This is true in a sense - Ennasr is mostly a long, wide avenue lined with shops and cafés and restaurants (in fact, the delicious Thai restaurant we go to sometimes is there. Almost as good as Thai Namtip, though not quite!). Ennasr has a delicious bread shop (the best I've found so far in Tunis, with special thick breads, made with whole wheat, pretty much like gourmet breads you find elsewhere); several ice cream shops (including one owned by some Italians with probably the best gelato I've ever had); boutique-y store (pricey); specialty stores (pet accessories!); and restaurants from Crêperies to French food to Tunisian fast food to an imitation KFC-looking place ("Southern Fried Chicken" it's called - we haven't tried it but it's on our list, though definitely NOT real KFC - not that KFC is real :P - since no American chains exist in Tunisia).

What I find most puzzling about Ennasr is that they even have some restaurants that look like they belong in the touristy sections of less developed cities in the South of Tunisia.

There is one restaurant called "Tuareg" - which refers to the Berber (original inhabitants of North Africa) Nomadic (moving from one place to another, often here in a relatively set path & according to the seasons) Pastoralists (they raise animals, and so move in part to find good places for them to graze!). There are some such nomadic pastoralists in the South of Tunisia - I met one once while in Douz (South of Tunisia, the "gateway to the Sahara desert") with my mom & Penny. The man I met told me that he and his family stayed in a home near the site where we were and harvested dates for half of the year, while they traveled during the second half with their animals. The local school system was organized, he said, to accommodate this.

Tuaregs are mostly found today in West Africa & in North Africa in Algeria and Libya only. But Tuaregs have been super romanticized, especially by Orientalists (for an explanation of Orientalists - super interesting - see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism - especially the part about Edward Saïd!). So it's kind of funny that this restaurant exists in a part of Tunis pretty much populated by upwardly-mobile, often fashionable, and often young Tunisians. It is part evidence of the power of Orientalism in shaping the minds of the Orientalized (Joseph Massad's book "Desiring Arabs" is great for this), and it's evidence, as Susan Ossman writes in her book about beauty salons, "Three Faces of Beauty," that symbols that originally had other meanings (such as the harkous I got on my ankle - see below!) can change meaning when people appropriate them and use them in their own way, without knowledge necessarily of the original intent.

Anyway, so I should also mention that there is TONS of traffic in Ennasr. And so I wanted one hour for a bus to come - and it never came. I walked about 15 minutes up a hill and came to another bus stop, where I found, 15 minutes later, another bus which I then took downtown. Woo. It was quite an exhausting trip and I was quite late for my French class, but no matter. Sometimes I do indulge in taxis.

One last note before I go to bed: Today, I was filling out grad applications online. As I was going through editing one of the applications, I read the "religious affiliation" section on page 2. There was an apologetic box that offered to let applicants write in their own faith if they had not found theirs listed in the drop-down box above. In that space, I found written: "Laura Thompson." Thank God I found that. Apparently the application was automatically inserting my name into various blank boxes.

	:)

Halloween in Tunis

2009-11-02T04:30:00.012-05:00

Hope everyone had a nice Halloween!

On Friday, Jessica and I had a small party with lots of candy (reese's cups, M&Ms, candy corn, snickers) that I had brought back from the US. The other Fulbrighters came over, as did some people that we did not know who are also studying Arabic in Tunis.

Here are some of the costumes:

Jessica (Austrian Alpine Maiden), Me (Eve), and Ruth (Furbie)

[We found all of these costumes in Tunis! I did sew the leaves on my "gown," which I think is actually pajamas. Jess and Ruth found their costumes in this side shop outside of a flea market in downtown Tunis.]

Since my costume is Eve, here are a few interesting facts about Eve. In the Judeo-Christian story, Eve is tempted by the serpent, eats of the fruit, and gives it to her husband. Eve thus bears the blame for their banishment from paradise, and popular culture has transformed this blame into nefarious ideas about women in various areas of life. Still some theologians have argued for Eve, saying that she first sinned due to deception, and that she then admitted her sin to God and repented. Adam did not, and so these theologians argue that his sin was more serious.

The Qur'an tells the same story of Adam & Eve, though with some important differences. Namely, Eve is *not* held responsible for the downfall of man; instead, both Adam & Eve are jointly held responsible. Also, the concept of "original sin" does not exist since God forgives Adam & Eve, repentant after they are banished.

A lot of people make a big deal about original sin - the notion that we are born sinful and need divine redemption - calling it backwards, stifling, dipping with guilt and self-disdain. All of this could very well be true; but as one of my very smart friends, Katie, a Catholic, says, Christianity in this sense recognizes how difficult our struggle between good and evil is, and how God offers us the redemption that we, struggling, cannot quite reach ourselves.

Here are Jess & Ruth & I with some other friends.

And a few others:

[In this picture, a panda, a "cougar," and a British guy who didn't have a costume :P]

******************

On Saturday, I taught a small group of women English. They are all very well traveled and well-educated, so they are quite interesting to teach. Our meetings are mostly just conversation-based, so we talk about a wide range of topics; this time, we talked about holidays! Surprisingly, many of them grew up celebrating Christmas, though they are Muslim (Jesus is a prophet, like Moses or Abraham, in Islam, but is not the Messiah). Quite a few of them have lovely memories of leaving their shoes out on Christmas Eve, to find them the next morning filled with chocolates. They have a great appreciation for many of our traditions, and we would probably have a great appreciation for theirs if we understood them better (I, for one, really enjoy the prayers, sometimes chants, held at the mosque during Ramadan, which you can hear over the loud speakers).

On Saturday night, Jess & I went with three other friends to the American Embassy, where the Marines were holding a Halloween party. The Marines (the soldiers who defend American Embassies worldwide) have happy hours every weekend and make a decent amount of money from this, which I think sponsors their yearly balls & some trips that they make from time to time. The party was fun, filled with Tunisians, though the music could have been better (too much 1980s French music when all we wanted to hear was "Twist & Shout" & Pokerface :P).

I dressed as a tiger/leopard (same costume for the last 5 years!), Jess as an Alpine Maiden, and Ruth as a stereotype of a Native American Indian.

Here are some pictures:

[Ruth, Melissa, & Audrey at the Marine's House]

[Probably my favorite picture of the evening. Jesus, an ESL teacher, was a figment of your imagination. Zac, a former Fulbrighter now working at a bank in Tunis, is a Mormon on mission.]

I had pretty great shoes, too:

Our Tunisian friend, Jeber, is actually a veterinarian. And there was no cat in his carrier, though he pretended like there was....

I still have some candy corn & a few reese's cups left, thank God, but if anyone wants to save any candy for me (Michael!!!!!!) I would happily accept it :P

Drawing Classes

2009-10-28T14:21:00.005-04:00

I am currently taking drawing classes 2 days a week at the cultural center by my house. I was a total beginner when I started and still am pretty much. The classes are great though, and I'm learning some really interesting stuff about perspective. The professor draws on a sheet on the board and we copy onto our own papers; I really like this approach (probably since I'm a visual learner :P). The professor speaks mostly in Tunisian Arabic, with some French words and phrases thrown in, so it's also a language class for me :P.

All of my fellow students are women, most of them in their late 20s, 30s and 40s, including one of my friends, Jihen. She is much more talented than me, though.

Here are 2 examples of some perspective work we've done. The sketch of the medina is super typical in Tunisian art.

Cardea

2009-10-25T18:00:00.002-04:00

Here is an adorable picture of Cardea (doesn't she look so much healthier than she did when she first arrived? - see earlier postings!):

Movie shoot

2009-10-25T15:19:00.007-04:00

In the middle of last week (in the midst of preparing for my GREs!), I participated in a film shoot (see a picture of me on the incredible set above!). My friend Christen, a fellow Fulbrighter, had heard about a French film crew who were recruiting "European looking" people to play French extras in a film.

I didn't know anything about the film, and I was really pleasantly surprised to find out that the film is in fact the sequel to the 2006 French film "Indigènes" (which translates as "Natives"), which was quite popular and controversial in France. The film looks at Algerians (at the time colonized by the French) who fought on the side of the French in WWII and were decisive for a number of victories. These were men who had largely never seen France, though their education has taught them to think of France as the "motherland."

This was blatant colonial propaganda that touted France as the epitome of civilization, while France simultaneously instituted land policies that enormously favored white French citizens while impoverishing "Arab" Algerians. The film itself shows the racist treatment Algerian soldiers endured in the French army, even while they were fighting side by side with white European Frenchmen.

As regards the treatment of the Algerian (and other African soldiers), here is an excerpt from the Wiki article on the film:

"The discrimination by the French authorities against these soldiers continued as successive French governments froze the war pensions of these indigenous veterans when their countries became independent. It was only after the film's release that the government policy was changed to bring foreign combatant pensions into line with what French veterans are paid.^[3] The closing credits of the film state that, despite the ruling that war pensions should be paid in full, successive French administrations since 2002 have not paid anything to its former colonial soldiers."

So the film, in fact, helped to illuminate some serious and very recent injustices. So I was really proud to play a role in the sequel. And I think I will actually be in a scene!! (See photo below)

I also had a lot of fun taking pictures on the set with the other extras, many of whom were Tunisian (like the girl above!).

We also got our hair and makeup done:

Happy Birthday!!

2009-10-19T04:40:00.016-04:00

My birthday started with church at the 10 AM French-language mass, where the priest is Palestinian and the church-goers largely from West Africa. The music is always really beautiful & the priest gives great sermons - sweeping philosophical ideas about the nature of Christianity, how it is different from other world religions, & why.

Then I taxied it back home, and went next store to the little hair dresser's right next to our house and had my hair cut. I felt like a little bit of a change, & they had suggested a new "look" (which included some type of bangs) they had in mind. I visit with the owner & her assistant & chat with them sometimes, and will probably interview some of her clients for my research, so for that reason I can't get my hair cut anywhere else! So I crossed my fingers and hoped that the "new look" they wanted to give me would be nice & not too crazily Farah Fawcett-ish (which looked nice when it was in style! - ex http://jeffpearlman.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/farrah_fawcett.jpg).

They also plucked my eyebrows & then took a dark eyebrow pencil to them. Here's the result:

I have to say they did a pretty nice job, though the eyebrow pencil was a bit dark for my taste.

Looking like a Tunisian movie star, Jessica & I both went to the big French-owned superstore Carrefour and got everything from cat litter to all of the necessary ingredients for dinner. Our menu was: chicken, corn bread, mashed potatoes, and baked macaroni and cheese. Jess made a delicious mac and cheese, while I made the corn bread and the mashed potatoes and we bough rotisserie chicken. Though the mashed potatoes were delicious, I had to be a bit spontaneous with the corn bread recipe as we had run out of eggs. I put in a banana instead, which should have tasted fine, except for the fact that I also substituted normal flour for self-rising. I'm thinking now that it probably would have been smart to add extra baking powder, because the corn bread indeed did not rise & instead was a pretty flat, gooey, banana-y biscuit.

Dinner was still delicious, & we had a handful of guests to share it with us.

One of the other Fulbrighters, Ruth, brought some Ratatouille (which, mom, she did confirm is more delicious if you roast the vegetables first!). We feasted and had lots of drinks (wine, bad Tunisian beer, strawberry juice, citronnade)

and for dessert we had baklawa (which is baklava -which is apparently a pastry spread in the Ottoman empire-pronounced Tunisian style) and homs, which is just smashed chick peas mixed with oil and sugar and is definitely my favorite Tunisian pastry (I'm already planning on bringing some home for Christmas, no worries). (And yes, those plates do say "Joyeux anniversaire," "Happy Birthday" in French - we found them at Carrefour).

I also got presents, though I was definitely not expecting them! Other than the wishes I got in my email and the presents before I left, here are some pictures of gifts I come in Tunis.

Larry, the former director of the research center in Tunis where I interned 2.5 years ago(!), gave me a plate he bought at a pottery fair in downtown Tunis.

I also got a decoration to add to my Halloween collection (it's nice to have a festive house!):

(You can also see my earrings in this pictures, which were a gift from my friend Melissa from Guinea).

Finally, Jaber, a veterinary student in Tunis (who spent his summer in the US), brought me some really nice flowers from his friend's shop.

And finally, Ruth, the Fulbrighter who brought ratatouille, is also an artist (and has a degree in art from the American University in Cairo, Egypt). Here is a picture of her with the cat:

and of the inside of her card for me!

Mongolian Concert

2009-10-14T19:36:00.004-04:00

Tonight I went to a Mongolian concert in the northern suburbs, along the Mediterranean, at the beautiful Center of Arabic & Mediterranean Music, formerly the house of Baron d'Erlanger.

Baron d'Erlanger was a French painter & musicologist who specialized in Arabic music. He was instrumental in helping revive Tunisian ma'luf music & helped set up the 1932 Cairo Congress of Arab Music. Aside from helping foster and develop Arabic music, he also lived in a gorgeous palace in the town of Sidi Bou Saïd, outside of Tunis & named for a Sufi saint.

Mongolian music is famous for its overtone singing, also called throat singing. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone_singing) One of my teachers at Georgetown taught my choral class how to do this - it involves opening your mouth and throat very widely and singing one note until the sound resembles a flute or some other type of woodwind instrument.

Here is an example:

Sorry for the camera work, by the way, I was trying not to obstruct my neighbors' view. :)

And here is a beautiful one:

Nobel Peace Price 2009: in Norwegian, "Nobels fredspris"

2009-10-09T05:15:00.023-04:00

I just heard on AlJazeera English & the BBC that Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. Wow! I feel really proud. And he gets to go to Oslo. I love Oslo. Here's a picture of the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo (with my friend Katie in the foreground)t:

And a picture of a poster about civilians killed in Gaza over Christmas time 2008 and New Year's 2009:

And just because it is such a beautiful country, a few more pictures of Norway:

OSLO:

A troll in a mall in downtown Oslo (the Norwegians have great troll lore, and looking at the countryside, you can see why in Bergen pictures!):

And the amazing Vigeland Sculpture Park in Oslo, constructed in 1920s/1930s:

And finally a Viking Museum in Oslo, actually really cool (I was so inspired I bought a book "Queen Emma & the Vikings" by Harriet O'Brien, one of the most well-written books I have ever read):

Some pictures on a train from Oslo to Bergen, on the West Coast:

And a few from Bergen, Norway:

Sickness

2009-10-08T07:00:00.002-04:00

So finally, after almost 1 & a half weeks of on and off illness, I am finally feeling much much better, thanks in part to Cipro!

I first starting having all the signs of an intestinal bug when I was in Kélibia the weekend of Sept 26th-27th. That was pretty bad, especially since I had to take an almost 2 hour public taxi back to Tunis and then another cab back to my house, but I survived.

And then, I got better.

Jess, my roommate, came back to Tunis the following Wed (Sept 30), and our friend Zach went with me to the airport (in his friend's truck!) to pick her up. I was so happy to have her back! Even though Cardea (Adonia Thiyya) does provide some needed company, Jessica is much better. She took us out to a really delicious pizzeria in Ennasr to celebrate, and we had 2 really tasty salads and a huge thick crust vegetarian pizza.

Then, the next night I woke up with a fever, Zach was so sick he couldn't make it into work, and we were all afraid to leave the house, for obvious reasons. I had to go down to see a doctor about the harkous allergic reaction [see previous post], and the dermatologist was a really sweet woman who gave me cortisone cream. I told her ab the infection and she sent me down the hall to, guess who?, her brother, a general practitioner. He determined that I definitely had some type of bacteria messing with my GI system and gave me some antibiotic my mom had never heard of - Norvix.

And, to make a long story short and relieve some of your suspense - the antibiotic didn't work! At all! I was still feeling terrible on Monday, which was the day after I finished the 3 day dosage.

So, as any student of medicine educated in science 101 classes, wikipedia, webMD and yahoo answers, I decided that I must have had a virus and just had to wait it out. Thank God Jessica convinced me to take the Cipro yesterday.

Meanwhile, I was taking Benadryl to help me sleep, since I was having trouble falling asleep, and due to the bacteria and/or benadryl, I had a terrible side effect: pretty intense restlessness!

This meant that while I was dead tired, I couldn't stop moving. At once point I was jumping up and down trying to get this "energy" out of me, despite the fact that all I wanted to do was sleep for 2 days. It was a terrible feeling. So, go easy on the benadryl.

Now that I'm feeling better, I'm getting stuff done: bought my ticket to come home, gave the cat a bath, did laundry. And now I'm going to try to go for a walk, pick up a check, and study for the GREs - which are rapidly approaching!!

I did lost practically an entire week of research, so I have lots of catching up to do. And it starts right now.

Harkous!!!

2009-09-30T19:41:00.003-04:00

I went to a lovely wedding this past weekend in NE Tunisia, in the town of Kélibia, which is rumored to have the best, calmest, clearest beaches in the country. I didn't swim though - I partied.

And I got harkous on my ankle, with a small eye - to ward off the "evil eye," which is based on the idea that: you may have something (success, beauty, money, nice clothes, etc.) that someone else desires, and if they look at you with the "evil eye," the eye of jealousy & envy, they may wish something bad upon you, even w.o. necessarily knowing it.

My favorite example of this is a friend who used to play soccer and had nice, muscular legs. He came home one day from practice and his neighbor was sitting in the kitchen chatting w. his mom. The neighbor said to him, "Oh my, you have such nice legs!" Then my friend went upstairs, climbed into the shower, slipped and broke his leg! His mother later told him that when the neighbor said that, she knew it wasn't good - that the neighbor was thinking to herself, "I wish my husband, or my son had legs like his!" So though it doesn't necessarily suggest a voluntary act of evil on the part of the evil eye giver (the neighbor, in this case!), it does mean that it behooves people to not ostentatiously display their good fortune, and to always remind people that God gives good & takes it. All is from God.

So, a young woman getting married may have good reason to have an eye on her ankle for protection, which is probably why the older woman who did the harkous offered it as a design. [Or, on second thought, considering that these days it is considered by some a little "backwards" to believe in the evil eye, it could also be a transformation (commodification!) of a formerly powerful symbol into a fashion & culture statement (look at this nice design that our grandparents used to use!).]

Here's a picture.

Unfortunately, I've had an allergic reaction to the harkous (whatever is in it - a website tells me cloves and incense & orpiment...hmmm, not sure!), and I have raised itchy bumps underneath every spot of the design. The pharmacist sold me a small tube of calming cream today - hopefully it works. An esthetician I had met earlier in the afternoon at the DVD store told me that if I'm not careful, I can have a small scar (not permanent, but lasts for a while), and that I can never do harkous again. So thank God I took a picture.

Pouring down rain!

2009-09-24T12:07:00.003-04:00

It's pouring down rain, and when it rains like this the streets sometimes overflow! So I think I'll miss the showing of the US film "Amreeka," by Palestinian-American director Cherien Dabis. It looks wonderful! Definitely go see it if you can.

http://amreeka.com/

Ramadan is over and life is back to normal!

2009-09-24T11:55:00.003-04:00

Hi all!

So Ramadan lasted from mid-August to mid-September this year, and I was present for half of it (went home to help take care of my mom after her shoulder surgery for the other half!). I am consistently amazed by the ability of Muslims - those who would consider themselves very practicing and those who may be more like "cafeteria Catholics" - to fast all day. This means no eating or drinking from sunrise to sunset.

I attempted to ease into the fast, which I thought wouldn't be too formidable of a task since I did fast for two or three days during last year's Ramadan. I "eased" into it by doing a 'half-fast,' drinking water during the day (though sparingly in general) and eating only before sun-up and after sundown. This meant that, like all of my neighbors, I would rise around 3:45 AM and take the "sehour," or the morning meal, which normally consisted (for me) of bread and cheese, fruit and yogurt. Then I wouldn't eat until about 7 PM, when the call to prayer rose from the minaret of the mosque near my house and the canon, announcing the breaking of the fast, blasted loudly from downtown Tunis. The first two days were pretty darn difficult, and my whole body ached and felt fatigued. It got easier though, as many Tunisians assured me it would. Unfortunately though, my fast couldn't continue: the change proved too drastic for my body to handle, and so after numerous visits to the pharmacy, I quit the fast after a week. Perhaps a less drastic "easing into" of the fasting schedule may have allowed me to actually fast for the time I was there, eventually even giving up water.

Why fast? Because fasting is a religious experiences. The Saints fasted; Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu mystics fasted. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin advised fasting. And especially because some of my Tunisian friends tell me that they feel they reach spiritual heights during the month of Ramadan, which is largely spent in prayer, with family, in food preparation, and in contemplation of how much something so basic can mean when you don't have it.

InshAllah next year. But Easter will come first.

New Cat

2009-08-24T06:30:00.005-04:00

So, a cat showed up on our back balcony a few weeks ago. We live on the second floor of a house, and we have a 2 long balconies - one that stretches in front of the living room and dining room, and another that stretches behind the kitchen, bathroom, and 'study.'

While Johanne, my temporary summer roommate, was at home for the first week, the long skinny kitten meowed constantly, and was insistent enough to jump on the grille outside of our bathroom windows (if you can imagine painted metal bars winding in decorative patterns outside of a window). The kitten clinged to the bars and meowed constantly, scratching at the French style balcony doors, and traipsing back and forth along the balcony railing. So of course, Johanne fed her. It's hard to resist the cats in Tunisia; like everywhere in the Mediterranean, cats are omnipresent. Spaying and neutering seems to be considered by most both too expensive and too imposing ("cats have their lives too" - which is true).

Johanne and I took the cat to the vet for the first time last week, where she got her rabies vaccine along with some worm medicine and a prescription for a flea spray called 'frontline.'

And we gave her a bath!

We also spent quite a lot of time on baby name search engines along with wikipedia pages on the various Tunisian heritages. We ultimately ended up with three names that we really liked: Cardea (the Roman Goddess of doors and protectress of children), Adonia (a Punic name adoring God), and Thiyya (a Berber or Amazigh name meaning 'beauty'). Of course, the Romans, Pheonicians, and Imazighen (plural) have all resided in modern-day Tunisia at some point in history. The Pheonicians even almost made the Roman Empire fall, led by the general Hannibal.

As we struggled to decide between these 3, Johanne's boyfriend Marcel pointed out that the first letter of each name spelled... cat! So, of course, we gave her all three names: Cardea Adonia Thiyya, and her initials are CAT.

Back in Tunis for the summer!

2009-08-10T05:22:00.008-04:00

Hi all,

I'll be catching up on some of my travels over the past few months, which were overrun, pretty

much, with traveling, lack of internet, & visitors.

Right now, though, I'll just mention my friend Sirine & her wedding.

Sirine first signed her wedding contract in March, during her "fiançailles," or engagement party, at her home in the north of Tunisia, along the coast. During this party, a notary from the municipal government came to the house to witness the signing of the contract, which explains things like finances, rights in case of divorce, etc. Sirine wore a beautiful dress for this event, made by hand by a woman who lives in the suburbs just outside of Tunis.

(sirine's luteea)

A few days ago, Sirine celebrated her "luteeaa," which is like her bachelorette party, without the racy side. All of her friends and family gathered in a large hall in Bizerte, Tunis

ia, and danced, admired Sirine & her groom (who were sitting atop a dais), and ate salty fingerfoods & sweet pastries.

The "luteeaa" is traditionally a female-only party, but plenty of women have

mixed parties (especially in larger cities, it seems), or at least invite their male relatives to enter at the end of the evening, to have a dance with the bride.

When I was in the south of Tunisia, in Zarzis, I witnessed a "luteeaa" during which the bride danced, sometimes all alone and sometimes with a few female family members (& once in a while a male relative), in front of a large group of women - neighbors, relatives, friends - sitting in plastic chairs, facing her.

(picture of young bride in Zarzi

s dancing during her luteeaa)

What is really different about a wedding ceremony in Tunisia is just this - that the lights are bright, the bride and groom sit on a dais in said bright lights (seeming to me like a constant photo shoot, which they bear with much poise, managing to look consistently gorgeous), and the music is mind-numbingly loud, making it as difficult to speak as if one was

in a night club (from my experience at as many weddings as I can count on one hand). The music is also, in my experience, always Arabic music - despite the fact that Tunisians are polyglots and the most popular station in Tunis - judging from taxicabs - plays American hip-hop, oldies, French pop & oldies, Arabic music from the Middle East and North Africa, & even house, dance, and electronica on the weekends. Otherwise sitting at tables decorated much like ours, wedding guests approach the deis to take a picture with the bride & groom, who occasionally stand up together & dance, surrounded by a group of clapping, swaying onlookers.

The wedding party started around 9 PM and finished at maybe 2 AM or 3 AM. Sirine is off to Malaysia & then Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, for her honeymoon.

Out & about

2009-01-04T00:50:00.010-05:00

Since I'm currently home for Christmas, I wanted to take advantage of my internet to post a few more pictures to show my daily life in Tunis.

Here is a photo of a Christmas chorus performance that I attended at a Catholic church in Tunis:

Here are some photos of my neighborhood:

Some nouveau Greek statues for sale:

A cultural center:

A friend & I posing in front of another salesperson's table during a handicraft sale at said center:

And my friend's sister, posing with Nahed, in front of some her glass paintings:

Finally, a few more shots of my apartment:

Eid Al-Kabir

2009-01-03T23:04:00.011-05:00

This post will detail the holiday of Eid Al-Kabir, the Muslim holiday commemorating Abraham's willingess to sacrifice his son to God - & God's intervention (remember, all three 'religions of the Book' - Judaism, Christianity, & Islam). Abraham was willing to completely surrender himself to God, and God, knowing that Abraham, of course, loved his son, refused to allow him. So he sent a sheep instead to sacrifice. And so, once a year (in the Islamic yearly calendar, which is 11 days shorter than our yearly calendar), Muslims sacrifice a sheep & give part of it to the poor and eat the rest of it.

Being a young American from the suburbs in the Midwest, I'll be honest & say right away that I don't like to see dead animals. Most dead animals I have encountered have been on the highway or have been pets of mine that I have loved & so treated like another human being. I don't like meat too much, and - like lots of people my age - I had a little vegetarian streak. So I was not particularly looking forward to this holiday- I much prefer Eid El-Sagheer, which culminates Ramadan (the month of fasting during daylight hours) & is really a joy to celebrate.

Tunisians - and I'll talk here about Tunisians in Tunis, since I have only witnessed their holiday festivities - buy their sheep before Eid Al Kabir, perhaps by a day or by a few weeks. Why wait until the day before? Well, because most Tunisians here seem to keep the sheep in their garden or in some special room in their house, & you can imagine what happens without a sheep litterbox (not to mention the smell and the baa-ing). Those people who do buy their sheep in advance may want to get a better price, and fatten their sheep up by themselves before butchering day. The sheep also strangely become a centerpiece of daily life up until Eid: little kids play with their sheep in the road, tying red ribbons around their heads. They name their sheep & parade them around together in the streets on little leashes. It's really cute. Of course, the Western, semi-vegetarian, packaged meat purchaser in me found the little kids & their sheep both endearing & truly unsettling. How could such little kids name their sheep & the next day eat it for lunch?

The Ghorbels chose to buy their sheep just the day before Eid, which I was grateful for. I took a picture with the sheep the morning of Eid, after prayers at the mosque (pretty much like Christmas mass, right?), & then Karim & his dad had an argument about where exactly on the sheep's throat you had to cut. Just like some Jews only eat kosher meat, Muslims eat halal meat. The method of killing is reportedly the same: you slit the throat of the animal, disconnecting its head from its body so that pain is minimal, and you let the animal bleed out, resulting in healthier meat. You also say "Bismallah" when you slit the throat of the animal, "In God's name," as a sort of sign of respect to the source of all goods. I think about it much like what Catholics do before they eat: we say, "Bless us oh Lord, & these, thy gifts, which we are about to receive, from Thy bounty, through Christ Our Lord, Amen." One is shorter, & the butcher does it exponentially more than anyone else.

After the Ghorbels finally settled on asking the butcher to slaughter (or sacrifice) the sheep, they found two men whom another neighbor had contacted. Apparently downtown, butchers walk through the streets crying, “Zazeer!” and sharpening their knives loudly together. Instead, in the Ghorbel’s upper middle class suburbs, the neighbors “civil-ly” argued over whom the pair of butchers would help next. For 20 dinars, the butcher slit the sheep’s throat, sliced a hole in the flesh & blew up its body so that the skin would easily come off, and then finally removed the skin, peeling it off with a little help from their knives. It was surprisingly easy and I was surprised that I could watch everything & feel minimally queasy. I almost felt more honorable, assisting in the hopefully humane slaughter of the food I would later eat. It made me think of the Native American Indian traditions I have studied in grade school, which stood in such stark contrast to our ways of consuming meat.

After they removed the skin, the butchers left & the real work began. The Ghorbels knew how

to cut apart the animal, and so they cut out most of the organs & left the rest of the meat out to dry. It is amazing how much steam comes out of the body when you cut into it.

I suddenly realized that – much like Michael Scott on his personal wildnerness retreat (see the first 2 minutes of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCoJgf5Xyjc) – I really couldn’t survive on my own in the wild. I am really dependent on other people’s expertise.

Eid Al-Kabir is lots of work. I helped slice the organ meat into little pieces for “hosbane,” which is handmade sausage (made with the sheep’s intestines, meticulously cleaned by Essia and Nahed) stuffed with organs and parsley. Though organs are supposed to contain lots of nutrients, I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything much more than the liver. The smell of meat, much like at the butcher, didn't encourage my appetite.

For lunch, we ate assida with meat (liver & some chicken just for me), the liver as fresh as it comes. I put honey on the assida – that itself is actually a breakfast dish – and I ate more assida than meat.

For dinner, we had hosbane (stuffed intestines).

The next day, when most people seemed to be out visiting, we sliced up the rest of the meat that had remained hanging the previous day. We grilled it on a tiny grill in the backyard. This meal was actually really delicious – I guess we would call it barbecued lamb.

I talked with the Ghorbels about how they felt as kids when they saw the sheep slaughtered. They all told me that they had cried, because they felt bad for the sheep. Even as they got older, they would still tear up & feel pity for the sheep. There is a social strategy to deal with children's feelings of pity for the sheep; families tell young children not to cry for the sheep, because the sheep are happy that they will be sacrificed for Eid. [This reminded me of Santa Claus - all children will get presents on Christmas because Santa ensures moral logic.] But, I think, being human & conditioned to have other types of relationships with animals, they do feel pity. But, as one Tunisian told me, he always knew where his meat came from, and after his first tearful refusal to eat on Eid, he forgot about the sheep and enjoyed the barbecued meat.

All in all, Eid Al-Kabir was the most culturally ‘strange’ celebration I have yet participated in, and it was also the one that taught me the most. It really underlined for me what I still don’t know & how unequipped I am for other ways of living (as in perhaps the ways of my great grandparents).

my landlord's dog

2008-12-02T17:22:00.004-05:00

isn't he cute? he follows me to the door almost every day, but he's too timid to come inside.

2008-12-02T15:55:00.007-05:00

Thanksgiving was tasty, but certainly not half as tasty as it normally is at home. I went to the US Ambassador's house for Thanksgiving a little after 2 PM on the big day. After a bit of cocktail-ing, we sat down to eat squash soup, turkey, mashed potatoes/gravy, etc. - the classics. It was great to have a place to go for the holiday, and to see some friends, like the other Fulbrighters along with the American woman who directs a language institute for foreign service people here (& her kids). There were about 30 total attendees. I also met a Tunisian women who was pretty interesting - she was sitting with me at the table with the ambassador and his wife. During the meal, all 8 or so of us at the table talked about the new film about Tahar Haddad, 'Thel-eh-thun' (Thirty); about the situation in Mumbai (which at that part had just started); and about what it was like to travel constantly as a foreign service officer. The food was decent (what can compare to a home cooked Thanksgiving?), but the company was really the best part. Holidays abroad can be a little lonely.

Friday, the day after Tgiving, I had dinner at fellow Fulbrighter Zach's house. He and his girlfriend, Kelsea, cooked an *amazing* array of dishes - from stuffing to zucchini to turkey (real turkey cooked in an oven) to mashed potatoes to gravy to green beans w. almonds... All of the Fulbrighters were in attendance, along with my friend Laryssa (a Ph.D. student in political science), the man in charge of us from the embassy, my Austrian friend Nadine, and lots of Zach's Tunisian friends. It was by far the best Thanksgiving meal I had during that weekend of stuffing my face.

Over the weekend, I studied lots of Arabic, went to an art exhibition by Scottish priest (père blanc) David Bond, and went to church. I like to go to a church near my house, close to downtown, where lots of sub-Saharan African (especially Ivorian) Catholics go, along with French Catholics and some Italians. The priest is Lebanese (or Palestinian, I'm not positive), and he spoke briefly in Arabic during mass, praying for those in the parts of the world that are at war, like Iraq.
After mass there was a festival, and I hung out, wearing my bright pink coat and wandering aimlessly among a crowd of strangers. It felt at once familiar and very strange - it would have been much nicer to be there with my family. While kids played games, the others purchased coffee, cakes, and raffle prizes (I won a blouse for a man and shorts for a boy).

Sunday afternoon, I went to Monoprix to pick up a few ingredients for the Tgiving dinner I was preparing for the Ghorbels. While shopping the spice aisle, I reached down to look at one of the glass bottles of spices (imported from France, they look just like our spice containers in the States), and sliced my finger on a shard of glass. Someone had broken the glass bottle & left it there, in pieces! Blood started to run slowly down my finger, and Karim went to get a store employee, who apologized & fumed about customers who come into Monoprix, make messes or break things, and just leave.

There is, perhaps, a general Tunisian (or Tunis?) attitude manifested in driving habits, garbage disposal, and leaving broken spice glasses on the rack: a lack of a sentiment of personal investment in how Tunisia works - because of government inefficiencies, developing nation status, awareness of stature on world stage, disgust at their personal inability to change their position through hard work (there is only so much one can do with many obstacles against them)... I'm not sure, but distrust of or disgust with higher authorities like government may make accountability less a concrete responsibility and more a term that is tossed around & redefined in context.

So far this week, I've had class - which I prepared extensively for - in La Marsa with my Syrian professor. Today I went downtown for a Tunisian Arabic class where we talked about 'Eid el-Kabeer, which will be on Monday! More to come on that soon. Now I'm going to sleep, since tomorrow I have to get up super early to take a bus to go meet a friend. We are taking painted mirrors and painted glasses/vases, made by her sister, to a exposition at the embassy - a Christmas market type thing. I really hope that she will sell a few things!!

Soccer games, couscous, studying - a lazy Sunday.

2008-11-23T10:24:00.002-05:00

Right now, I am watching soccer with the Ghorbel family. It is dark, because they never turn on unnecessary lights (very much like the French families I have stayed with). We ate couscous with fish for lunch, & for dessert had chocolate and pistachio ice cream with slices of pear and banana, all sprinkled with rose water and sugar. It was delicious. Shedly, who is retired now, used to head the Tunis health department, & so - he says - after seeing the inside of too many dirty restaurants, he only likes to eat at home. [People working in restaurants in the States often say the same thing.] I totally agree with him that food made at home almost always tastes better than food from a restaurant. And speaking of valuing historical 'women's work' (& let's be honest, contemporary 'women's work' too), I enjoy appreciating food made at home. As Historian Jeffrey Pilcher wrote in his article "Industrial Tortillas and Folkloric Pepsi: The Nutritional Consequences of Hybrid Cuisines in Mexico,” the modernization of tortilla production led to processed tortillas of lower nutritional quality and further deprived women of what had once been their meaningful contribution to the household. Their hard labor grinding corn, he argues, before gave them status and identity. Food carried messages for women; it expressed their affection for their families, could “communicate anger as well as love,” and helped women gain “respect and authority as a result.” The industrialization or 'modernization' (a term heavy with meaning) of tortilla production led to men taking over historically female occupations once they were “mechanized” (and “scientificized”) such as the management of the tortillerías.

Anyway, last night I went to a wedding with Karim. Nahed, his sister, helped me get ready, and we eventually settled on a maroon shirt that tied around the neck and had a small Berber charm hanging from it. I matched that with a generic black skirt from Karim's mom & some nice black shoes with golden speck - the only nice shoes I own! - that I bought from DSW over the summer. Nahed and her mom and I had lots of fun picking out outfits and dressing me up. We spent about 40 minutes picking out make-up and applying it - Nahed put a lot on, much more than I ever would, but it still ended up looking nice and not obnoxious. I think if she hadn't studied accounting, she could have been a stylist. She also did my hair, pulling back the top & puffing it a little bit. It looked much classier than anything I have ever been able to do myself! The wedding itself was fine, but we arrived late since the reception started earlier than we thought. We ate some food and danced a little, signed the guest book, & left. I like weddings -not only because there is food and dancing - but because I enjoy the people watching. Some of the women pile on the make-up and dance the entire time, no matter their age or clothing size. I appreciate that - it prevents a tyranny of the young :p

Soon I'm going back to my apartment to study Arabic & prepare for my class tomorrow with my Syrian professor in La Marsa. She is such a good teacher, partially because I like her so much and am too embarrassed to go to her unprepared. So tonight I'll listen to the dialogues, write them down word for word, study the new vocab and the old, and pray that I remember it all.

& Inshallah, internet this week!!

Post thanks to my neighbor's internet!

2008-11-20T16:50:00.020-05:00

I am currently standing on my terrace embarrassing myself in front of the neighbors by conspicuously using someone else's internet, but I wanted to take this opportunity to do a brief update an hopefully post some pictures.

like this one, of the old port in Bizerte, north of Tunis

APARTMENT:

In mid-October, I moved into my apartment in a neighborhood in between a nouveau-riche neighborhood and a working-class district outside downtown Tunis. I live in the upstairs floor of a villa and though it is more expensive then I'd like, it has a garden and plants and 3 balconies of various sizes (so lots of natural light), I like it. I signed the lease on my birthday, and then had some initial problems with the landlords: i.e., the apartment needed a deep cleaning (aka, i took apart the fridge and washed all of the shelves in the bathtub). It was a dirtiness that you don't notice from a cursory glance. In any case, the landlords ended up paying for a cleaning lady to scrub everything down (and in a reassuring display of good faith, gave me 15 TD when she had asked me to pay her 25 TD - I just made up the difference).

LESSONS:

I am still taking Arabic lessons every day, studying both MSA and Tunisian Arabic, with 2 difference professors. It is exhausting to learn a language, especially when I have had so many responsibilities lately: finding and moving into an apartment, cleaning it, buying stuff that it lacks, cooking for myself, washing my laundry, and in general trying to keep up with the world. My favorite relaxation lately has been to read a Vanity Fair that my neighbor Penny brought when she visited with my mom recently and to watch Al Jazeera English on my satellite. In terms of quality of reporting, I think that AJE has outpaced CNN to join the ranks of BBC World. Some of you may know that I interned briefly for AJE while at Georgetown, so maybe I am a little biased.... Yet AJE has more reporters in the (still largely uncovered) developing world than *any other international news organization*. Basically, up to now, AJE reports on the developed and developing worlds for a largely developing world audience. When inevitable bias is detectable (as it always is), I appreciate where AJE's sympathies lie.

MOM's & PENNY's VISIT:

(Sidi Bou Saïd)

Never have two women alone caused some much havoc in Tunis. Actually, this is an example of hyperbole (preparation for eventual GREs) I really enjoyed my mom and Penny, despite the fact that they were more friendly than I ever allow myself to be with random people - especially men - who try to help us find our way or buy things. Together we spent one week in Tunis, during which we witnessed from an Arab/African/Muslim country the ascent to the presidency of a man with partial black and Muslim heritage (or, more importantly I think, with a partial heritage from a developing country). It was pretty amazing: the next day, a Tunisian woman I know sent me a congratulatory SMS and several taxi drivers said to me, "Meenik anti!? Amrika?? Mabrouk!" "Where are you from? America? Congratulations!"

One taxi driver declared to me that he had stayed up until the early morning hours watching the election results. Karim's mom told me that she and her kids stayed up until 5 AM watching Al Jazeera. I felt like the words of Michelle Obama really jived with my experience: something like, for the first time in my (young) life, I (am aware of the state of affairs &) am truly proud of my country.

Now, every time I turn on the French news, or AJ Arabic, or Al Jazeera English, I hear Obama's name, see his picture and ads for upcoming documentaries about him. Comparisons are especially being favorably made between Obama and JFK - and, most importantly for Tunisians, a link is being made to JFK's alleged support of the Palestinians. It begs noting that in February of this year, Obama declared that the Palestinians were suffering more than the Israelis and he was thoroughly criticized afterwards. Though the Taliban has declared Obama to be a terrorist like Bush (they have to to keep operating, right? nothing serves to unite people more than a common enemy), there seems to still be some excitement about the grandeur of the election outcome and the message of change. We shall see.

The first weekend my mom & Penny were here, we traveled to the Northwest of Tunis, which is really beautiful, with Larry Michalak, an American anthropologist living in Tunis, whom I interned for last year. He drove the car and served as an unofficial tour guide, as he did fieldwork in the NW, especially in the city of Jendouba, on markets in the 1960s - research that he has continued ever since and is currently turning into a book.

Together we visited Dougga, the city of Roman ruins:

We also visited Le Kef, a city built into a mountain, with a beautiful fortress and a mosque dedicated to the holy man Sidi Makhlouf;

Aïn Draham, where the houses have red-pointed rooftops since it does sometime snow; & Tabarka, a city on the mediterranean surrounded by mountains, where they have great seafood. The last day, we passed through Fernana, a small town with a local Sunday market, which had completely changed since Larry visited, and Bizerte, a coastal town North of Tunis with a beautiful old port.

The second week, we traveled to the South, driving in one day from Tunis to Djerba, an island off the Southeastern coast, passing through the Roman ampitheatre, El Jem. Our driver, Muhammad, had to park the car on a ferry for us to get across, and it rained and rained our entire trip there. The following morning, mom & I walked to the beach where the rain and sun produced a long rainbow.
We started off early to visit the medina of Djerba (which was still plagued by the unusual weather), where I bargained in Tunisian Arabic with the vendors and purchased a green and blue scarf. That day we drove from Djerba through the countryside on our way to Matmata, traveling through Medenine and Metameur, home to ksours (grain recepticals for nomads) and several old berber villages, many of them abandoned in favor of more modern housing. Matmata is perhaps my favorite part of Tunisian and also home to a Star Wars scene in a bar (I don't really like Star Wars so I'm not quite sure what this scene is). I don't so much like the trogladyte house where the scene was filmed, which is now a hotel, but I love the landscape: Matmata is rolling hills and mountains covered with rocks and patches of green running off in the valleys. It is truly unlike anything I have ever seen.

From Matmata, we drove to Douz, the 'gateway to the Sahara.' In Douz, we rode camels (and a horse cart) into the desert and watched the sunset. Our guide, Bilgacem, told me his family was nomadic during several months of the year and that the local school was set up to accommodate this living pattern. He told me he liked the desert because it was silent and calm. When I asked how he had captured the camels, he told me that they had been taken very easily when they were young males and that they had come to live with his family, carrying tourists out into the Sahara and carrying his family's belongings during their nomadic months. The female camels are left in the desert with the baby camels he told me, and the male camels can eventually return to them.

From Douz we crossed through the Chott El-Jerid, a huge salt lake that is dry in the summer and was holding water when we crossed through, maybe because of the recent rains. We stopped in Tozeur, where we spent the night in a hotel and arose early the next morning to visit the local "arts & traditions" museum, which was itself a beautiful house. I love the museum's displays on women's wedding clothing and jewelry, on pre-industrial food making, on weapons, and especially their small art gallery, which holds a few beautiful and strikingly un-Orientalist paintings and in general really beautiful works of art. After our hour-long visit to the museum, we took the 4x4 to the medina of downtown Tozeur, where we bought dates (deglet nour, the best of the many kinds). We didn't buy anything else, aside from "sand rose" rocks, because Tozeur was so incredibly expensive. Penny wanted to buy a scarf in a store in the Tozeur medina just like the one I had purchased in the medina in Djerba. I asked the vendor how much the scarf was, and he told me 22 Tunisian dinars (about $19). I told the man in Tunisian Arabic, "I bought this scarf in Djerba for 5 dinars. Wallah (I swear to God!)!"

His expression became inattentive, and he told me, "No, sorry." I was surprised - no bargaining at all? "How about 7?" I asked. He said no, he could sell it for more. I know that Tozeur attracts a lot of tourists, but I was surprised. Perhaps this medina is almost exclusively for tourists and not for Tunisians, unlike the medina in Tunis. Or perhaps it is because I invoked God...

After Tozeur, we sped back to Tunis (about 500 km) through the holy city of Kairouan (also transliterated as Qayrawan), which is the site of the oldest mosque in Africa. The Great Mosque of Qayrawan is beautiful and enormous. Last year, I took a picture of a blue door outside of the mosque, closeted between carpet shops, and it was so beautiful that I framed it and gave it to my mom for her birthday. Unfortunately, when we arrived at Qayrawan it was after 5 PM, and so nearing one of the times of prayer when Muslims may come to the mosque to pray - so we couldn't enter the enormous courtyard and look around, which is unfortunate since Qayrawan is the only mosque I've been to in which a non-Muslim can see the prayer room (this is a particular policy in Tunisia, not in Islam). Anyway, Penny & my mom & Muhammad and I climbed up to the roof of a next door carpet shop, and there we got a breathtaking view of the mosque in all of its enormous grandeur. Afterwards, we drank unsugared mint tea and my mom bought a long red Berber carpet for our family room.

In Tunis, we returned again to the medina, which both my mom and Penny loved.
I have to admit that I also love the winding streets and the interesting wares, though the constant calls of vendors makes me uncomfortable - not so much for the sometimes inappropriate phrases they use (who knows who taught them) but because I know that we three women have some strange power here in Tunisia: women from the developed world using their capital to buy from a particular few in the considerably poorer developing world. I also must say that I feel uncomfortable because I know that some of their wares are fake, and that they will tell me that they are not, and that I may accuse some honest men of lying while I believe others who aren't truthful. As one man once told me when I was with Karim, trying to buy a leather purse which he had offered to me for 20 dinars (about $17):

"Sometimes, I'll be honest with you, some tourists come, let's say some Japanese tourists, and I'll treat them to some tea, and I'll show them the purses and tell them they are authentic handicrafts made by women in the South, and they will pay $400 (that’s right, dollars). They’re happy and so am I.”

I was talking to my tutor Nour about this, and we both decided that perhaps it didn’t matter if we didn’t know that what we bought was in fact made in a factory in Asia – we invest lots of objects with ideas about them and about ourselves that are only subjectively true. Isn’t that the basis of brand marketing, of almost all advertising? [As an ad exec that I am tutoring told me, “We brought a fresh approach to advertisements in Tunisia – we want to sell ideas, not just products. We don’t want to prove that the product is the best, we want to portray ideas that people feel like they want to live with.”] I still don’t like buying something that isn’t what I think it is though, especially since the handiwork of women is often so labor-intensive and so undervalued – anytime that it is valued, I’d like to participate in its valuation.

In any case, that was mom and Penny’s trip to Tunisia. I have to study an Arabic dialogue now, so I’m going to finish my update tomorrow. Inshallah I will again have internet. Keep your fingers crossed!

Btw, here is a great blog from a fellow Georgetown grad named Dorothy. My friend Emmie sent me the link and it really is great – check it out at http://dvoorhees.blogspot.com/

More to come this weekend.

Love,

Laura

Post thanks to my neighbor's internet!

2008-11-20T11:14:00.002-05:00

First week in Tunis

2008-10-05T15:33:00.009-04:00

SUMMARY [for those of you who are busy]:

* Ramadan - I fasted. Various Tunisians explained their philosophy of the meaning of Ramadan: the fundamental equality of humankind, as all men & women, rich and poor, are equal before God. Not drinking water was the most difficult part. I saw a man in a mouse costume, a fire eater, & celebrated Eid.

* Apartment searching - ... [..]

So I have arrived in Tunis & settled in. I celebrated Ramadan, apartment searched, and had an unusually difficult time readjusting to a new sleep pattern.

I am currently living in Khereddine, which is a town north of downtown Tunis along the train (the TGM line). When I first arrived, Thomas, a fellow Fulbrighter also staying in the apartment (which was being rented by *another* Fulbrighter) accidentally locked us out. We still lugged all of my 60+ pound suitcases up to the 4th floor. In a spiderman-like move he jumped from the top of another building onto our apartment building and then down onto the balcony to let us back in.

So for now I’m living in a tall apartment building from which you can see the Mediterranean, the hills outside of the city across the water, and lots of white houses with blue shutters. The streets are dirty, but certainly cleaner than downtown.
A mosque behind the apartment building rises up tall above the other buildings and from the minaret the call to prayer is broadcast several times a day. During Ramadan (this year in September), evening services were also played over the loudspeaker. Burning incense in the evenings covered the smell of early autumn moldiness (which seems to be typical along the coast when it’s not summer) & of the trash bags lining the sidewalks, thrown in a way that seems haphazard (but probably is not).

FASTING--
I fasted for three days during Ramadan. The first day was certainly the hardest. Ramadan works around the rising and setting of the sun: celebrants rise early to eat a hearty breakfast before daybreak and abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, etc. until sundown. From my experience, Catholics fast similarly except that I have always thought that drinking water was allowed. I told the Ghorbels (the family I lived with during my internship & research last year) that I would fast with them but that I might have to drink water, especially since it was still kind of hot - they laughed good naturedly. Apparently fasting during Ramadan while drinking water is pretty much a contradiction in terms. So, I abstained each day from food and drink for what amounted to about 18 hours.

The first day was particularly hard, since I woke up at 9:30 AM - and not at 5 AM to eat the “s-hour” (morning breakfast) [people rise before daybreak to eat and then go back to sleep]. I went downtown to go curtain shopping with the Ghorbels, and I was thirsty, especially walking around the hot and dusty streets. Since they had all been doing Ramadan for almost a month (and have been fasting every year since they were 12 years old or so), they said they felt their bodies had learned to adjust more easily.

When we got home from curtain shopping, we turned on the TV. Fasting really does sensitize you to the luxuries to which you have normally become desensitized: a commercial in which a can of soda was loudly and dramatically poured was torture. Yet in the Ghorbel house at least there was no groveling or pampering. In an effort to give me perspective, Essia Ghorbel, who is in her mid-60s, reminded me of the millions of children south of the Sahara for whom water is actually a luxury - where lack of water supplies along with inadequate sanitation are major causes of child mortality.

RAMADAN, CHARITY, PERSPECTIVE--

Ramadan is certainly a time that emphasizes social cohesion, introspection, recognition of social ills… Packages of sweets and even meals are offered to the poor– when I asked the Ghorbels who the ‘poor’ were they told me that they gave sweets to the man from the municipality who cleaned the streets. More beggars than usual could be seen in downtown Tunis, but I was surprised to see that some of them seemed to be largely ignored by the swarms of passers-by. The Ghorbels explained that they know all of the beggars, since until about 8 years ago they lived downtown and they still spend much of their time out of the house at the markets in central Tunis. They said that many of the beggars who come out during Ramadan are ‘opportunists’ who make their living by begging during the holy month.

As a more serious student of religion, I have found the goal of Ramadan to be noble & nobly enacted. Various Muslims here - from taxi drivers to accountants - have thus explained to me Ramadan's objective: to render all people equal, despite social class, age, gender….& to remind those of us with other concerns of the suffering of those whose struggle still includes the ability to fulfill basic needs.

Another thought on the festivities: Ramadan seems to be one of those peculiar holidays like Christmas in which even those who are less or even non-practicing participate. The Tunisians whom I have met traveling or living abroad still do Ramadan, and even Shedly, the 69 year-old father in the Ghorbel family, fasts during much of Ramadan, despite the fact that he is diabetic, arthritic, and suffering from a number of other illnesses. [Several Muslims in Tunis have explained to me that is in fact against the instructions of the Muslim Holy book, the Qur’an, to fast when one is ill or otherwise weakened…]

RAMADAN NIGHT LIFE--

At night the cafés, especially in downtown Tunis & in the most northern suburbs, were filled with people: men, women, children, listening to live music, strolling the sidewalks, eating and drinking specialties offered just during Ramadan. I took some pictures that I will try to post here. I had coffee one afternoon with a Tunisian woman who is also an artist and she critiqued Ramadan – as I have heard other Muslims – because the post-dusk feasting, she said, defeats the metaphysical purpose of Ramadan.

One night, I did walk around downtown Tunis with Karim. We walked through the working-class neighborhoods that a generation before were populated by the very people who have since moved out into the suburbs. In Bab Sourka, I witnessed an interesting sequence of events. First, a man dressed in a mouse suit (like Mickey Mouse) was promoting a brand – I think the cell phone company Tunisiana. He was standing on a small stage and dancing as families and young people walked by. Suddenly, a man dressed in a black tank and dark jeans pushed him and the mouse man whipped off his hat and jumped off the stage in indignation. I wanted to take a picture of the man in the mouse suit but he looked so humiliated that I couldn’t (but Karim did). I guess no one wants to wear a mouse suit in a downtown square during the most festive month of the year & in front of potential neighbors. The man in the mouse suit eventually got back up on the stage and started dancing again, but his performance ended pretty quickly and then the aggressor in the black tank and dark jeans jumped up on the stage with a wooden torch. He was a fire blower. Holding alcohol in his mouth, he spit large streams of alcohol against the flame which flared in enormous bursts. He then stuck the burning stick into his mouth, and the alcohol (I guess) extinguished the flame. I asked Karim if that hurt and he said no. I’m not really sure he has ever done that though :p.

APARTMENT SEARCHING--

Aside from celebrating Ramadan, most of my time has been spent searching for apartments. I think I will be living on my own – it seems like it will just be easier. A few teachers will be arriving at Amideast (the American language school in Tunis) in the coming weeks, but I would rather find housing for the first 6th months (of language study) on my own and see how things unwind for my second grant period of 9 months (when I will do research). Recently, I saw a beautiful apartment in Sidi Bou Saïd (way out in the northern suburbs) with the help of my Tunisian professor Noureddine’s sister & her husband. They were both really helpful and got me an excellent price for the apartment – 600 TD/month (about 480 USD) but the apartment did not have central heating and the suburbs along the coast are freezing in the winter… My responsibility including electricity probably would have been around 800 TD/month, or 640 USD, which seems like just too much. I need to save some money for traveling, furnishings, transportation, food, etc. So I am still looking, in the slightly less ritzy parts of the city. I am hoping for an apartment that is semi-furnished with a decently sized kitchen, 1-2 bedrooms, decent bathroom, and living room/dining room. The apartment also has to be near transportation centers, since I will not have a car until I have my carte de séjour, and I cannot get a carte de séjour until I have an apartment. Catch 22.

OTHER NEWS--

I am making slow headway on the other fronts. I contacted a woman to tutor me in Arabic and am meeting her Monday, though she lives in the northern suburbs and may not be able to tutor me if I don’t live near her. I also met a great American woman who directs a language institute for foreign service officers here. She has two adopted children – twins – from Ethiopia who are really adorable. I ate dinner at their house and it was really enjoyable; she also offered me a bed if I might need one.

I am also recording some Tunisian recipes. I’d love to put one for a great dish called “Mlekhouia” here but I can’t because you can’t buy the powder outside of Tunisia. I’ll bring some home and make it for Christmas.

That is all for now. I am going to watch the first episode of True Blood. Hopefully it is good. I am back in Khereddine and needing some down time.

Eid mabrouk to everyone who just celebrated Ramadan & happy autumn (my favorite season)….

Early February, it feels like spring here.

2007-02-07T05:40:00.000-05:00

February 1st, 2007

So much has happened since my last entry. I’ll try to recap. I am currently sitting in the salon of Kareem’s family because, after spending almost every day with them anyway, I have decided to spend my last month or so living in their family. This way, I eat really well, learn more Tunisian Arabic, spend time with the family (whom I really like, especially Nahed, the sister), can take hot showers (!!!) and in general feel safer. So it’s my first night with everything here, but I’m feeling good about it – hopefully it will be a good experience in its contribution to my ‘cultural awareness’ of the Tunisian mentality and lifestyles.

Quick note: I am currently watching a sports show in Arabic (which I often do with this family) which is discussing tennis – and they just mentioned Cincinnati 2 or 3 times – because of the competition that is held there.

I need to take a moment in any case to clarify just how kind this family has been to me: when I was sick, they called me and asked me why I hadn’t come (I wanted to just sleep & I didn’t want to infect them) since they could take better care of me. They feed me too much – always; if I was staying here for any longer I would surely gain 20 pounds and have to ship all of my carefully-packed clothes home and purchase new ones. After dinner (couscous, lasagna-type dishes, chicken, soups, to name a few aspects of some of the meals), we almost always have sweet, hot mint tea (which I love) and biscuits, or a delicious dessert that seems to be made with some type of chocolate pudding topped by cream, which then is decorated with chopped nuts (pistachios) and tiny, hard shiny balls that seem to be filled with sugar (and so to me resemble sprinkles). They do all that they can to put me at ease, which I really appreciate, and I can easily say that I feel more comfortable with this family than I have with any other.

February 4th, 2007

Today is Sunday, and I basically spent the entire day laying around in the house – it’s interesting to see what people do: most of the day is spent laying around watching TV and chatting, while lunch occurs around 1 or so and dinner around 8. They drink tea in the afternoon around five – sugary mint tea or bitter tea with peanuts. Honestly, watching so many sports gets a little bit boring – I finished a book today (they keep telling me, how come you’re carrying your book with you, it’s the weekend!) and then fell asleep. An interesting fact I was thinking about today is that my family probably doesn’t have any literature that means something ‘native’ to them – is in a type of maternal tongue – other than the Qur’an; surely there is very little, if any, literature in Tunisian Arabic, and Classical Arabic – what some literature is written in – isn’t a ‘native’ language to them; in fact, apparently all of the children except for Ramsey were awful at classical Arabic while they were in school. French is a relatively native language to them, but it’s not the language of anger, love, family life, etc. – Tunisian Arabic is used in the home of my family and I heard about five words of French during my entire couple of hours at a soccer game last weekend.

So in any case, today I got up late (around 11 AM!, which I normally hate doing), had breakfast, watched some TV, & went for a walk/run with Nahed (during which we discussed wedding festivities here). As for weddings, the partying lasts for a week and can cost just as much as it does in the US; Ramsey, for example, explained - baffled – that just renting the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) costs about 5,000 dinars (Nahed later told me that the average monthly salary of a Tunisian is about 200 dinars). The first night, there is apparently a huge party with the two families and friends of the families and bride and groom. Then, I guess the next day (not sure), the groom comes to pick the bride up at her house, after which they travel to the Municipal hall (or such) to get married. The Mosque is not involved after the families gather there to sign the wedding contract. The bride changes outfits three or four times throughout the week, and Nahed’s mother actually wore a traditional dress of gold she borrowed for her wedding (I saw the pictures), a dress which, if purchased, would cost about 20-30,000 dinars.

Afterwards I had lunch – a really delicious homemade pasta with tomato sauce (rather light, not heavily put on like we do in US) and chicken (with the bone in it and the skin still on, like always). Then I spent the afternoon finishing The Historian, finally, and watching soccer and handball games. Around 6h30, I wanted to go out and walk because I don’t like having limited movement and being inside for too long; in fact, I just proposed that I walk down the street to the market vendor there to buy a Tunisiana card to recharge my cell phone. My host father, however, didn’t want me to, so he insisted on going with me.

Although I was irritated to not go by myself, I appreciated his gesture and we had an interesting conversation about the five prayers Muslims do everyday: one in the morning, one at lunch time, one between lunch time and the setting of the sun, one around 5h30, and one after the setting of the sun. Before each prayer, he washes his face, mouth, nose, ears, his arms up to just before his elbows, and his feet; then he is clean enough to be before God. Interestingly, women who are having their periods are considered too dirty to do the prayer or go to the Mosque (he didn’t tell me this, I learned this somewhere else).

As for what I’ve been up to since I last wrote, let me give a quick recap:

Since spending most of my time with the family of Kareem, I’ve moved in with them. Kareem is also ridiculously nice to me, driving me places and waiting for me to take me home when it’s completely unnecessary, such as earlier this week, when he drove me to Berges du Lac for lunch with Hatam, Shannon, and Madame Aziza (who is a bit crazy) and waited for me to go a (canceled) conference with Larry in the medina at Dar El Behi (which in any case was a beautiful home, and Larry and I took a small tour and had delicious stuffed dates and some tea). Kareem has also told me he really respects me and that I’ve changed the way his mother (Issia) views Americans, so I really do feel good with them (although occasionally bored, haha). Right now, everyone is home and we are watching Star Academy (second round in Lebanon), and of course they are all laughing and making fun of the contestants. Of course each time that anyone pays too much attention to me or says something that I don’t understand, I blush (including my ears, which I hate). In addition, I can't make fun of people courageous enough to sing in front of a panel of judges, bright lights, on TV - I couldn't do it, so you know, I can't make fun.

To note: This commercial for Ford just came on that I really like, and it features some men and women in Saudi Arabia (my host family told me) – the men in white robes and the women in black dresses and a scarf wrapped around their head (though their features are exposed). I love this commercial (and its companions) because they are all directed at men – the men are driving (the women sit in the back) and the kids (who sit in the very back) are all boys. Hah. Why? Because in Saudi Arabia it’s against the law for women to drive (of course this is considered to be crazy in many other parts of the Arab world, as my Arabic prof at Georgetown told me last year – ‘the Saudis are crazy and what they do ruins it for the rest of the Arab world’).

Anyway, so what have I been up to? I went to a soccer game last weekend between the Club Africain and some other team; the score was zero to zero, but the intensity of the crowd, the singing, the swearing in Arabic, the prostrations to the sky were fascinating to me (it’s really a religious experience). I have also eaten sheep’s head, fish (which was whole, I had to pull out the skin) Jerbian couscous (at Madame Aziza’s, during which she asked me to call the ambassador and try to get a visa to the States for her so that she can visit her sick son), and gone to the Esthetician (with Asma) to get my eyebrows done – from the pictures, this woman is amazing, but she took off too much of me I think, I’m not sure why.

At work, I’ve finished cataloguing the first part of the library. I listened to a girl named Christine, whose finishing up her Anthro master’s at the University of Vienna, talk about her research – which involved case studies of ‘resistance’ to the presented images of women. Another older woman, Lilla, who apparently is a big sociologist here and who is married to an American, was an ‘honored guest’ at the small talk at CEMAT, and she was critical of the representativeness of the study (see notes taken). In any case, she knew whom Christine had interviewed, because the sole details about their living arrangements (living with a foreigner whom she is not married to) are so particular (and they also descend from the ancient aristocracy). Lilla said something really interesting: you have to study all women within the categories of their generation in Tunisia. She separated three generations, those before 1975 (a rupture apparently occurred in ’75), and then women of today she said are a new generation (“issue de la lutte contre le patriarcat et le colonialisme). Urging Christine to study Tunisian law for a better analysis in her thesis, Lilla added, “Law is the psychology of a people.”

A movie to see is apparently Satin Rouge, which caused a huge stir and a lot of debates for and against. Lilla discussed how this film confirms poor images of ‘bad’ women belly dancers, for example, are bad. She said, “Les films révolutionnaires se collent toujours à l’imaginaire sociale.” (Jan. 31st, 2007 CEMAT)

Lilla also talked about the issue of globalization as affecting what people are wearing: everyone wants to wear what’s ‘hot,’ and “c’est honteux de porter quelque chose que quelqu’un d’autre a déjà porté” (it’s shameful to wear something that someone else has already worn) – even if the ‘other person’ is your sister.

We also discussed the problems of alcoholism and wife beating (which are often linked, though interestingly those Muslims who pray are not supposed to drink alcohol), which are featured in the “Faits divers” in a local French newspaper.

John, a University prof teaching here on the Fulbright, also asked interesting questions, like, ‘If images of women were supposed to represent reality, what would these images look like?’ Often, Feminists have written against realism (I think that’s kind of crazy, since realism can incorporate such a great number of images that plurality can just be implied).

As for other interesting happenings, I introduced Shannon to Kareem following the speech, and she seems to feel much more comfortable meeting people (her timidity in early January was so great that she physically shook when she met me!). Madame Aziza then interrogated Riyad at the Center about his life, and then Kareem on the phone (when she called me to invite me for dinner, and I couldn’t understand her – she only speaks Tunisian Arabic – I gave the phone to Kareem) – and then the next day, hilariously, we ran into her in the street! I heard a quite voice saying, ‘Laura, Laura..’ as Kareem and I were walking to eat lunch.

I’m still going to Arabic classes on Tuesdays (which I am also driven pratically directly too), and I went with Larry to get his carte de séjour after the expected ridiculous amount of running around, getting forms not listed as necessary and other such craziness. Overall, I’ve been good. : ) I have Arabic class again on Tuesday, and Larry won't be there, which means I'll be all by myself - but oh well. If nothing else, I'll copy verb lists out of my "L'Arabe Tunisien" pocket book that I purchased in Paris, which has turned out to be more helpful than anything else.
bises.

There are two main types of Tunisian carpets: one is woven horizontally, the other is threaded laterally and patted down.

2007-02-07T05:10:00.000-05:00

January 19th- January 21st

So after all of the drama, I ended up having a good weekend. Kareem, whose family I had met on Wednesday night, called me on Friday and explained that he actually had two free rooms, and that it was no problem for me to sleep in them – his brother and sister sleep elsewhere. He made me feel a little bad (I think purposely), telling me how excited his mom was that I was coming (she asked me last night when I came home, “Where is Laura!?”) and telling me that he was a little “vexed” with me (tu m’as vexé) since he had offered such nice things to me (which is true – he arranged that I come meet his family, after which they offered me a room and insisted that I need not pay and that they feed me, drive me downtown every morning, etc.) and I had taken a room elsewhere. In fact, it was all much more complicated than that; he had explained to me (in French), that his brother or sister would give me their rooms and they would sleep elsewhere (which he afterward explained was not the case, “they just stored things there,” and he also told me jokingly that I needed to improve my French - ha). In any case, he made it clear that his family didn’t mind if I stayed in a bedroom– they often fall asleep in their (ornate) living room, he told me, and they certainly wouldn’t mind me taking one of the bedrooms. In any case, I felt a little guilty for visiting the family and then their house and choosing not to stay – though of course I know that is my decision, blah blah blah – and so, due to fatigue and uncertainty about where I was staying (after my first cold night), I stressed myself out worrying about what to do. This stressing out included calling my parents and my former professor, Noureddine, who is from Tunisia but now teaches in America, and who was very kind to me and advised me on what to do (visit the family but not necessarily stay with them).

While stressing, I decided to go to the cybercafé by my house, since I really wanted to talk to certain people, and I figured they might be online. After an hour of unsuccessful attempts to open AOL instant messenger express, I asked the man sitting next to me if the internet is supposed to go so slowly (it’s dial-up, but it is SLOW – ADSL is now only legally allowed in homes, basically bc those selling it want to make a big profit!). Well, oh-so-friendly he was, he came over and took a chair to sit next to me and kept reloading the page (I knew this wouldn’t work – I had already tried it a million times - but I took pity on him and let him try : p). After about another 30 minutes, we decided that it wasn’t working and the man disconnected the connection completely and I waited with the other customers. Surprisingly (right?) the guy who had been ‘helping’ me struck up a conversation, and I figured out that he didn’t actually work at the cybercafe, he was just hanging out with his friend, who did work there; instead, he was finishing his law degree and teaching at the University of Tunis, preparing for a client case which necessitated him reading the “Sociology of Crime”, which he subsequently promised to lend me (surprisingly?). I’m being mean, because he actually was very nice and showed me the Young People’s Center, whose name was written completely in Arabic (and so I would have been a little hesitant to go in), where the internet is apparently faster (thank god!) and cheaper. We then went back to the cybercafé where finally the internet was working, so I could get on msn (my email for it is laurelle00@hotmail.fr, by the way) and chat, which made me feel much better.

On Saturday, I woke up and took a hot shower (which I really needed), and had some yogurt and nutella (which I had eaten for dinner the night before, too). I tried to finish reading The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, which is basically a mixture of history and dramatic/action fiction about Dracula and contemporary students go on a chase to unveil history. It’s a bestseller and is actually really good – I heard Elizabeth Kostova on NPR on the Diane Reem show, which is why I bought the book on my way home from Paris.

Thankfully, my weekend would greatly improve. At noon, I met Haifa, Noureddine’s sister, in Le Kram (right next to Khereddine, where I live), and she took me to her apartment; she and her husband live on the fifth floor in an apartment building that overlooks the city of Tunis and Les Berges du Lac, where the US Embassy is, and their apartment is beautiful. They have a young daughter named Shahed (I hope that’s the right English transliteration), which means ‘honey’ in Arabic. She is adorable; one and a half years old with curly black hair and a really sociable personality. As everyone told me I would, we had a delicious lunch – and a really big one. First, a delicious salad (freshly-cut tomatoes, sliced onions, sliced beets, etc.); then a slice of olive quiche; then delicious seasoned rice with a mushroom cream sauce along with lamb. Haifa was really kind to me, giving me seconds of everything, but it was so much I couldn’t eat it; when she gave me a second serving of rice, she filled my plate completely and I thought to myself, “There is no way I will be able to eat all of that!” I later told Riyadh about this, and he told me that I just need to say, “That’s enough,” when it’s enough, and they’ll stop – it wouldn’t (I hope) be rude of me. As I guessed, I couldn’t eat all of it, though I tried courageously. For dessert, we had cake: shortbread-like cookies soaked in coffee and layered on top of each other with cream spread in between, top with a hard icing like top which was then drizzled with caramel; it was delicious, despite how full I was.

After lunch, Haifa and I drove around the suburbs of Tunis, which was great because it helped me orient myself; I could place all of the names I had been hearing and see where they were located in relation to me. Anthropologists often talk about the power of orientation in a place, which proves that you ‘belong’ there, and that you have the capacity to navigate it at your will, to your advantage and for your pleasure. So Haifa, who was really kind to do this, took me to La Marsa (which has beautiful cliff views over the Mediterranean) over to Sidi Bou Saïd (which you should google to see the beautiful photos!), and to Carthage, among others. I took lots of photographs, which I’ll post and send, and at Sidi Bou Saïd we walked up into the city – which is all blue and white with cobblestone streets (and so due to lack of space only residents can park) – and took pictures from off of a cliff, where lots of other people were hanging out, looking over the waves. As we walked back down, Haifa bought some doughy pastries, which were like doughnuts, but softer. As we descended the cobblestone path, I suddenly heard a yell, and all of the men milling around their shops on the street ran inside, yelling; there was a handball match going on, and apparently the Club Africain, which hadn’t won for nine years, won. I would hear cries of victory and large groups of people singing in celebration for the rest of the weekend; as Kareem’s father would tell me, “There are no politics without soccer here.” Then Haifa and I returned to her house, where we picked up her daughter Shahed (who had slept all afternoon) and her husband (who had slept too), and went to “Géant,” the French supermarket whose name is appropriate – it is a giant…enormous! store – like 2 Sam’s Clubs put together. This was really nice of them, since I hadn’t had the chance to go shopping yet, and I needed lots of stuff – shampoo/conditioner (I bought the Garnier brand with henna, which I love), body wash (Le Petit Marseillais – the French are everywhere here), along with food, milk, fruit, etc. It was really nice to get the essentials down, and it makes the apartment feel much more like home with food I like and the necessary supplies. Haifa and her husband were both so nice to me – they even listened to the French radio while riding in the car with me, I think because they knew I would understand that. Their daughter was adorable at the supermarket, too; she is so sociable that she had no problem dancing in front of a stereo (part of some type of promotion) and dancing, chatting with strangers and other people strolling by – one man even reached down and tousled her hair.

I got back on Saturday night around 10, and Shannon, another American girl here who was with the group from Potsdam, called me and invited me to come over. I said sure, so I took a cab from Khereddine (which by the way, I found and hailed all by myself) to the Concord hotel, which is right next to her house. She and her host brother then came to get me, and we went back to her house where we had another type of ‘traditional’ tea I hadn’t had yet; this tea, unlike the sugary mint tea that I love, was bitter and had a scoop of peanuts in it, which you eat as you drink. I spoke with the host brother, which spoke good English – he worked at the hotel – but was happy to speak French (everyone is always surprised that an American speaks French – maybe just because most Americans study Spanish or don’t study foreign languages too seriously, and no one ever believes I’m only 21 – I hope this age trend doesn’t continue forever). Shannon’s host mother only speaks Arabic, though she understands French and speaks a little of it, so I spoke to her in a mixture of Arabic and French, where she would speak Arabic and I would respond in French, often with some translation help from her son.

The visit lasted quite a long time – about three hours – and during its course I learned that Hatem’s (the son’s) brother was in the US and was going to undergo surgery in two months; Ahmed’s mother – the woman who only spoke Arabic – couldn’t get a visa, because, as the US embassy in Tunis told her, they were not convinced that she wouldn’t just stay there. She had tears in her eyes and kept telling me, “Ana umm,” – I’m a mother. I told her that I understood and that I couldn’t imagine that they would reject her request now that her son was a citizen (which he had recently become). I told them I’d give them the email of the Tunisian man from the embassy who had come to CEMAT to see if he could help them understand how to build a case for themselves; she was inconsolable, desperately worried, and I realized all of the sudden that this is exactly what I had studied in one of my classes in Paris – the division of families (especially those in the developing world) by globalization, immigration for work, and the broad fears of States that monitor and restrict movement. I’m sure that all of us want women like this one to be able to visit her son, and using humane logic, we should create a world where she can. In any case, I hope that all goes well for them, and I told them I could help them with any translation or any problems like that, and that they should get proof of citizenship and maybe a letter from a doctor to help with their case.

I left at about 12:30 and took a taxi back in the dark, after they offered to have me over for lunch some Sunday, when I could.

Sunday morning I woke up at 11, when Kareem called to ask me if I wanted to come to his house; I love his family and don’t really know anyone else yet, so of course I said yes (although I was hoping they wouldn’t feed me any more, since I was still full from Saturday). I met him downtown around one, and I called him to say where I was, he insisted I wait and that he come pick me up. I rolled my eyes and waited, until he arrived with the music blaring really loudly again (which prompted me to roll my eyes again) and we went to his favorite café so he could check the game schedule for handball games (which I wouldn’t mind going to since they are obviously a big part of the culture). He knows a lot of people in the area (and greets them constantly as we drive, which I’ve noticed Riyadh does too), and so he suggested that I go check my email while he go into the café; I really wanted to, but I don’t like this “you go and don’t pay because you know me” attitude, so I told him no thanks. Instead, I studied my Tunisian Arabic booklet diligently and learned how to saw lamb, which is a meat that I don’t particularly prefer, though I know that it’s a specialty. Then we headed back to his house, and en route I discovered that he hadn’t told his family about the initial misunderstanding about rooms (the fact that I thought I would be taking someone’s room when, he insisted later, I would be choosing an empty one) and that, as I had told him on Saturday before I went to Shannon’s, that my ‘conservative’ father wanted me to live with a woman. Conveniently, this is an explanation that is readily acceptable to them. So anyway, I was pretty irritated with Kareem, who told me, “I don’t want to get involved in your business, this isn’t between me and my family, this is between you and my family.” Since I would have to explain this in French to his mother, who doesn’t speak French, and to the rest of his family – rather awkwardly – I was really irritated and almost asked him to just take me home, but since his family was already waiting for me, I decided to just label him as rude and enjoy spending the day with his family. In any case, I think that he didn’t want to explain the situation to his family because I don’t think that they really do have an extra bedroom – I think it really is the bedroom of his sister, and she just sleeps downstairs a lot and doesn’t mind. In any case, I think all of the confusion was not due to my misunderstanding, but due to the fact that he and his family really want me to stay and so he will reword the ‘truth’ in whatever way he can in order to convince me to stay. In brief, the whole situation was a bit interesting, but I love Nahed, Kareem’s sister, who wants me to come to her “fiancée” party this summer (when she will sign a marriage contract with her soon-to-be fiancé), and his mother, who called me “bin-tee” (my daughter) all day and at breakfast in the morning. She told me that she worried about me cold by myself, and told me to come eat with them whenever I wanted; she also told me that if I ever wanted to leave the apartment, it would make her really happy if I came to stay with them. Her daughter told me that she said, “I feel like I’ve know Laura my whole life! I want her to feel like she is part of the family” – which, honestly, she did make me feel like on Sunday: tucking me in to bed at night (I’m serious!), and giving me a blanket while we watched the Arabic version of the French Star Academy (which was hilarious!) with her neighbor, feeding me, giving me tea, letting me sleep in in the morning, and even trying to find the key to lock the door of the bedroom where I slept (in order to preserve the dignity my father is so concerned about : p ). After lunch on Sunday, Kareem also took me on a walk around his neighbor, and we had a really interesting conversation about the “cultural disconnection,” the “problem of re-integration” that Tunisians who have studied abroad have experience upon their return to Tunisia. Kareem, who studied in Canada and spent time in the US, returned to Tunisia last year and told me that he has had a lot of trouble reconnecting to his friends and the culture and bridging the gender gap; men and women don’t spend very much time along together, unless they are in a relationship. Even his sister, he told me, often stays at home because she doesn’t like what some Tunisian teenagers are doing – how they are dressing, how they are driving, how obnoxious and disrespectful they act in public; Kareem even told me that he preferred not going out with his mother and sister, because he was sometimes too embarrassed by what he saw. That’s probably an exaggeration, but the preservation of ‘femininity’ and ‘feminine honor’ or ‘innocence’ is really interesting, and that seems to be an important value (recall Asma, who goes to bed around 9h30 every night and doesn’t go out). This is also much easier here because family is, in my opinion, even more central to everyday life than it is in the United States, something which I find very comfortable.

For dinner, we had briques (tortilla-like shells with you fill with a few peas, a few pieces of white Mexican-like cheese, and an egg, and which you then fry in corn oil (cooking the white but no the yellow of the egg), and then eat with some lemon squirted on top; it’s delicious. We also had some more lamb, which was really fatty, and so – just like at lunch – I followed the same strategy: cut it into small pieces, spread it around the plate, try to eat some, and what you can’t eat spit out into your napkin, which I then threw away in the bathroom garbage can (I know, I know, but what else could I do?).

Apparently, even women of the middle class – students, friends of Kareem’s – resort to occasional prostitution (asking friends) in order to be able to sastify the desire to buy pretty clothes, to be in style – Kareem referred to this as a perverse effect of globalization. We took a walk and passed by some cafés where women sat upstairs, waiting for men to approach them; they then went to nearby apartments where girls rented out one apartment and each took a room, to which they brought back their clients (Menzah).

apartment searching and such

2007-01-19T03:30:00.000-05:00

January 16th, 2007

Today was an interesting today. I got up around 7:45, planning to spend the day with the Potsdam students, who were organizing a visit to Carthage (a world heritage site). I had considered going to Larry’s Tunisian Arabic class (taught by the “White sisters,” some French nuns living in Tunisia), but I opted for the trip instead, since I like the students and the professors who are leading them (one is an expert on Arabic literature and knew her way around the site). So, I woke up, got dressed, and ran to withdraw more money (with the purchase of my cell phone I had used up my first withdrawal). By the way, Mom, no one uses traveler’s checks – ATM is much easier, so I’m going to save the traveler’s check for Luxembourg, maybe I can use them just to pay for housing there, we’ll see. Anyway, so I hurried back to the hotel and found the students sitting in the breakfast room; they are all very friendly, so I spoke to the girl, Shannon, who will be staying here through March (working at a Tunisian Woman’s Health Organization) about here homestay. After breakfast, instead of going straight to Carthage, we went instead to the Médina to visit a music institute; apparently all of the students have to give mini-reports as they go along, and a student named Hillary gave a report about the music institute (first a sentence in Arabic, then two sentences in English, so not quite a ‘report’, but w/e). We then headed to Carthage, where we purchased lunch from Monoprix and ate first on the steps of the supermarket, then on some steps by the sea; I bought a salade mechouia (tomatoes, garlic, small slivers green vegetables I didn’t recognize – spinach maybe, garlic, lots of olive oil, and then a small amount of chicken or tuna on top), which was too spicy, some ‘table bread,’ and a few small puff pastries type things filled with meat (they didn’t have any filled with vegetables). Asma, the niece of Kacem (the man whose house I went to for dinner my first night here), had looked through the newspaper for me, looking for places where I could stay, and we called a few of them while sitting there. Oddly enough, through the rest of the day and today (the 17th), I received calls from people I didn’t know, who were returning calls Asma had made to them. “I received a call from this number they would say,” etc., but more on that later.

So, with the Potsdam student, I visited the Parc National and saw Roman Ruins, including the Roman Baths; we even walked down inside the cellars, which heated the water to be used. Afterwards, we made our way to Byrsa hill, where we saw Punic/Phoenician ruins, which the Romans built over. I also visited the Mosaic museum and looked at clay lamps made by the Phoenicians, Africans, Romans, even Vandals (of course they had the most simplistic, least decorative design). I took lots of pictures, especially in the baths, because we had a beautiful view of the Mediterranean.

After Carthage, a few people moved on to Sidi Bou Saïd, which they later reported to me was beautiful, but I went to Khereddine (by La Goulette) to look at potential housing. I looked at an apartment right next to the train station, where I could live with an English girl in a pretty apartment (well decorated, TV, nice bathroom, nice kitchen) and have my own room. As I finish my apartment searching, it’s at the top of my list. Afterwards, I returned home and returned to the hotel, dropped off some stuff, and took a taxi to the end of the metro line to look at an apartment that Asma had actually found and already visited for me (isn’t she nice? It’s unbelievable how much she’s done to help me). We had to wait a while for the woman to come, and meanwhile Asma and I had an interesting discussion. She told me that in her opinion, people in the Arab world see the Iraqi conflict between the two dominant Muslim religious groups – the Sunnis and the Shiites – as the central conflict in Iraq; this might sound obvious, but this is how she frames the entire situation. Sunnis are the minority in Iraq, and they are the great majority in Tunisia. The execution of Saddam Hussein – of a Sunnis on a great holy day of his faith (an important Muslim holiday) – was a “slap in the face” of Sunnis across the Arab world; in this way, she views the execution of SH as a sectarian murder, not because SH wasn’t a bad man (she said he was), but rather because his trial was ‘biased against him from the start’ and his execution was carried out by a Shiite-backed govn’t. So, you see, this is why the video of SH’s execution was such a big deal in the Arab world – the fact that sectarian taunts were thrown out by the executioners – taunts that referenced his identity as a Sunni – reinforced the interpretation some had of a minority Sunni leader being executed by a majority Shiite, pro-American govn’t (which, Asma told me, was comprised of men ‘just in it to get wealthy’). Asma probably isn’t the most reliable authority factually (but then again I’m not an expert either, and most of info is based on the media), she is a really good source for the sentiment among Muslim people outside of Iraq, even in North Africa.

Anyway, the woman finally arrived and I saw her house – it was tiny and cold, and far away from the metro. She was kind of interesting though – Asma told me that the woman, we’ll call her Neha, was very ‘open-minded’: she drinks and smokes, etc. Apparently, some ‘veiled girls’ (the English word Asma used) used to live with Neha, but once they found her smoking they left right away – because of this Neha was apparently really interested in living with an American (since American movies make us seem reallllly ‘open-minded’).

After visiting the house, I invited Asma to have dinner (since it was almost 9 and she hadn’t eaten yet), so we went to this place called Hollywood where a famous Tunisian singer sat across from us – and was bothered by no one (Asma told me that he is a regular). She ordered Jumbalaya (I recommended it as maybe the most ‘authentic’ dish, alongside pasta, pizza, etc.) I ordered a pizza, which ended up being a family size pizza with about 8 or 9 slices; I took most of it back to the hotel and am saving it for lunches. Asma was kind of funny though; she told me that she goes to bed every night around 9:30 or 10, so she was worried about being out so late – though she told me that her parents know and think it’s okay because she is with her American friend. I asked her if she would ever be able to stay out this late with a man; she said, “Absolutely not.” As I guessed, she also told me that her family is a bit conservative.

January 17th, 2007

Today has been a crazy day, and tonight is my last night (I have decided) in the hotel. As for now, I am getting ready to go to bed after a long day of apartment searching and a speech at the Center. First, let’s detail what I did today: catalogued some books (or was that yesterday?) and paused to read some things… began to alphabetize Larry’s huge collection of business cards…listened to a speech from a former CEMAT grant recipient – a Tunisian woman who went to BGSU in Ohio to study freedom of the press in the United States (which she determined is not quite as free as expected or hoped). This speech was attended by the press attaché from the US Embassy in Tunis, who of course, for his job, had to throw in his two contrary cents, and another Tunisian man who worked in the US Embassy and spoke amazing English. Another student also came, so there were about 5 of us. Basically, the Ph.D. student (in American studies, which, due to popular demand, is now a concentration) discussed the ‘atmosphere of fear’ in post-9/11 America in which journalists and columnists fear (even if the fear is subtle or not heeded) writing against the government for fear of retribution (think, for example, of publicized cases like that of Valerie Plame and Judy Miller).

After the speech, I went to have dinner with a girl named Juliette who is here on a Fulbright, recently graduated from Stanford and arriving from Cairo. She had a friend visiting, John (I think?), who is a professor of math at American Univ. of Cairo (even though he looks like he’s 24, he’s actually 32); he went to top US Univ. (Harvard, Columbia) and decided just because to go to Cairo, and he loves it. Larry came with us to a pasta/pizza restaurant (oh, another one), and I had seafood pasta, which was good but not delicious, and some chocolate mousse, which wasn’t really chocolate mousse but which I liked more than anything else eaten that day. Unfortunately, I had been hoping I could live with Juliette in her house in Sidi Bou Saïd, but I wouldn’t be able to come until Feb. 1st, which is a ways away. That means that I would have to in any case at least find housing to last me until, which is what I’m still in the process of ruminating over in my head.

After dinner, I saw the Potsdam students one last time, exchange contact info with them, and wished them goodbye. Afterwards, I met Kareem (the friend of Asma’s) in front of my hotel, and he spoke to me and took me to meet his family, who was wonderful. I drank some sweet tea with them and talked to them about their travels to the US, their studies, etc. etc. They all speak French pretty well if not perfectly, though the mother understood French but only spoke Arabic. We spent a good time together, and I’d really like to live with them, but there are two problems: 1) they are very far from school and from the directors of the Center, who like to check in on me, and 2) they don’t have a spare bedroom for me, they would just be giving me one of their bedrooms. I would really like to live with them – although of course living with a host family is a bit stressful at times – but I’m afraid that it would be too difficult to come into the city when I wanted to and too inconvenient for them. In any case, they told me that I can still certainly come visit them and such, which I will definitely do.

As for where I will stay, I’m not sure; I guess maybe I’ll go to the apartment with the English girl and see how that is, and maybe I will be able to change if necessary. We shall see…

January 18th, 2007

So today was pretty stressful, and busy. I moved out of the hotel, categorized cards at the Center (this was the most stressful activity of all of course… I built a card filing box out of the top lid of a shoe box and some pieces of cardboard which I cut into strips), lunched with Riyadh, and moved in the apartment in Khereddine, which is already inhabited by an English girl. I’m feeling a bit lonely right now though, because I’m here alone, and I don’t really know the house very well, and it is freezing cold. Right now, I’m wearing a sweater over my shirt, along with long pants, slippers, a scarf, and a hat, and I’m wrapped in a blanket. There is apparently no central heating in the apartment, just a small heating unit in my room which doesn’t seem to do much. I also have the feeling that I’m being bitten by mosquitoes, which I think probably is true, but maybe not to the degree I’m suddenly convinced of. In any case, moving in a foreign country has always been kind of hard for me; briefly put, I miss the hotel. I hope that I made the best decision about this housing (rather it be for the week or for the full month and handful of days I will spend here, we’ll see. I’m off to bed, if possible, and more news to come tomorrow.

The second day, lunch craziness and the Center

2007-01-17T05:25:00.001-05:00

January 15th, 2006

I woke up today around 9 AM, but not for the first time; I slept for a long time, but my sleep was interrupted by noise from outside and general time zone switching confusion (as in, I awoke at 3:30 in the morning – 9:30 AM US time - and looked at my watch; ‘3:30 in the afternoon!?’ I thought, baffled at how I had managed to sleep through my alarm clock, before I suddenly realized that it was dark outside, which meant that it was 3 AM, not PM). I had breakfast at the hotel, which featured a small assortment (maybe because I came late?) of coffee and hot chocolate, croissant-like rolls, pain au chocolat, weird (Tunisian, I’m guessing) cereal (which was basically small choppily-sliced flakes of chocolate), ham, cheese, and baguettes. I had a bit of cereal, some coffee (mixed with hot milk and a bit of chocolate mix), and a roll with cheese. I left the hotel around 10 and made my way to CEMAT with the help of a map, walking down the Blvd Habib Bourguiba to the Médina, where parking is extremely limited and the streets crowded. At CEMAT, which is in a beautiful old white building with a blue gate (such Mediterranean colors), I met Rijadh, the 20- or 30-something man who is the assistant director of the Center and who speaks wonderful English. He took me out to buy a cell phone, which necessitated returning to the hotel to get a copy of my passport. I purchased a SIM card for 5 TD (Tunisian dinar), which I thought was an amazing price, and a decent cell phone that allows you to listen to the radio for a decent price. Larry later told me that Riyadh is preparing his wedding for the beginning of August, and that he is in the middle of the stressful process of furnishing an apartment with the necessary goods (required before the wedding).

After purchasing the cell phone, I went to get lunch with Faizu, who is basically the guard/odd jobs man of CEMAT. We probably would have been better off speaking Arabic, because his French wasn’t very good; this led to me ordering a chicken plate when I wanted a salad plate and lots of confusion when he told me to take money out of my wallet before going to the register instead of at the register (basically, I think, so that I didn’t have my wallet open in a mass of people). So anyway, for lunch I had a chicken schwarma plate with lots of vegetables (which I couldn’t finish) and two large pieces of Tunisian bread (which I brought home with me for a snack later), along with some type of apple soda and some yogurt. I was so full that for dinner I just had a few dates and some small Tunisian pastries I picked up by my hotel.

For the rest of the day, I talked with Larry and a professor from Potsdam (whose name is Laura) about potentially housing/home stays; I’m going to go visit an apartment tomorrow, but I’d love to see about a home stay with or through a female professor in Tunis who studied at Stanford, so we’ll see. I read a bit (some article about how hormones don’t affect the brain and so males and females really shouldn’t behave so differently; yet, the article contended, by their very nature they do – they cited some example of two parents who wanted to raise their daughter ‘outside of gender obligations’, and so gave her toy trucks when she wanted something to play with – apparently they came into her room at night to find her tucking the trucks into bed and saying, “Shhh… they’re sleeping!”). CEMAT has wireless internet (which is amazing), so I read some articles on CNN and wrote some emails. Finally, when Larry came back to CEMAT around 4:30, he walked around with me a bit to show me the town and took me to the general store, where I bought some much-needed batteries for my camera and the aforementioned dates. Finally, I made my way back to the hotel and read, plus went to speak to one of the Potsdam professors I had seen today to ask about their trip to Carthage (a World Heritage site) and Sidi Bou Saïd, both a short train ride from here. I’m planning on going with them tomorrow, so I have to be up early, which means I’ll go to bed. Night.

Tunis, Tunisia

2007-01-15T10:06:00.000-05:00

January 14th, 2007

So I’ve arrived in Tunis and am currently sitting in my room, on one of the two beds that have been pushed together (apparently the other bed is for an ‘angel’, according to the old man at the front desk). The room is relatively sparse (no huge paintings hanging like in American hotels) but clean, and has a huge, dark wooden closet next to the beds. I checked in the drawer of the desk, which is just in front of the bed, to see if there was a Qur’an inside (like the bibles in the US), but there’s nothing. That’s probably because Tunisia is one of the most ‘secularized’ (in some senses) Arab countries. In fact, interestingly enough, in 1960 Tunisia’s first (of their two) presidents, Habib Bourguiba, urged workers to choose not to fast during the holy month of Ramadan. When religious clerics resisted, Bourguiba responded ingeniously; he argued that Tunisians were waging a jihad (holy war) against poverty and so were not required to fast, just as Mohammed had dispensed warriors engaged in jihad from fasting in order to preserve strength. This bit I learned from the history chapter in my lonely planet guide book, which I read (covertly) while on the plane here. Interestingly enough, however, where Bourguiba detested the veil (even the hijab) and banned it from schools, thinking it would disappear. Most women under 30 today don’t wear the veil in any of its forms, although there has been a resurgence in the past decade or two; anthropologists attribute the resurgence to women’s desire to reaffirm their Muslim and female identities when entering into the commercial (traditionally male) professional sphere, along with world events that inspire Muslims to express pride in their religious heritage.

The first thing that I have to say about Tunis is that this Sunday afternoon, on a busy street (could have practically been a side street of Paris), I am the only female walking down the street by myself, and one of only two light-skinned females – so I am doubly visible. I did see another older white woman walking down the street – she looked American – and part of me wanted to walk up to her and start a conversation, finishing by asking if she would like to walk with me. This is not to say that there aren’t any women; there are – they are just with other women or men. Men, on the other hand, did walk alone; I talked to Larry, the director of the Center of Maghrebi Studies in Tunis (where I’m interning), and he agreed with me but added that since I'm obviously foreign, people don't really care. Also, Riyadh, from CEMAT, later told me (on the 15th, when I finally have internet access to publish this post), that Sunday is also a family day, so it is normal that I didn't see women walking alone; furthermore, he told me, in the suburbs you will see groups of women, especially students, out in cafés, even though in the city of Tunis that might seem a bit uncommon. In any case, it’s really interesting to know that you don’t blend in; just walking down the street (and many Anthropologists talk about this), the experience of your physicality is felt differently. It’s an interesting feeling, probably an important one.

Of course, the fact that there were no other women walking alone (during my 30-minute promenade) makes sense, since traditionally women socialize in the home in Tunisian culture; a man hanging out in his home could feel just as uncomfortable (especially when his wife has guests), and so men rarely gather in the home to socialize, instead congregating in cafés to play cards, etc. There is another thing that may seem paradoxical to you, like it did to me at first; even though the fact that young women are not out alone implies a certain conservatism about gender traditions (private vs. commercial sphere conflict), the young women who are out are dressed just like the young women I saw in Brazil and that you might see on the streets of any US city in the summer: tight clothes, decent amount of skin, fitted jeans, lots of makeup, etc

In other news, I’ve noticed that in the shower and the sink in my room, the cold knob is on the right and the hot on the left – the opposite from the States. I contemplated why this is, and I’ve come up with the answer: since right-handedness is more common (and left-handedness used to be considered a deformity, etc.), and Tunisia has a warm climate (suffocatingly hot in the summer), it is only logical that the cold knob be more often used and so placed in the more accessible position. This may sound like examining something that doesn’t merit an examination, but, as my theology professor said last summer, “Everything, everything could be otherwise. So why is it as it is?”

So about my flights – I’m a little mad because my flight from Cincinnati was in a crappy old airplane (as in smaller seats and only 1 big and 2 little TV screens per cabin). The food was also bad (our dessert was a packaged brownie and our cheese was labeled “processed cheese spread”). They were supposed to show the movie The Queen on the 3 screens (ha), but one of the flight attendants somehow got confused and put in the tape of ‘shorts’, which basically meant Food Channel shows and an episode of House. I asked about the movie twice, and they kept saying they were putting it on; then there was a problem with the screens and they had to shut down and restart the system, blah blah blah, so basically I slept fitfully in my tiny seat and wallowed in disappointment because of the missed movie. I sat next to a woman from Syria who was going home for a month (she is an American citizen, works in the US, etc., but goes home every year to visit family for a little while). We talked about Western stereotypes of the Arab world, and she told me that some of her friends asked her, “Can you really plan on doing work there with all of the fighting going on?!” She told me that her hometown was the last place in the world where you didn’t even have to lock your front door.

I had a three-hour lay-over in Paris, during which I spent an hour waiting in line to re-pass through security (by the way, Charles de Gaulle really is an ugly and oddly organized airport). While in line, I ended up talking to this man from Cincinnati who has a daughter about my age and some younger kids in high school and grade school; another guy who started talking to us was in the middle of a long journey to Montreal, which originated from India and continued via London and Paris.

(PS Dad – don’t let me forget to turn in my ticket for ff miles).

When we were landing in Tunis, I was amazed at how beautiful the city and surrounding suburbs were, interlocked by lots of white buildings and some ruins here and there. A man picked me up at the airport from the hotel and drove me back; they already knew who I was, and asked me after they saw my passport, “Why are you speaking to us in French if you are American??” I guess they didn’t believe that Americans studied foreign languages, since English is ‘the’ international language of the moment. I came up to my room, unpacked a bit, then left and strolled around to exchange money (in a hotel where a man was kind enough to break the rules and exchange euros and pounds for dinars from a non-hotel guest). I then made my way to a bookstore – “Al-Kitaab” – which had books in Arabic, French, and English. I finally made some phone calls – which I still can’t figure out if they were expensive or not (I think I spent about 4 dinars = 2.40$ US) – but some man kept bothering me, trying to give me more money for my calls when they were running low (you just keep putting in change, like a pay phone), and the owner of the shop finally came over and told him in Arabic to “leave the girl alone,” though in a meaner version. That’s what is great about Arab culture, in the general emphasis on the value of family and community, and what my Arabic professor often spoke about – men will be irritating, but once they are obnoxious other men will step in and tell them to go away. In fact, my professor once told me that some man in an Egyptian town was saying ridiculous things to her while she was walking down the street; after she asked him to leave her alone to no avail, she started yelling in Arabic, “This man won’t leave me alone! He’s bothering me!” And of course, several older men came running over and the man who had been bothering her was berated and left, embarrassed.

After my phone calls I came back and read, typed a bit, and then got ready for my dinner with the CEMAT director, Larry. He came around 7:30 and proposed that we go to his friend’s Kacem’s house. Kacem was hosting some students from Potsdam University for dinner; the students have been in Tunisia for about 2 weeks for a ‘winter break’ type course, and, just a note, all of the guys present could have easily (and adorably) applied for a spot on Beauty and the Geek (their idiosyncrasies and wandering attentions included one guy who ran into the door as he tried to exit and then yelled something indecipherable in Arabic, which he doesn’t really speak (I think he might have yelled “What’s your name?”, which some of the kids had just taught him) – in any case, whatever he said made all of the children laugh). I of course thought that dinner with a group of people sounded wonderful, so we made our way to Kacem’s house in the northern suburbs of Tunis, where we had appetizers and dinner in a beautifully decorated living room. It was really fun, and it was nice to see other Americans and to meet Kacem’s family (two sons, one of them engaged to be married and waiting for a marriage contract so that he can get a loan from the bank - weddings are pretty elaborate affairs - and two daughters). We had roasted chicken and rice, along with a salad, and some delicious sweet tea (not mint, but made from some other leafy plant that was less pungent and smelled a tad bit flowery). One of the other students, a girl named Shannon, will be here until March, so we are going to hang out and potentially find housing together through our directors. I took a taxi back to the hotel around 10:20, showered, and now am tired enough to go to bed (for some reason I wasn’t tired all evening at Kacem’s).

Tomorrow morning I have breakfast at the hotel (included in my stay), and then I’m headed to CEMAT to see what’s what.

Visiting Blere

2006-11-30T07:58:00.000-05:00

Italy:

So before talking about my trip to Italy at the beginning of November (8-11th), I can’t forget my trip to Blere to visit my roommate from last year, Coline, and her family. Coline was on vacation, so she invited Ali (the same girl who traveled to Ireland with me and who lived in my suite last year with Coline and I) and me to come stay with her family. We came on Friday afternoon and left Sunday afternoon, and really had the most wonderful time.

Getting there was a bit of a pain for me, however. Friday morning, I got up early and went to the Robert Doisneau exhibition, which was wonderful – his photos are extremely candid and often hilarious, always thought-provoking. Some of my favorites included a portrait of a naked woman in the side of a store-front window; Doisneau took pictures of passer-bys who paused to peer into the right side of the window to see what exactly the portrait was, and their expressions were hilarious. Afterwards, we could find nowhere to go for a quick lunch, so – I am embarrassed to say - we went to MacDonalds (but JUST for the fries and ice cream!! And I had an avocado sandwich.) I then jumped onto the metro to take it to my train station, arriving just in time. I had purchased my train ticket online, and had opted to print my tickets off at home in order to not have to wait in line at the train station. I had sent the email to my host sister, which she had kindly printed off for me, so I thought everything was in order. In the States, you normally just receive an email which includes your tickets, right? You print off the email itself and that IS your ticket (you have to check in at the airport, but the train website told me I didn’t have to). I thus attempted to board the train with about 7 minutes left and asked a conductor if I could sit anywhere I wanted, as the seat space was not indicated on the form. “What is this!?” he asked me rudely. “I can’t do anything with this! This isn’t a ticket!” I explained to him that it was the online ticket, it was what had been sent to me, and I, as requested, had printed it off. “I can’t do anything with this!! You need to go to the ticket counter, but it will be too late. You’ll miss the train,” he told me. I was shocked. “But this is what they sent me,” I told him. “Well that’s not a ticket,” he said. Then, as I was afraid I would cry in front of him, I told him, “Sir, it is clear that I purchased the ticket. Could you not check to verify, and allow me to use this email which clearly states that I paid?” “No,” he replied, irritated. Then, as I was frantically trying to hold back tears, he chose to demonstrate his extensive English language capabilities and told me quite coherently, “Wiizzout teecket.” How helpful – he could tell me I didn’t have a ticket! I was extremely impressed.

As I was going to miss my train, I ran to the end of the platform and asked a woman who might be more helpful. She was very kind and sympathetic, and we tried to withdraw my ticket from a machine where you insert your credit card to verify your reservation; unfortunately, since I don’t have a French credit card – and so I don’t have the ‘pouce’ that is necessary – it didn’t work. She took me to speak with one of the conductors. I tried to tell her that I had already spoken to one, but she still went directly to the “wiizout teecket” man. He told her, angrily, “I have already spoken with this young girl!!” (young girl!??) “She knows she cannot get on!” The woman tried to speak with him, telling him that it was clear that I had a ticket. Then I said, “Monsieur-” and he looked at me and snarled, “I AM SPEAKING” - (like parents do to naughty children who interrupt.) I was so surprised and upset - since I was obviously going to miss my train - that I could tell that I was about to cry, so I thanked the woman who had been kind to me and walked away, wiping away tears out of anger and hurt (why would any man speak to someone else like that? Would he have spoken to me that way if I were a boy of my age?) I then waited in line at the ticket counter and, still embarrassedly wiping away tears, explained my situation to the woman behind the counter, who could do nothing to help me. I had to buy a new ticket, and I left late that afternoon with my friend Ali from another train station – which was fine, since we got to sit together and she bought me chocolate as consolation for my missed train.

In Bléré, I met Coline’s family, and it was really like I was staying with relatives – they were so kind to us, and even though they spoke good English (had both been Engilsh teachers), they spoke to us in French (which doesn’t always happen!). We had amazing meals, and dessert at each one (which is typical French but doesn’t always happen at my house, for sure!!). Friday night we all went together to a bar where we had ice cream (huge!) and delicious cocktails; Saturday day we visited Bléré, walked around the town, saw the stone bridge over the river where Coline used to hang out as a child, and visit the Clos Lucé (where Leonardo da Vinci lived just before his death), which was amazing. I bought a small present there that I can’t forget to give!! The Close Luce is kind of a popular spot for Da Vinci Code aficionados, also - so you may have heard of it. For dinner, we went back to the Roux’s and had the most delicious meal, including some type of apple tarte and ice cream. That night, we went to Coline’s friend’s house for a party he was having (he had previously lived in America and his family had some rather vulgar comics in their bathroom which I'm not really sure they understood). It was really fun to speak to French people, and we spoke about politics for a while – everywhere I go, I am surprised to find that people don’t harbor any hatred or dislike towards “Americans”, just towards “American policy” (think the letter that was opened at the UN today from the Iranian president) particularly George Bush (and unsurprisingly – has George Bush ever studied a foreign language…other than Spanish, which apparently he speaks poorly).

In fact, one girl at the party came up and grabbed both of my hands and said, “Laura, tell me – parties in America are so much better than this!” I told her no, they are the same. Then she said, “But you know, America is different! It is the dream for us, you know!” (C’est le rêve pour nous!!) I told her that Americans equally think that France is wonderful and even that everyone idealizes everyone else’s country, but that I did miss home and that I found a lot of thing to be great in the States but there were still lots of good things in France. She was insistent, though: “It really is the dream for us, you know. America is the place where things happen.”

Sunday, Ali and I took the train back in the morning, unfortunately missing the big Sunday brunch at the Roux's since we had to leave at noon. I’m hoping to maybe go back to the Roux’s for Easter though, because (fingers crossed) I should be in Luxembourg then. In fact, just after I got back, and the evening before I left for Italy, I received a huge packet of security clearance forms in the mail – which would take me days to complete, but that story is for next time. Also, if you didn’t know, I found out that I got an internship in Jan-Feb. at a research center for American scholars in Tunis, Tunisia – The Center of Maghrebi (North Africa) Studies in Tunis (Le Centre d’études maghrébines à Tunis). So I will hopefully be doing interesting things second semester!!

More on my security clearance form filling out and my Italy trip, coming soon…

An update: Arabic class and Ireland

2006-11-30T06:59:00.000-05:00

So, what else have I been up to lately?

Well, Arabic class has been very so-so. Last week, a few funny things happened; first, my professor kept correcting this older man who is kind of obnoxious – bangs his hand on the table and is kind of loud when he speaks in class – because he couldn’t pronounce the “th” sound. (Think of all the French people who say “zee” instead of “the” in English.) He just couldn’t do it!! And guess who can…. (thanks to English). The professor even had me demonstrate!
In another class, the professor went through homework we had handed in and invidually criticized everyone – he told me that my handwriting was bad and asked me if I had had a professor who knew how to write, hah. He’s a bit rude, or at least, very forward, though I feel like criticism in front of others in more acceptable in France; in fact, very young children are prepared to respond to criticism and consistently asked to verbally justify what they say/do. I have to say I was very surprised when this professor also suggested to an older man in my class (everyone is a working adult, not students) that he needed to move down a level to Intermediate I – in front of everyone else. It was particularly weird because he is just as bad as everyone else, and everyone in general is unspectacular because the method of the course is useless – it has no direction, just each time we read a story. The last story that we read was about a lucky rooster – I’m sure the vocabulary learned there will be very useful.

I need to update on a few things, so here we go:

First, IRELAND:
Was amazing. We took a really cheap flight to get there (RYANAIR, I recommend it to anyone flying within Europe): about 20 euros each way. We did however have to take a 13 euro bus to and from the Paris Beauvais airport (1.5 hours away), but oh well. As for the fear I had of bringing liquids onto the plane (I didn’t want to throw away my favorite face wash or my contacts), it was completely unnecessary; my friend brought on a can of pop and yogurt and my other friend a huge container of hair gel and makeup. Anyway, in Dublin we stayed about a 10-minute bus ride outside of the city center, and it was wonderful. We stayed in the AB & C bed and breakfast, owned by a man from Eastern Europe who was really nice and served a good breakfast. Our room was really nice and cheap (only about 30 euros a night per person!), and the first we went to a restaurant across the street to have a student special – hamburger or vegetable soup, and the vegetable soup proved to be the best I’ve ever tasted, and it came with really delicious thick brown bread. The first day, we did a lot of sightseeing right away, including visiting a castle that is currently used for official functions and which was beautiful on the inside. We followed a guide – after a curious incident buying tickets in which an older female employee collapsed laughing/making uncomfortable breathing sounds in the back room, causing the ticket boy to blush and say, ‘Excuse me JUST a moment….’, even though she insisted she was just fine to the line of 15 touristy people waiting curiously to buy tickets/see what all of the ‘excitement’ was about. The guide was wonderful, and she gave us a really good idea of Irish history through what she told us about particular decorations or portraits in the castle. We also visited the Town Hall where an exposition on plays in Dublin featured one which, no joke, while I was listening mentioned an Irish girl who had moved to CINCINNATI. I couldn’t believe it! I took a picture by it, but of course the picture is worthless because I am just standing next to a TV screen in town hall.

While walking around, we also stopped to get cafés au lait, mochas, etc., and we were pleasantly surprised to see that the Irish, as opposed to (some of) the French, understand that a 3 euro mocha needs to be in a cup larger than an espresso cup (that is why they are not called espressos, but mochas, lattes, etc.) The Irish in general were also really amiable, asking us about why we were there, etc Perhaps this is because Ireland is on their way up economically (while the French are debating the mandatory 35-hour work week law to keep as many people employed as possible) or because they spoke English (and so do we!), but in general the Irish seemed to be much more interested in us than the French… well…. ever have : p (this of course excludes random obscenities yelled at us which the young French men responsible probably did not understand…. or so we hope). Friday night for dinner we ate a Russian-esque (we believe this because the inside was painted in red and there seemed to be Stalinist slogans on the wall…) place which was the only place we could find that had the food we wanted… It was a good choice, though, because my friend Alex (who is usually responsible for this) asked the guys sitting next to us if the tip was included (and this was honestly a question, because in France the tip is included 99% of the time, anywhere you go – taxis included), and then they just wouldn’t stop talking to us. We hung out with these guys for the rest of the night, and ended up going to another local bar which had a lot of people of all ages in what used to be an old church. It was really lively, with people dancing and hanging out, some eating dinner, etc. I talked to this guy who was 24 and told me that he had just bought a BMW for himself and a new car for his mother, since he had been working as an investment banker in Dublin for about a year and a half. Unfortunately, he was a little incoherent at the end so I couldn’t quite understand what he was talking about - the Irish really do love to drink - despite the fact that he was talking VERY loudly. Alex, Sara, Ali, and I ended up having to leave to catch a taxi back to the B&B, which, like on Halloween night here in Paris (which yes, I did celebrate) proved much more difficult than you might imagine. (You’d think we were asking them to drive us for free – that’s how difficult it was to find anyone willing to take us home -- which is why Halloween night, I trudged across Paris for 1.5 hours in the cold AND in my Halloween costume after a Sciences-Po dance/costume party next to the Louvre).

On Saturday, we got up and had a delicious “Irish breakfast” at our B&B, which included poached eggs, bacon, sausage, etc., and beans, along with lots of coffee. After much debate, a man working at the train station recommended to us that we take one of the trains to a small ocean-side town since we wanted to see a bit of the countryside. He had recently been to Ohio, as he had family there, so he asked me lots of questions; apparently (and this is really nice), he and his family came to surprise his sister (who lives in Ohio) on her birthday. They got a little lost, however, and so asked a police officer directions to the restaurant where they were meeting her – and the police officers just offered to drive them. The small town was really ocean-side, and it took only about 45 minutes to get there. When we arrived, we got fish and chips (delicious!!) and sat on a large rock walkway next to the water and tried to eat – it was so windy that we eventually gave up and moved to sit behind the wall, looking into the harbor. Then we took a long walk around the town, climbing up to a lighthouse-like structure, onto cliffs, etc, etc. We took lots of beautiful pictures, including one in tall grass with distant mountains and the ocean outlines behind us.

That night, we went back to our b&b, showered, and packed (since we were leaving early the next morning). We finally went to a small restaurant downtown and had some soup (some vegetable and some Irish stew, which tastes exactly like beef stew and is delicious!!). Then we were walking around trying to figure out what to do…we were planning to just stay up all night since our flight was so early – we had to leave at 5 AM – that it practically wasn’t worth going to bed. We were so lucky in that, after walking around the streets for ages, we finally found a dance club that was letting women in for free. We were scared of being rejected (people are rejected so often, it’s unbelievable… I can’t imagine having a job where you are obligated to choose which people to turn away..), so we prepared our most self-confident faces and filed in two-by-two… and it was fine (whew!). The club was amazing – we really were so lucky – the music was great (hip-hop, old 80s/90s songs that everyone loves, and even contemporary pop/punk songs like “he was a skater boy…”) and we didn’t buy a thing (not even a drink!!) and had the best time. We finally went back to our b&b around 3 AM and got up at 5 to get to the airport.

Unfortunately, I fell asleep on the airplane back and my Ipod must have slipped out of my hands. In any case, when I woke up when we landed, the guys sitting in back of me looked at me weirdly for too long and then left, and then when I got off I realized I didn’t have my ipod anymore… so it was most likely stolen. I spent the rest of that day calling the airport and Rayanair (which we flied) to see if anyone had found it. To this day, I’ve still called to check, and it still hasn’t appeared. That was the one downside of the trip – in addition to the fact that, when we got back, Sara and I had lunch together in a park near La Defense, which included a man yelling at me (as I left the grocery and didn’t give the children collecting for the blind) something like, “You don’t give a shit about blind people do you, lady!??” and then a schizophrenic man cornering Sara and I in the park, telling us about his children and his American friends and then, as we walked away, trying to hug us (“No, No Monsieur!” we yelled, walking quickly away. “We have an appointment, now! We’re in a hurry!”)

That is the end of our Ireland trip. Coming soon: trip to Italy, stay in a luxury hotel; trip to London, being tricked by a ‘booker’; and general life in Paris.

PS – My food situation has not improved but I did have Thanksgiving dinner in the Eiffel tower and my host father was recently featured in Elle magazine and tons of French magazines we’ve never heard of Plus my host sister got the best grade in her class on an English paper I helped her with, so all in all my situation is not too bad. : p
(I can’t wait to come home for Xmas food though!!!!!!!!!)

Last day before classes

2006-09-17T17:41:00.000-04:00

So let's see, what have I done since the last post?

I had tea and macaroons with the author of "Capitan Corelli's Mandolin" - he is a friend of my host mother's.

I had a picnic lunch underneath the Eiffel Tower - it was beautiful, because it sparkles every night on the hour. We made chevre, tomato, avocado, olive oil, and pepper baguette sandwiches. Then we made another batch and replaced the chevre (goat cheese, my favorite...) with camembert. Both were delicious. We also packed grapes, peaches, and some wine. One of the other girls at the picnic brought tiramasu chocolate (delicious!!) and cookies. After dinner, we laid on the grass for a while, then there was a "big band" band - bizarrely dressed in silver flowing costumes with high-collars trimmed with pink fur..!! - playing music underneath the Eiffel Tower. They played "With or without you" - I love those times, when you hear French people singing songs whose lyrics they don't necessarily always understand but which mean something to them anyway (oh, culture) - and a French song "Emmenez-moi" along with some other songs, one of which sounded like it was from Gladiator. It was really fun though, with people dancing and singing... I loved it.

I ate "bifteck hache" which is supposed to be like hamburger, except not as ground. My host father cooked it, and he cooked it really rare - I think that's the European way - and I didn't like it, but out of good manners I forced myself to eat it. Even worse, we ate it with this ketchup that was wayyyy too sugary (according to the ingredient list, like half sugar and half tomatoes). After that, we had delicious Irish cheese that tasted like really good sharp cheddar, and I couldn't help but lament the fact that the hamburger probably would have tasted a million times better with that cheese melted on top (and with a significantly longer time in the oven).

I ate falafel in the Marais, which used to be the Jewish ghetto but is now home to really hip people, orthodox jews, and lots of gay men. I want to go back because it looked like there were so many good Jewish bakeries!!!!!

I had a bagel sandwich, and it was acceptable - but not as delicious as MUG's granola bagels (toasted with honey) or Panera's cinnamon crunch bagels... Oh....

I also ate milkshakes at McDonalds on the Champs-Elysees for some comfort food one night... they were so cheap (compared to everything else here!!!). It was realllly nice. And the food here at McD's is different - gourmet salads (chevre, corn, sliced tomatoes, etc.)

more updates soon : )

2006-09-09T06:03:00.000-04:00

I have finally arrived in Paris.

Thursday night – our last night in Tours – Sara and I met a few of the other students down at the Loire, where everyone was drinking cheap wine and there was a collection of French hippies playing guitars and smoking.

Some French boys (I think boys? They looked like they were 17 or 18) came up to us and ask us for a light (it’s the universal pick-up line). Of course, none of us smoke, so we always say no. Some of us have bad accents though, so when we respond they know we’re foreign right away. “Are you English?” they asked us in French. “Are you French?” I asked them in English. They were really confused. One of the guys laughed and said, “Yes, yes, I live in French.” Then we were nice to them and told them that yes, we were English, from England.

Then we went to one of the cafes in the old quarter to get tea. We went to a tea salon called “La Casbah” and the man heated up our mint tea (which is normally delicious, had been absolutely delicious at a Hookah bar a few nights before) in the microwave. Not only did I not appreciate that he poured it from a pot into a cup to be microwaved, but I also didn’t like the fact that the cup was plastic. It was only one euro, so I guess (in French terms, where nothing is free), you get what you pay for.

So right now I am with my family. I live on the 7th floor of a gorgeous building, where when you walk out you have a view of the Eiffel tower. It seems to me exactly where Woody Allen would live if he was transported from New York to Paris; large rooms, lots of books, old-fashioned but very east coast big-city apartment-ish. If that makes any sense. They have three kids: Raphäelle, Mathilde, and Juliette; they are adorable and have been really nice to me. All three of them speak English, except that Juliette understands rather than speaks very often; last night, in fact, we watched “” together in English (with English subtitles). Madame Noiville (that is the mother), told me that she loves English, and actually lived in Georgetown for 9 months once when her husband (M. Hirsch) had an internship/short job as a lobbyist there.

Madame Noiville is a journalist, in charge of the culture/literary section of Le Monde, which, if you don’t know, is pretty much the French newspaper. She also speaks English and travels all of the time (for example, next week she will be in New Zealand for 11 days, during which her mother will come to stay with us).

M. Hirsch is the President of Emmäus Europe, which is a non-profit which fights poverty, homelessness, etc. He’s written some books and stuff and is a fellow at several organizations in DC (I found this out from google). He came to pick us up last night from the Alliance Française, but other than that I’m not sure if I’ll see him too much. Both of the parents seem very busy; Madame Noiville even had an interview with a Polish woman last night – an author, I think? – which she forgot about until the last minute.

My room, like I said, necessitates some stair climbing, but otherwise it seems fine. I have my own shower, sink, bed, shelves etc. for clothes, and a window out onto the street. I’m not sure how much time I will actually spend up there (particularly since I haven’t succeeded in getting wireless yet, and there is no TV, so I have no connection to the outside world), but I am living next to some really interesting people. The girl who lives next to me is Chinese, and her boyfriend is her in France with her. She has a TV (which is important). On the other side, there are two people: a Swiss guy and a German girl, both of whom speak French. They have the same entrance, but I think different rooms. The only thing that is kind of irritating is the bathroom, which is communal and necessitates me living my room, but that’s okay – at least it’s not far at all.

Today, when I woke up, no one was in the house. One of the daughters had school in the morning (she just got back) and Juliette, the youngest, has a broken arm (they went mountain climbing this summer and one of her sisters fell on her), so she just got back from the radiologist, which she went to all alone.

As for me, I’m typing this in the kitchen. I just finished a breakfast of muslei cereal, cocoa puff-like things, and yogurt and sugar. I'm going to finish "The Parent Trap" with my host sister and her dad, who just got home.

CROWS!!

2006-09-07T13:00:00.000-04:00

I had to write this post because what happened is too funny to forget. Sara and I were making the 20-minute walk back to the Institute in Tours when a car of guys drove by and one of them CROWED at us. It was hilarious. It wasn't "cock-a-doodle-do" but it was some French version of it. Both of us were so confused/frightened/overwhelmed by the urge to laugh that we just kept walking until I asked Sara, "Did that just happen?"

In other news, today was my last lunch at Goutez chez Sam, the most delicious Indian/Sri Lankan restaurant with cheap sandwiches with lots of salad inside cheese-filled nan.

Yesterday, I visited a place where they make silk by hand, and I was really sick - I almost fainted and I had to go sit with a professor outside. She was so nice to me though - told me about how much she wanted to visit the US (her daughter studies English). She also made me feel much better because she was so motherly to me (I was kind of scared, I felt so lightheaded). She also asked me if my parents were French or if I spoke at home, (we were speaking French together) - which kind of made my afternoon.

Last night, we went out with some of the professors to get drinks, and it was really fun.

I am really sad to leave my family, but I am looking forward to our last dinner. We are going to buy them flowers on the way home and make chocolate chip cookies.

Tomorrow I'm going to Paris - I'll be in the 16th arrondissement, which is right by the Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysee, and Tour Eiffel. It's the wealthiest district in Paris, which is exciting, but I hope the family isn't too bourgeois. The father is Martin Hirch (I wikepediaed him) and the mother is a journalist for Le Monde. I'm excited - I'll let you know how everything is tomorrow.

Be online tomorrow afternoon, because I'll be in Paris and I'll probably use someone else's wireless in my building to talk!!!!

bisous!

Last week in Tours

2006-09-04T07:46:00.000-04:00

So this is my last week in Tours, and I'm already kind of sad to leave my host family. I am especially going to miss their kids, including Amandine.

Sunday was the birthday of one of the girls in the program, Maddy. We went out to lunch and had some type of bruschetta sandwich/pizza called 'brousquettes', then we went to a patisserie and I had an absolutely delicious pastry called a 'nid d'abeille' (honeycomb, maybe?). We took our pastries to a cafe, where we sat outside and ordered drinks. It was really bizarre though; one of the girls at the table whom I really don't know well didn't want to order anything, and the waitress insisted that she order or leave. It was already late in the afternoon, so she decided to just go home, but it was really bizarre - especially if everyone else at the table orders something, I don't think it's very common in America to make someone leave if they don't order anything (especially initially-couldn't she have maybe ordered later? i don't know..)

Anyway, it returns to a theme that keeps appearing here: nothing, nothing is free. Not public bathrooms (20 to 50 centimes), not water (except for a small glass pitcher of tap water when you actually sit down to eat in a restaurant), not phone calls (usually), etc. And everything you do buy is often expensive, such as a can of soda for 1 euro or sometimes 2 (which is even more than $1 since the euro is stronger than the dollar), and cell phones (!!).

This is kind of interesting - the French do not always eat ridiculously healthfully - although I have eaten more salads and whole grains here than ever before. But, the other night (after I ate that pastry and just wanted a salad!), we had crepes. Apparently, normally when you have crepes for dinner, you just have crepes (aka, with nutella, sugar, jam, etc. inside). Thank god at least we had some type of breton crepe before that had eggs, lettuce, tomatoes, ham, etc. inside.

Yesterday I had a meeting with the housing director, and I'm really excited about my (potential), housing in Paris. When I explained my interests to her, she had suggested a family right away - they live in the 16th arrondissement (Paris is divided into arrondissements), and the mother is a journalist for 'Le Monde' (the big French newspaper) and the father is the President of Emmaus Europe (an organization that works to fight homelessness, poverty). He actually was just in DC (I googled him) for meetings, and I guess he was inducted as a fellow somewhere. They have three girls, about ages 8, 10, and 13 or so. I would live in a chambre de bonne (a maid's room) that is not attached to the house (it's on the 7th floor), but I would have a key to the house so I could enter when desired, and I would eat meals with them. A chambre de bonne is really small, but it would be nice to have my own entrance/exit. What's even nicer is that the 7th floor, where I'll be, will have other international students, who will also be staying in other families' 'chambres de bonne.'

Today, I went on a boat ride on the Loire. I'd like to say I enjoyed it - and it was really beautiful - but it was ridiculously hot (in the nineties) and I still have a sore throat from last week. The woman who gave running commentary during the ride spoke as if she had given the speech a million times, so her intonations were odd (think about someone giving a tour they've given a millioin times) and she slurred her words together so she was really difficult to understand. I almost fell asleep several times - you know that awkward head partially falling before you catch yourself thing - but I managed to stay awake (plus, where would I have laid?). For lunch I had quiche, and I have officially decided that when it is this hot you are only allowed to drink water and juice and eat salad or else you feel awful. Best of all, I trudged around in shoes that I bought over the weekend - white, leather sandals (multi-season!) that got so slippery from walking all over in the heat that I had to take them over and walk down the street barefoot.

Tonight, I'm looking forward to reading and going to bed!! Tomorrow, I'm going to see a movie called "je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas" (I'm fine, don't worry about me). Then, we have a party to say goodbye to our host families. Then, I have one last atelier where I go visit an old-fashioned silk loom place.

Last night, I was signed up to go to an atelier about a newspaper here. My family dinner didn't end until late, and I was waiting for a phone call, and I had to write a paper. I didn't go, since I had signed up for more than necessary anyway. Then this morning, the director of the institute knocked on my classroom door and demanded to talk to me - I'm not kidding! - and demanded to know where I was. It was like preschool! It reminded me of the instance in my Cultural Misunderstandings book - which has proven immensely helpful (if just to put you in the mindset of understanding the French from within their own complex logic and cultural expecations) - when the director of a university student "dorm" (which is really peculiar in Paris, only a very very few exist) went through the students rooms while they were gone. It wasn't particularly intended to be insulting; instead, the French students listened nonchalantaly while she ranted and raved at a dorm meeting. In this way, she was fulfilling the role of "director" and what would be expected of her - god, so similar to the French conception of parenthood! (but more on that later) - and the students understood that it was but her role, so it really didn't bother them. To the American girl staying in the dorm, however, it was so offensive that she left (I would understand!). Anyway, so I just kind of took it in stride when I was scolded publicly (in class!! ha) for not coming to an (otherwise optional) atelier. When they say the French are very into bureaucracy, I think it's very true - particularly in the sense that everyone needs to do what is demanded of them in the public sphere, while the private sphere (which is sharply divided from the public) allows for a lot more personality and freedom.

Great story - my French host mother told me that she once tried to mail books and a card from the post office. She brought her (pre-purchased) package up to the counter, and when asked said she wanted to mail two books and a card in the package to another part of France.

"You're not allowed," the woman behind the counter told her. Nathalie didn't understand. "You can only mail BOOKS in the package," the woman told her firmly.

So Nathalie went to the back of the line, put the card inside of the book and put the books and card in the package, went back up to the counter and told the woman she was mailing only books - and the woman didn't ask any questions. Did the woman know? Probably. But you just have to say what is necessary - what you're supposed to - and then everything can be smooth sailing.

Anyway, in final news, I also bought bandaids today for almost 5 euros at the pharmacy (you have to go to different places here to get what you want, unless maybe the supermarket would have been less expensive? they have so little though...) The pharmacist specifically recommended them (after recommending one that cost 6 euros, ha), and I didn't realize how expensive they were. So funny that she wouldn't recommended the 3 euro box, eh? You have to be quick, I guess.

I'm going to walk home - barefoot or not - and read.

bisous ; )

Frasinettes!!

2006-09-01T10:06:00.000-04:00

Right now I'm sitting in the courtyard of the Institute in Tours where I've been taking French classes. I'm here until next weekend (the ~8th we leave). My classes have been good - conversation and expression (grammar) everyday, cultural activities in the afternoon: a visit to a patisserie (when my housemate Sara fainted), visit to the Cathedral of Tours (with a history professor, it was fascinating!), and tonight a concert.

At the patisserie, the pastry chef who gave us a presentation irritated me a bit. He kept praising his method - where he avoided at almost all costs, or at least provided for alternative methods to, modernization. "You can't find that where you come from," he kept saying. Then, when he would ask us to confirm his view of the US where "all you want to do is modernize," the people standing closest to him (we were a big group) didn't say anything - probably because they didn't know how to convey respectful disagreement and explain the presence of artisans, etc. And the Amish? Hmm.

In class this week I gave an expose - I volunteered to change days so it was a bit last minute - and it went fine. I talked about the movie "La science des reves" ("The Science of Dreams) which was really interesting. It's directed/written by Michel Gondry, who also did "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," which I prefer. Basically, the movie is a mix of dreams and daydreams and internal reality and external reality and how they all mess each other up in the worst of situations. I recommend it just because there are some really sad moments (I cried - the opening credits are even really touching) and some hilarious moments - and the movie is 70% English, 30% French, so you have to pretty much be fluent in English to get a lot of the jokes.

My family has been good. The other night, Francois and Nathalie told us that Nathalie and the kids were going to psychiatrists to deal with what happened while they were in Lebanon. That was kind of important that they told us that, I think, because mainstream French culture doesn't look to fondly on psychologists/psychiatrists (at least according to anthropologist Raymonde Carroll's book that I had to read for the program). It was particularly appropriate that they told us, however, since we had been talking a lot about people we had recently lost and the distance we create between death and ourselves in the modern world. It turns out that my housemate's mother had recently died, which I had no idea about. Also, the other night, Thibault (11 yrs old) had accidentally kicked a box on the floor during dinner, and Nathalie screamed because the sound was so similar to that of bombs (which she apparently heard a lot of while in Lebanon).

We've gone out a few times - just to cafes, bars, etc. All I really want to do is go dancing, which we haven't done yet, but I have discovered that I do like sugary white wine (which I'm sure makes me a connoisseur). We drink it often at dinner. Francois also has "rosé" which is really dry and I don't like. Oh, and I almost forgot, the other night we had some pasta dish that strangely resembled skyline chili!

Anyway, last night, we did go to an Irish pub, and while I was waiting in the bathroom - which by the way, is co-ed, with two separate stalls with actual wall-to-ceiling doors that lock - I said something about the sink to a guy in French, and then we realized we both spoke English, it was too weird - he had an Irish accent and we were at an Irish pub but everyone was speaking French.

Today, we had class in the morning, but we didn't have an atelier this afternoon so a group of girls and I - I've met some really nice people here, including some people from Georgetown - went to a Lebanese restaurant that was *delicious*. I split a vegetarian plate that included hummus, a spinach-filled filo dough thing, salad, rice, and falafel, and of course pita bread. It was probably the best lunch I've had since I've been here. Then, I grabbed a diet coke (a can for 1euro30!!!!!!!) and 50 grams (I've learned to economize) of frasinettes, these squishy strawberry candies that were a nice snack.

Now I'm just working on lining up stuff for second semester and figuring out what classes I'm going to take in Paris!

I am really excited about my classes at Paris 7 (Denis-Diderot) and Sweet Briar. At Sweet Briar, I'm taking a class on North African writers and the body (I'm so excited about this one, I actually met one of the authors when she came to Georgetown because I asked her a question at a reception after a presentation that she gave, I was brave) and a class called "Atelier d'ecriture" which basically focuses really intensely on writing and grammar - which is exactly what I'd like, just to iron out my French. At Paris 7, I'm going to go to about 6 classes at the beginning - Sociology and Anthropology - and decide which ones I like the best. One of them that I am really excited about discusses specifically the sociology of gender. The only problem is that I'd rather not return to France in January to take exams, so I have to get professors' permission to have the exams sent to Georgetown, where I would have to go take them. Otherwise, I'd have to fly back to France in January, just to take a handful of exams, which could be expensive (of course) and really irritating. This is simply a Georgetown policy though - all of the other students work through Sweet Briar and don't have to approach the professors themselves. Georgetown just has a policy that we have to take the exams, unless the professors themselves make special arrangements with us. It's really irritating.

Tonight, I'm going to a concert of classic French music, which will be fun. I haven't slept enough this week, so I'd also like to go to relax and go to bed at a decent time. Tomorrow, I'm supposed to go to a Chateaux visit, but I'm also supposed to go see my friend Coline - who lived at Georgetown with me last year when she was an exchange student. She lives in Tours and just got back from visiting her boyfriend in DC, and I'd reallllly like to see her and meet her family. I would almost miss the Castle visit itself just to go to her house and hang out with her (!!), but hopefully we'll be able to work something out.

Tours, France

2006-08-28T12:09:00.000-04:00

Thursday, August 24th – Departure through Sunday, August 27
After a week of visiting friends, my mom and I left Pearl and Sanjeev’s in the morning of the 24th for a 4-hour long shuttle to the JFK airport, followed by a day of waiting, passive-aggressive “Academic Arrangements Abroad” procedures, airplane delays, bad cell phone service (at inopportune times), etc. Mom finished her book 1776, though, bravo! On the plane, I managed to sit next to Ali Retson, a friend from Georgetown, and we both ordered red wine (free on Air France) to help us sleep; if you know me, that doesn’t really take much. The movies on the plane were pretty disappointing – I ended up watching one about a family that takes in a housekeeper who ends up being the murderous mother of the female head of the household. It was a drama, if you can believe that, and pretty much just not very interesting. It was British, but Patrick Swayze played the mother’s lover. Anyway, we landed on time in Paris despite an almost two-hour wait on the runway for take-off. At baggage claim, I started talking to a girl named Sara, who is an Amherst college Sociology major whose dad is from Algeria. Oddly enough, we are rooming together in Tours, which is almost impossible (there are about 70-some students).

We met our Tours host father, François, on Thursday, but his wife, Nathalie, was visiting her mother outside of Paris with her children. Nathalie grew up in Lebanon and was there with her kids when the war started; the military got them out at the end of July. I finally met her today (Sunday), and she speaks Arabic, French, and some English (maybe not as much as François thinks). She is very animated, dynamic, and I can already see some parts of the “Cultural Misunderstandings” Anthropology book present; for example, she argues with François a lot, usually about intellectual subjects or even things like how badly he cooked the chicken, and these disagreements occur in front of their children and Sara and me. In the US, I think that this would make for an uncomfortable situation; here, within French culture, couples who argue as such are seen to be healthy. People who have a good relationship can freely criticize each other without others assuming they are having problems.

The food that we have had has also been good, and it is kind of nice to be back to the somewhat familiar pattern of eating: fruit/salad or both, then always bread with the entrée, followed by fruit/cheese, then sometimes yogurt, and coffee/tea if desired. I also have to say that I hate diet coke here – Coca-Cola light – it tastes different.

I am sleeping in the daughter, Amadine’s, room, and Sara is sleeping in a guest room connected to mine.

Today, the family came home (Nathalie and the kids), so I met them all for the first time. Amadine is 13, Thibault is 11, and Eliot is 6/7 (?). They are all really cute, and they argue just like American kids, but it’s good to practice listening to them – that’s why I may request a family with young kids if I live with a family in Paris.

As for shopping, I bought a cell phone (my number, from the US, is 0033613651786 – that includes the country code). It is really expensive to make calls (over half a dollar a minute, normally), but it is free to receive calls. Text messages are much cheaper, so I may be doing that instead, which is difficult since I never do that at home and it takes me a long time to punch in the correct letters…!

Throughout the weekend, Sara and I have had some really animated discussions with François about Anthropology, Sociology, culture, ‘social code,’ etc. He is really a smart man and he thinks a lot about very anthropological/sociological topics. He made a really fascinating comparison – he said that the conception of an atom extends all the way through our ‘cultures’ to the laws of the planets. First, he says, there is a stable center – the nucleus, a set of laws or normalities for a culture, and finally the sun for the planets (in our galaxy). Then there are electrons that swirl around outside, interacting with each other, all bound to circle the center nucleus. Those that do not manage to stay within the path cause a fissure in the case of an atom, are eliminated in the case of a culture (or break off to form another culture, perhaps with their own nucleus), or join another galaxy in the case of the planets. Anyway, he explained it a bit more eloquently and it was very well-said. He is really fascinating to talk to, but now that the kids are back I wouldn’t be surprised if he talks less and they speak more!

Today, Sunday, I went to a vide-grenier, a garage sale, with Amandine. I bought two bags – a black one that says ‘Cet été, je lis’ (This summer, I’m reading) on it, and a brown one that I like a lot, and that I thought I might be able to fit my computer inside (but to no avail). I also bought something else, but it’s a secret present so I can’t reveal that yet. We also had nutella crêpes, which everyone knows are delicious, and I guess they merited the almost half-hour long wait – two older women were making them, and some women with a little boy on a bike cut in front of us when it was just our turn. Earlier, Amandine had told us - when a woman gave me a bracelet for free when I bought a gorgeous necklace from her for 2 euros - "The French are kind like that." When the woman with the young boy cut in front of us - seriously, we had been waiting for almost 30 minutes - Amandine said, "Some French are like that, too."