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.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
There are two main types of Tunisian carpets: one is woven horizontally, the other is threaded laterally and patted down.
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).
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).
Friday, January 19, 2007
apartment searching and such
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
The second day, lunch craziness and the Center
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.
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.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Tunis, Tunisia
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.
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.
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