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!!