my landlord's dog

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

Soccer games, couscous, studying - a lazy Sunday.

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

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

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

& Inshallah, internet this week!!

Post thanks to my neighbor's internet!

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

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

APARTMENT:

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



LESSONS:

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



MOM's & PENNY's VISIT:

(Sidi Bou Saïd)

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


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


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


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



Together we visited Dougga, the city of Roman ruins:













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














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


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


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




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

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



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



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

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

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



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



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





More to come this weekend.

Love,

Laura

Post thanks to my neighbor's internet!

First week in Tunis

SUMMARY [for those of you who are busy]:

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

* Apartment searching - ... [..]

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

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

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

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

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

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

RAMADAN, CHARITY, PERSPECTIVE--

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

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

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

RAMADAN NIGHT LIFE--

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

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

APARTMENT SEARCHING--

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

OTHER NEWS--

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

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

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

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