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.