Be your best self in passport photos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

	:)