Couscous, Carthage and Camels

And really bad eggs...drink up me hearties, YO HO!

2009-05-07T13:28:00.005-05:00

Sorry for another long break in updates. Our final project involves a 25-40 pg. paper, and research for mine, on tourism in the Sahara, has been taking up most of my free time. Well, that and Stanley Cup playoffs (go Hawks and Pens!). Thank God for internet streams, not even Tunisia can keep me away from my hockey!

Regardless, here's another installment of my trip up to the northern part of the country. We left Bizerte the next morning and drove through the rural village of Sejnane, known for its beautiful pottery, handmade by the women in the village. We stopped for a demonstration, which was very interesting, to watch the women make perfectly symmetrical pieces without a pottery wheel or any modern equipment. The most fun part of the stop, though, was playing with the baby goats and the village kids. We spent more time than expected when a pick up game of soccer started up. The lazy cows chewing on grass in the fields made great impromptu goals. They were probably wondering why we kept kicking a ball in between their legs but they didn't seem to mind. The children were also eager to talk to us about the newborn goats, just days old. Did we have any goats, they asked? When we explained to them that no, we had no goats, they suddenly understood why we were fawning over theirs.

No pictures from Sejnane, unfortunately. My camera was still broken. I'll try to see if anyone else in my group has some.

None of us were very excited about leaving the kids or the baby goats behind, but we eventually had to leave and get back on the road to Tabarka. Tabarka is a very neat coastal village with rock formations called "the needles". It is also home to a large Genoese castle occupying an island that was once popular with pirates. We went up to the castle to try to get inside but the caretaker was out for the evening. Tabarka is also known for its coral reefs, some of the best in the Mediterranean, and for the wild boar, a specialty dish made for tourists, as Muslims don't eat it. The hotel we stayed at prepared wild boar for us that night. It's delicious.

The pirate stories from Tabarka are exciting, just like the ones from Djerba. I've come to the conclusion that Tunisia is just full of swashbuckling pirate adventures. In 1541, the Turkish corsair, Barbarossa, surrendered the island to Charles V of Spain in return for the release of his friend, Dragut, who was being held in a Christian prison. The next year, Charles sold the island and the fishing rights to a Genoese family called Lomellini who built the castle and helped fill the town with twelve hundred inhabitants. The family stayed there, despite Turkish control of the mainland, for 2 centuries.

Here are some photos of Tabarka: the needles, the castle, crashing waves and the port.

Tunisia lesson #6: The only thing better than lablabi? Lablabi sandwiches.

2009-04-08T18:10:00.009-05:00

A few weeks ago we left for our northern excursion. Having been sick and not allowed out of bed for the past weekend, I was looking forward to crashing in the back of the giant tour bus and getting some good recovery sleep. I still felt pretty disgusting. When I got to SIT that morning, though, it turned out we were being transported by a far less spacious vehicle. When we packed ourselves in, humans and backpacks alike, we discovered that we were in very close quarters. Luckily the driving in the north was not as extensive as in the south.

We departed for Utica, another ruins site. Originally a Punic city, Utica used to lie on the coast, but the Mejerda River has since silted the site back inland. Always at odds with Carthage, Utica supported a mercenary rebellion against their rival city during the First Punic War and during the Third Punic War, Utica sided with the Romans and was rewarded when Rome took over Tunisia. Utica was also the site where, during the Roman Civil War between supporters of Pompeiius and Caesar, Cato the Younger threw himself upon his own sword having been captured by Caesar's men. A proud man, Cato preferred suicide to accepting the clemency his enemies offered. Impressed by his bravery, Uticans erected a statue in his honor by the sea.

Here are some photos of Utica, including a Punic tomb with a skeleton still inside:

After we left Utica, we stopped about a half hour later to get lunch at an outdoor "meschui" or grill. The meschui only consisted of a little stand with hanging pieces of lamb, some bread and salad meschuia, and an assortment of bottled beverages. There were also some scattered picnic tables and a playground. So while our lamb cooked, we played on the swings and the teeter totter. It was one of the best meals i've eaten here which is saying something given how good Tunisian food is. The lamb was spiced just right, and the khobs tabuna (a delicious Tunisian round bread) went perfectly with the salad meschuia. Our fingers got pretty dirty by the end of the meal but it was definitely worth it. Here's the playground:

Still on the road to Bizerte, we made another stop at Ghar el Mehl, a gorgeous white sand beach surrounded by reddish tree covered cliffs. In the cliffs sit two shrines of Islamic saints and we hiked for about an hour up the cliffs to visit one of them. Guarded by a "three headed dog," according to Mounir, which actually happened to be three dogs who lived on the roof (Mounir has quite the sense of humor), the shrine is cared for by a very old woman. The women in her family have been taking care of the shrine for decades. The woman could not have been more than four and a half feet tall, and she invited us in while she sat barefoot and cooked mint tea for us. She explains that people will often visit the shrine and bring decorations for it and that sometimes visitors even stay the night. After the hour long uphill trek to the shrine, I wondered exactly how dedicated these visitors must be. Here are some pictures of the shrine and the beach:

Mounir agreed that after we finish up our independent study projects that we should come back to the beach when it's warm enough to swim. I can't wait---it's the prettiest beach I've seen here. When we reached Bizerte that night, it was already dark. We walked around the medina and along the canal and explored the fort that looms over the city. Bizerte is an interesting place, the most European of any of the cities in Tunisia, and a strategic Mediterranean port. After Tunisian independence in 1956, the French continued to hold Bizerte, afraid of losing foothold in the southern Mediterranean. The Tunisian army and navy blockaded the city in 1961, sparking a 3 day battle that left 700 Tunisians and 24 French dead. France finally let go of the city under international pressure in October of 1963.

I wish we had had more time to explore Bizerte, we only had a few hours that night. That was enough time, however, to discover the wonder that is the lablabi sandwich. You might all remember lablabi from the recipe entry I posted a few months ago. It's a chickpea soup with spices and mashed up pieces of bread---looks disgusting, tastes delicious. Well Bizerte is apparently the only place where you can find lablabi in sandwich form, inside out, if you will: bread on the outside filled with the chickpea slop, harissa, cumin, and some olives. It's SO good. Knowing we had dinner back at the hotel in an hour, Emily and Ryan and I still couldn't resist splitting one between the three of us. It was an experience we absolutely could not miss out on. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of Bizerte...my camera got a lot of sand in it at Ghar el Mehl and didn't stop acting up until I got to Tabarka the next day.

We returned to the hotel that night, trying to get some sleep in before our departure to Tabarka the next day.

Nheb Sidi Bou Said Barsha

2009-04-08T12:03:00.005-05:00

I have fallen absolutely, completely and irrevocably in love with my little blue and white village on a hill. Sidi Bou Said is home to me here, and even when I go back to the U.S., I will get homesick for my other home across the ocean. Every day on my walk to school, I have a smile on my face because something about this town is magical. It's captivated many before me; artists, writers, French philosophes... One of my favorite lazy afternoon activities is to sit, barefoot and crosslegged on a mat in the famous Cafe des Nattes, journaling on a napkin and sipping mint tea. Cervantes, Paul Klee, Simone de Beauvoir, Andre Gide, Focault, all spent time in Sidi Bou, and some sat on those mats, barefoot, just like me. It's humbling, drinking tea where some of the world's most brilliant minds have left their footprints. On my frequent trips to the snack shop just beyond des Nattes, I wonder if these artists, writers, and philosophers indulged in a daily bambalouni like me, too. At 10,000 calories a bite, Sidi Bou's version of a Krispy Kreme (only way better), might actually be the equivalent to a mouthful of paradise. Even the poorest starving artist could afford one, too. They're only 400 millemes.

One of my friends here is from MN and goes to the U of M. He teases me, saying that I only love Sidi Bou because it's the Edina of Tunis. Despite my protestations to the contrary, there are some similarities. Sidi Bou Said has always been one of the wealthiest Tunis suburbs. The President has property here, the U.S. Ambassador lives across the street from me, the town is filled with overpriced cafes, snobby restaurants and chic boutiques. It is true that Tunisian cake-eaters (makroud-eaters?) make Sidi Bou their home but there's a culture here Edina obviously lacks. Despite being one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Tunis area (you should see the town on Wednesday and Saturdays, when the cruises from Italy, Spain and Greece dock here), it has preserved it's authenticity. Sidi Bou Said will never be Hammamet, and I love it for that.

Most the shop owners on the walk up the hill to Cafe des Nattes know me now. No longer do I hear "You, beautiful girl, enter my shop, everything for nothing!" Now I get a friendly "Asslama" and an invitation in to hear stories of the latest tourist they've ripped off. The owner of the sandwich shop down the street from SIT knows my order by heart---chawarma (grilled, spiced lamb) sandwich with keftaji, fromage, barsha harissa, and frites. And the glass of orange-banana juice, of course. Extra chocolate and honey cookies from S'lim are still one of the benefits of visiting Coste for a cup of coffee. Even the young men that used to try to flirt with me on the street on the way to school are starting to be satisfied with a friendly "Sbah la khir, le bes?" Good morning, how are you? The cashier at the supermarket knows I buy a bar of dark chocolate with almonds every week. She asks me how school is going every time I hand her money for the chocolate. And she tells me each week how much my Arabic is improving.

So does my mother. Every Wednesday I have a late start, 1:00 instead of 10:00. Every Tuesday night I used to remind my sister in English. Last night I told my mother at dinner that "ghoudwa besh nimshee lil makteb a mahdi sayah." Tomorrow I will go to school at 1:oo. She clapped her hands.

I feel safe whenever I hear the call to prayer emanating from the minaret of the mosque up the hill. It's one of the most beautiful, comforting sounds I've ever heard. I've heard the call to prayer from a dozen different mosques but the one from the one in Sidi Bou is my favorite.

When I need some time to myself, I wander down the road away from town and walk to the little beach. The two best places to study here are on my rooftop or on the little beach. I find the same butterfly shells I collect in Florida on this beach but I haven't seen them anywhere else here.

One of my other favorite spots is the Dar Dalaji, another cafe. During the day we can sit on the roof and drink milkshakes or coffee or strawberry juice and in the evenings we can smoke shisha and listen to live music. On the weekends it's the place to be. A very happening place.

All I know is that I love it here and somehow, someday, I want to find my way back here. One of the difficulties of traveling somewhere alone is finding a place you want to share with other people. I know my sister would love it here. I know my parents would fall in love with Sidi Bou, too. Even my boyfriend, who isn't much of the traveling type, (at least not yet!) would be charmed by Sidi Bou. I know it. So many times I'll experience or see something here and want so badly for someone to be here with me to see it, too. I want the world to know about my little slice of heaven in North Africa. Well, maybe not the world. It's a well kept secret and I think that's part of the attraction. All I know is that I will get back here someday, and next time I plan on dragging people with me.

You know you belong to Tunisia when:

2009-04-07T03:58:00.005-05:00

So one of the other girls in this program, Karen, found a great blog by another American living in Tunisia. If you're looking for another woman's perspective on being an expatriette in Tunisia, check it out. Her stay has been a tad longer than mine! Her blog also includes a great collection of recipes and music.

http://jamiehassen.multiply.com

One of my favorite posts of hers is her "You know you belong to Tunisia when" list. There are 24 points and I thought I'd include the ones that, even after just 2 months here, already apply to me.

1. If you spend half the day in the cafe, smoking shisha and (she says playing rummy, I mostly just get hopped up on espresso or mint tea).

2. If you go to an office to ask for an important paper and they tell you: "Arja, ghoudwa (come back tomorrow)" (I should also note that this is a daily occurance. Whenever you need something, it'll always be ready tomorrow. And then tomorrow you hear the same thing.)

3. If you tease every hot girl you see in the street (This one goes both ways. You all know I've seen my fair share of being the one teased in the street, but at the same time when I see some blonde french tourists walking down the street in a tank top and short shorts and wondering why Tunisian guys won't leave her alone I do laugh to myself about it).

6. If lablabi and kaftaji sandwiches are your favorite fast food.

7. If you say "mush normal" (not normal) when something surprises you (ALLLL the time, even when I'm speaking to people in English back home and they don't know what I'm talking about).

8. If you can't have a meal without khobs (bread). *make that half a baguette of khobs*

11. You say "Inshallah (God Willing)" as a nice way of saying NO

12. You think traffic lights and signs are colorful decorations for the streets (because trust me, I know they aren't directing traffic!)

13. Your relatives alone could populate a small city (I can't keep track of all the "cousins" I've met...they can't ALL be related!!!)

15. You put olive oil in and on everything (we have also taken to carrying around little bottles of olive oil to take to restaurants who give us canola oil instead, assuming we're tourists and don't know the difference. Embarassing them by saying "atina zit zituna, mnfudluk," or give us olive oil, please, has gotten a little old)

17. If you say "yaishek" to say thanks. (Directly translated, it's a blessing, but Tunisians use it all the time as thank you)

18. If you start talking to someone about a friend and realize they know them too. (Everyone knows everyone here)

19. El car essafra (the yellow bus) is a convenient place for flirting and hooking up. (I haven't experienced this personally cause I have a boyfriend but a lot of my friends have. The train is the same way. One girl in the group is dating a Tunisian guy she and I met on the train!)

20. Weddings usually last a week or more (henna kbira, henna sghira, el hammam) (I haven't gotten to go to a wedding yet but some of my friends have and they really are lengthy events. The women spend all week getting the bride ready).

24. If harissa is present in all your meals.

The Tunisia Pet Peeves list

2009-04-03T06:17:00.006-05:00

Let me preface this by saying this: I love this country. But I feel like I'm at an interesting part of my experience right now in the sense that I am getting sick of some aspects of the culture here. Some of the things are silly and probably not worth being annoyed with. Others probably deserve my frustration. So without further ado, in no particular order, I present to you the

TUNISIA Pet Peeves List

1. Most cheese is so expensive here. A wedge of parmesan at Carrefour, (Tunisia's version of Walmart) is 88 dinars. True story. Oh and good luck finding mozzarella. This shouldn't be a big deal but I really like cheese.

1B. Because of this, Tunisian pizza tastes really strange. Not bad, just different.

2. As long as I'm on the topic of food, there aren't any tortillas here. I wanted to make my family tacos but all I could find was pan Libanese, this Libyan bread that isn't really close to a tortilla at all minus the fact that it is flat bread. No cilantro either. And all good tacos require cheese, too. I've been craving a taco since February.

3. Many Tunisians are just plain loud. I'm sort of a loud person myself so this doesn't usually bother me. But when the rest of my family is up at 7AM on a Saturday morning and yelling to each other through the three floors of my house, I wish I had more pillows to put over my head. A lot of times ordinary Tunisian conversations sound like angry arguments, as well, just based on volume and intonation...When my host mom yells at my host brother it sounds the same as when she asks him about his day at university. It's weird to adjust to.

4. I hate it when vendors and shop owners assume I'm a tourist. I know I'm not Tunisian either but please don't try to tell me that necklace is worth 4o dinars when I bought one in Tabarka just liked it for 5 dinars. I am not an idiot. I will argue with you about in in Arabic and then YOU will feel like the idiot for trying to jack the price up in French.

5. I would like to be able to walk down the street without having to cast my eyes down when I pass men in the street, because apparently eye contact is interpreted as a come-on here. I've been hit on by 10 year old boys and 60 year old men alike and all ages in between. I don't know where Tunisian men get off thinking they're god's gift to women but I am sick of it. I would like to be able to walk 2 blocks from my house to school without 5 different men trying to get me to give them my phone number or go out with them.

5B. To their credit, they're always sneaky in getting your attention. A popular technique is to ask "Semahni, kadesh al wacht?" which means "excuse me, what is the time?" I used to stop and let them know only to realize there's a watch on their wrist. The next line is usually "you have beautiful eyes, would you like to go on a walk with me?" Ley, yaishek. No thank you.

6. In a similar vein, I miss some of my freedom. I can only go running in certain parks at certain times of the day. I can't be in the medina after dark because that's when the drunks and the thieves come out. I can wear a bikini on the beach but not without some creep telling me he wants to "get to know me better." My family is very overprotective and treats me a lot more like my 17 year old sister than my 21 year old brother. I'll be 21 in November. But it's because women have fewer freedoms here. I shouldn't complain because it is far worse in other places in the world, and it's not like it's safe to walk alone in Des Moines at night either, but at least I can go to a cafe in the states by myself without some guy inviting himself to sit down with me.

7. Drivers here are terrifying. I thought Iowa drivers were bad. I will be extremely lucky if I make it out of here without being hit by a car at least once. Walk lights mean nothing, stop lights mean nothing, Tunisians cross the street in the middle of traffic unscathed but drivers don't break for foreigners.

8. My homestay coordinater, Rym, approached me the other day telling me my family was concerned that I "don't eat." I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. For dinner last night I had a giant bowl of couscous, half a baguette of bread, a whole orange, a whole apple, keftaji, and a whole fish. I ate it all and when I declined seconds my mom asked if I was feeling well or if I didn't like it. This is the story of my life when it comes to meals here. Interestingly, though, my little sister can eat a bite of her fish and three spoonfuls of couscous and it's OK for her to be "hamdullallah" or finished.

In the grander scheme of things, 8 complaints ain't bad. If I had to come up with a United States pet peeve list it would probably take me a month to write everything down. I needed to vent, though. Thanks for reading :P

Pirate ports, clay caves and fresh fish

2009-03-22T17:45:00.007-05:00

First of all, my apologies for such a delay in updates! I've had a busy week (I'm actually having to put the 'study' into 'study abroad') and I was sick the weekend before we left for the north! Here's the last entry about the southern excursion...then I'll crank out some posts about my trip up north.

Saturday we were given a free day on Djerba. 20 DT stipend in hand, our task was to explore the island. Sarah and Courtney and I had been reading up on the island the night before and were fascinated by the pirate stories. We made a point not to miss the "tower of skulls," and the fort where Dragut, a Turkish corsair, staged his amazing escape from Spanish fleets.

We left that morning to head to the Houmt Souk marina and the tower of skulls. The tower was a bit of a disappointment. Apparently it was demolished by the French in 1881, much to the chagrin of the locals, and now all that remains is a monument in its place. Sort of a letdown when you were expecting a giant pile of skulls like the name suggested. The story is that the dread pirate Dragut responded to a major offensive by Spanish fleets by killing 15,000 Spaniards. Those that remained in Houmt Souk (5000 in total) were forced to capitulate and every single one of them was decapitated. Dragut and his crew then stacked up all the skulls, pyramid style, and the tower remained there for 361 years.

Not willing to be discouraged, we caught a taxi and asked him to take us to Guellalla, a pottery town in the southern part of the island. Our guidebooks talked about a man who would let you tour his cave where he gets clay for pottery and we decided that sounded interesting. The taxi driver dropped us off and we were met by two friendly camels and the potter himself. He took us down to the cave, lighting candles along the way, and showing us how he distinguishes between the clay and the rock. It was really interesting. After the cave tour we explored his workshop and he showed us a cool contraption called a "magic camel," a piece of pottery with a hole in the top and the bottom and a spout. They are shaped like camels, with the neck and head of the camel forming the spout. He demonstrated as he poured water into the top hole, flipped the camel over, and no water escaped. He then poured water in the bottom hole, flipped it back over and poured it all out from the spout. Not a drop of water escaped through the holes. I still don't know how it works!

After thanking the potter for showing us his cave and workshop we walked toward the Guellalla Popular Culture museum, planning to meet some other students there. They, too, said they planned on visiting the potter and his cave. When we met up at them at the museum cafe, it turns out that they had gone to the place we had read about in our guidebooks...but it wasn't the same place! They went to a cave, too, along with a huge crowd of other tourists, got a quick look, and then were shuffled into the shop where they were expected to make a purchase. They didn't learn anything about the pottery, it was all for show. We had wondered when our taxi driver had gotten out to talk to the potter at our cave like they were old friends. We had, by pure luck and a little miscommunication, ended up at an authentic version of the tourist trap our friends had experienced. Here's a picture of us sitting at the museum cafe overlooking Guellalla:

Some of our group went into the museum but Sarah, Courtney, Lee and I decided to try to find the fort where Dragut had made his daring escape against Charles V of Spain. The story goes that Charles V and his Spanish flotilla had Dragut and his men trapped between the causeway and the fort (borj). Dragut barricaded himself inside the borj while his men dug through the causeway after nightfall, evading the Spanish ships. The causeway wasn't repaired until 1953, almost 400 years later. We hailed a taxi in Guellalla and asked the driver to take us to the fort. He drove us as far as he could but apparently it can only be reached by boat. Once again a little disappointed in the accessibility of our pirate story locations, we decided to opt for plan B. The driver had recommended we visit the southern port of Ajim, a fishing village.

Ajim is a haven for octopus hunters. The potters in Djerba make clay pots that fishermen use to catch the cephalopods. The fishermen drop the pots in the water and the octopi find them and crawl inside, thinking they are hiding or resting places. Hours later the pots are brought up from the sea floor, often with the octopi still in them. Who knew they were so easy to trick? When we arrived in Ajim we found a restaurant on the street selling fresh fish. Actually, to call this place a restaurant would be pushing it. There was a kitchen on one side and a single table in the other room. The men working there let us pick out our (freshly caught) fish and they prepared them for us for dinner. They also gave us salad mechuia (a delicious Tunisian grilled salad), bread, harissa, fruit and tea. It was the best fish I have ever eaten in my life, hands down. Here's a picture of Lee picking out our fish:

After dinner we went back to the hotel and went to bed early. We had a LONG trip back to Tunis the next morning.

On our 8 hour drive back, we stopped in El Jem, the 3rd largest colosseum in the world and a far better preserved one than the one in Rome. It's also a UNESCO World Heritage site. It held 35,000 people during Roman times. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. It was incredible. We climbed up the stairs and sat at the very top, but my favorite part was finding the hidden staircase that led down underneath the colosseum. It was there, in the dark, that the gladiators would await their fates. It also used to hold a complicated pulley system that would lug up set pieces and wild animal cages onto the floor above. The ropes and pulleys would even open the cages of the animals so no one got hurt in the process (except, in many cases, the gladiators!). The fights were always "refereed" by an official, and if a gladiator was about to lose a fight, he could throw himself upon the mercy of the official. Then, the ref held the audience to a vote. If they felt the gladiator had proven great bravery, he was allowed to live and go free. If they voted he was a coward, the official killed him on the spot.

Here are some pictures of El Jem, including one of the "basement" underneath:

After leaving El Jem we drove another four hours and arrived back in Tunis around 9PM that night.

A few facts about Fennecs

2009-03-12T07:52:00.006-05:00

I forgot to mention an interesting story from one of the earlier southern excursion days. The night that we went to Onk Jemal, we found a dune to watch the sunset from. We were in the middle of the desert and out of nowhere this old woman walked out from behind a dune and came up to us. She had a very frightened baby Fennec in tow. A Fennec is a species of desert fox that live in the Sahara. They are adorable animals with really big ears. Labib, a cartoon fennec, has become the mascot for environmentalism throughout the country and Labib statues dot the Tunis metro area. Here's a picture of Labib and a picture of a real fennec:

But anyway, the old woman walked up to our group pulling the baby fennec by a chain and started talking to us. She wanted to know where we were from, how we liked Tunisia, and if we wanted to take a picture of the fox for one dinar. That probably explains why none of us have a picture of it. The scene elicited a strong negative reaction from me. These animals aren't meant to be domestic, and she was dragging it around by a metal chain leash to make money from tourists. Mounir talked to her in Arabic, telling her that she was mistreating the animal and she told him that the fennec belonged to her daughter, it was 6 months old and her daughter had raised it since birth. Apparently the fox cuddled with her daughter but wouldn't listen to her and bit her. Mounir replied with something along the lines of "I can imagine why," judging by the way she dragged the poor thing around.

This might've been the first time I was actually angry in Tunisia. I've gotten frustrated by things before but this actually made me mad. I asked Mounir in English if we could figure out how much we could give her to sell us the fennec so we could let it go when she went away. He ran the idea past one of the SUV drivers and he immediately cautioned against it. I guess this is the reaction the woman wanted from tourists. The driver explained that this is a common practice among desert dwelling Tunisians, that they will capture a fennec when it is a baby, raise it in captivity and drag it around in front of tourists. When people ask if they can buy the fox to let it free later, they will barter with them for a price and sell the animal to them. Apparently people have driven these animals 50 kilometers away and let them free and by the next week Tunisians like this old woman have found the fennec and recaptured it. Because they raise them from birth, the animals are used to being raised in a domestic environment and don't know how to survive in the wild so they are easy to find again.

After I got over my initial anger, it occurred to me that this story was relevant for the topic I want to study for my independent study project. My topic is on the impact of tourism on Tunisia's desert regions. Whether this example fell within my western view of animal rights or not, this was this woman's livelihood, and it was a way she had found to make money off of tourists. Who knows what she may have done to make a living before tourists started coming to the desert, whether it would have been better, more ethical or not. She has taken advantage of the number of tourists now exploring the Tunisian Sahara. The fact is, this country thrives economically off of tourism; it directly benefits the government itself and individual Tunisians alike.

On another note, some of my friends have posted pictures they took on the excursion, so here are some pictures of me riding camels and dune jumping! The one by the SUV is around sunset the night we met the woman with the fennec. My jeans are rolled up because we had to cross a muddy chott to get to the dune we wanted to jump off of

Vocab word of the day: Troglodyte

2009-03-09T07:09:00.006-05:00

The road to Djerba was a long one, so we broke up our travels by making stops between Douz and the island. Our first stop was in Matmata, a city well known for two things: a Star Wars set and strange homes known as troglodyte dwellings. Troglodyte homes are actually houses built into caves. They normally have a ground level entrance that leads down a set of stairs built into the earth. In the troglodyte home that we visited, an open, roofless courtyard sat in the middle of a number of rooms built into the cave walls. The woman who lived there invited us in, shared homemade bread and olive oil with honey and dressed Courtney in a traditional outfit for a bride in Matmata. Here's Courtney all decked out:

We also visited Hotel Sidi Dhriss, a troglodyte hotel that posed as Luke's Uncle's house in the first Star Wars film. Remember the scene where Luke eats his last meal with Uncle Owen and his wife? That's Hotel Sidi Dhriss. The bar scene where Luke meets Han Solo was filmed there, too.

Our next stop was to visit ksours, old grain storage buildings. They aren't used anymore but they are definitely fun to climb on. It was nice to be able to get out and stretch our legs because we still had a few hours until we reached Djerba. The ksours (ksar, singular) look like this:

A long bus ride later, we got to the eastern coast of southern Tunisia. There are two ways to get to Djerba from the mainland. A causeway built during the Roman Empire's reign in Tunisia is still in use. You can also catch a ferry. We drove our bus across the causeway and headed towards a town on the northern part of the island, Houmt Souk. Houmt Souk is one of the few "cities" on Djerba. The island itself is only about 20 by 25 kilometers, and most houses are just scattered across the island. Concentrated groups of residential housing just don't exist outside of Houmt Souk or Guellalla to the south.

Our hotel was an old fondouk, a place where travelers could live for a short time. There are fondouks scattered around Tunis as well, and historically they were organized by nationality. There was a French fondouk in the medina, a German one, an American one, and when diplomats or other important visitors came to Tunisia they would stay in the appropriate fondouk. They all seem to look pretty similar, with a central courtyard surrounded by rooms. Our hotel had a pool in the courtyard, a restaurant and a bar. Courtney and Sarah and I ended up with the largest room, with four beds and three rooms! One of the other girls had gotten sick that day so Lindsay, the girl she was planning to room with, stayed with us too because we had an extra bed.

By the time we got to Djerba it was already evening so we explored the Houmt Souk medina. Djerba is an interesting place in the sense that there's a bigger clash here between tourism and traditional life than anywhere else. The island has a large population of Ibadites, a Muslim sect that broke from both Sunnis and Shiites following the death of Mohammed. They are a rather conservative group and they share the island with an orthodox Jewish population as well. While the two groups live peacefully amongst each other, the advent of tourism has had an interesting effect. Djerba would be a largely conservative, traditional place had it not become such a hotspot for vacationers. Younger generations are breaking with the traditions of their parents, starting up businesses to appeal to tourists and making money while older generations try to maintain their traditions and conservative ideals.

After walking around the medina for a while, Courtney and Sarah and I stopped at a patisserie to get coffee and dessert. We noticed that the entire patisserie was filled only with men. We were the only women in the entire place. In Tunis and the surrounding areas, women are less discouraged from entering the public sphere, you see young women with young men in restaurants or patisseries or cafes all the time. In Djerba, if we did see women out, they were walking in groups together without men and didn't enter any of the public establishments. Our experience just reiterated the strange cultural clash we felt on the island.

Once we finished eating dessert first, we returned to our fondouk for pasta and couscous. We all went to bed pretty early that night, because tomorrow we had a "drop off" activity on the island.

Tunisia lie #1: Deadly scorpions come out at night at the Faouar Sahara Camp

2009-03-04T14:37:00.006-06:00

We left Tozeur Thursday morning, and I was a little disappointed. I grew pretty attached to the bustling oasis town and made a mental note to come back before the end of my time in the country. Our next stop on the southern tour was Douz, another oasis on the other side of the Chott El Jerid, Tunisia's largest salt lake. Thursday was market day in Douz so we perused the souks. Most popular are the second hand American clothing sections. We noticed that shopkeepers in Douz seemed far less likely to barter with us than those in Tunis. When we tried to talk them into more reasonable prices, they refused. Sometimes they even acted insulted and shooed us out of the shop. Of course, the next time we walked by they'd invite us back in again but I found it interesting that bartering for lower prices was so much easier in and around Tunis. Perhaps in the south they are used to tourists not knowing appropriate prices for things---some of the shops are "fixed price" and always more expensive than they should be, so it wouldn't surprise me if shopkeepers in Douz just aren't used to having to barter much.

After a morning at the market, we went to a nice hotel in Douz to eat lunch and to swim in the pool. Mounir told us about a pool heated by a hot spring with healing qualities. After a buffet lunch a few of us put on our swim suits, went out to the courtyard and decided to jump in the pool. Turns out the water was FREEZING. It was borderline Lake Superior cold. A few guys jumped in and immediately got back out, shivering uncontrollably and wrapping up in towels right away. I decided they were wimps and jumped in, only to jump out seconds later, shivering just like them. When Faisal came out, he decided to jump in the pool and everyone started telling him how cold it was. He was sure he could handle it, and everyone else was unconvinced. I guess I'm not a quick learner because I told him if he could stay in the water for longer than 30 seconds that I'd jump in again. He did. Once I treaded water for a bit I regained feeling in my limbs and decided I could stay in for a while. All the other girls thought I was nuts, it was just a handful of the guys and me in the frigid water. Those of us swimming around in the water began to question the existence of this supposed hot spring. Then it hit us. Maybe this wasn't the hot springs pool!

Sure enough, inside the hotel was a very warm pool with a cascading waterfall of hot water. The problem was that the "healing water" was greenish. And it smelled disgusting. The best description I could give you was that it was a combination of sulfur and dog poop. Once we jumped in, we came to the conclusion that the water was not warm enough to justify staying in the green smelly muck so we went back outside and laid out in the sun. After a nice food and swim break, we left Douz and headed toward El Faouar, the desert camp where we would be spending the night.

The bus dropped us off about 6 kilometers from El Faouar next to about 20 camels and a handful of guides. We unwrapped the lightsabers from their sticks and tied them around our heads the way we had been taught in the market in Douz. Some of the guys even bought their own scarves for this purpose. Not really a fashion statement, the head wraps were functional. We all would have ended up with sunburned faces and sand in our hair. We were assigned camels in a seemingly random order. Mine, Naim, was one of the biggest camels in the bunch and was a dark brown color. Somehow one of the biggest guys in the group ended up on the smallest camel and ended up having to switch to a bigger one midway through. Apparently different colored camels had different uses historically. The white ones were the fastest and used for racing and hunting, the golden ones produce the best milk and meat and the dark ones like mine were used by smugglers in the night.

Two or three camels were attached to each other by a rope, for instance, Naim led Lee's camel, Baby (the cutest one in the bunch, a little one with really big eyes). My camel was led for part of the ride by one of the guides who walked the camel through the desert. For a while, he let Naim free. I tried to get him to go fast but my accent must be bad because he didn't understand when I told him "fisa fisa!" We stopped halfway to let our guides and camels rest while we decided to partake in a little more dune jumping. It's an addicting activity. After about a 45 minute ride, we got to El Faouar, our camp. By the time we had arrived there, let's just say I had a lot more support for the CLF!

Our "camp" was definitely more luxurious than we expected. We stayed in giant tents with beds, we had modern bathrooms in another tent and there was a food tent and a bar tent. No joke. We also happened to have the place to ourselves. Here's a picture of the camp:

We had some time to watch the sun set and initially I climbed up the dunes with a few other kids. In no time, the whole group had scrambled up the biggest dune and we all sat watching the sun set. Here's a picture:

Off in the distance, I saw a crumbling ruin of what looked like must've been a house. I asked Faisal what he thought it was and we decided to jump off the big dune and go check it out. Instead of watching the sun set from the giant dune, we sat on the ruined house and watched the sun go down behind the dunes. Here's a picture one of the other guys, Stephen, took from the giant dune, showing where we were:

After the sun set, two of the other students, Karen and Ryan, came out to check out the ruined building as well. After dark we walked back to camp and had a discussion of our day. Mounir got into the habit of getting a few bottles of wine, one red and one white, each night for our dinners or discussions. So we sat in a tent, snacking on mixes of nuts and drinking wine while dinner was prepared. I ate grilled chicken that night and talked with Mounir and Alessandra, our student services coordinator (and also the most stylish woman I've met, she's Italian and I want to raid her wardrobe). The topic changed to Tunisian soccer. One of the guys, Gaby, is studying sports in Tunisia for his independent study project and we were lamenting the fact that we'd be missing Sunday's match between Esperance and Club African, the rival Tunis teams.

Following dinner we explored the dunes some more, laying in the sand watching the stars. They were spectacular. Late that night when we were all still outside taking in the sights having finally reached the real desert, the sneaky people running the camp decided to tell us about the deadly scorpions that came out at night and encouraged us not to stray too far from camp. Afraid of losing an SIT student to a fatal scorpion sting, we reluctantly retreated into our tents and fell asleep. Mounir laughed at the story the next morning. Scorpions don't frequent this part of the desert, they prefer the rockier areas, and very few of them are so poisonous their stings can kill you. Apparently the scorpion story was merely a story to keep us from wandering too far into the desert that night. As we packed up our stuff and rode donkey carts out of the camp, we all came to the conclusion that the next few days had to be pretty spectacular to top our Sahara adventure.

5DT scarf + stick = lightsaber

2009-03-03T05:18:00.007-06:00

Wednesday morning we loaded into three SUVs and drove west into the mountains. Our destinations were three mountain oases, Chebika, Tamerza and Mides. The drive to Chebika was about 45 minutes long, past salt deposits, rocky desert and a grazing herd of camels (of course I've heard of camels! Sorry, dad, I beat you to it!) We reached Chebika, a mountain village that had been emptied in the 1970s when the Tunisian government encouraged people to "modernize" and move into the valley. It sparked a controversial debate among my classmates, because these people were removed from a place they had lived in for generations and told to uproot and start a life in a new place, but life in the valley allowed access to running water and related comforts, as well as access to schools. The result is that the old village is abandoned, the entrance to Chebika is now taken over by little shops and cafes, but the views are still breathtaking. We walked down a path crowded by other tour groups that had also arrived by four wheel drive vehicles, and I sort of wanted to get out of the congestion. Faisal and I walked up on the side of the cliffs until Mounir basically begged us to use less "creative" routes. He told us there would be lots of things to climb at the next oasis, but apparently we were giving him heartburn :P We arrived at a small waterfall that emptied into a stream. The stream was then routed into a path that brought the water to the village. It turns out my frog catching skills are a little rusty...the stream was filled with little frogs and I came close to catching a few but seeing as I haven't really done any serious frog hunting since I was like 8 years old at my cabin, they all evaded me. I like my dad's theory that because frogs are cold blooded that the Minnesota ones are more lethargic and easier to capture! Those darn Tunisian frogs are just too speedy. Here are some mountain views from Chebika and the spring where the frog catching attempts went down:

We then continued on to Tamerza, another oasis with an abandoned town but this one had been evacuated during a flood in the late 1960s. A new town with shops, restaurants and a hotel was built more recently. A few waterfalls fill a pool in the middle of these huge cliffs, and this spot WAS great for climbing, as Mounir had promised. The only problem was that the area was incredibly polluted. I've found that to be a common trend at the natural spots around Tunisia. Trash is everywhere. Still, the trash free sights were pretty cool. Here's one of the waterfalls:

Our last stop was Mides, which is right on the Algerian border. The road splits off, one direction leads to Mides, the other takes you through the Algerian checkpoint. Mides was another good place to climb, we sat on the edge of the cliffs, looking down into the stream below and this is what we saw:

When we returned to Tozeur we ate more couscous at another restaurant and then had time to go back to the hotel and rest. I snuck in an hour nap, which was nice. Then we jumped back in the SUVs and drove to Onk Jemal, a stretch of desert used during filming of one of the newer Star Wars movies. Onk Jemal literally means Camel Neck and is named because of a rock formation there that looks like the head, neck and back of a camel. Before we reached Onk Jemal, we stopped to collect mica in the middle of the desert. It makes the sand sparkle like this:

Once we reached Onk Jemal, some intense light saber battles ensued:

Some of my crazy friends went out and bought blue, red and green scarves, tied them around sticks, and voila! Lightsabers! The amazing thing is that these light sabers magically transformed into head wraps for desert travel the next day. The blue lightsaber eventually ended up on my head.

The Star Wars set didn't hold my attention for long because anyone who knows anything about Star Wars knows the new ones were horrible. I found some healthy sized sand dunes and decided to go jumping off them. I know my friends took pictures of me in mid air, but they haven't posted them yet so I'll add them later. But here's Faisal so you get the picture:

That night we buried into another buffet dinner and I don't know about everyone, but a lot of us went to bed early, myself included. I think I was asleep by 9 o clock. Dune jumping wears you out!

Tunisia lesson #5: Beware of friends who are willing to sell you for 200 camels.

2009-03-02T07:52:00.007-06:00

On Tuesday morning we ate breakfast in Gafsa and hit the road, heading toward Tozeur. First we stopped in Metlaoui, a mining town known for the Lezard Rouge (Red Lizard) tour. The Lezard Rouge is an old red train that winds through canyons and gorges that look incredibly similar to scenery you might find in the American southwest. I rode out on on the outside of the train, which was a much cooler experience than sitting inside. Especially when we went through tunnels. The best part was when we stopped, though. THEN, we got to climb things. Faisal and Sarah and I all really like to climb stuff. When the train stopped in the middle of a gorge, we crossed the muddy river running through it and found the best views from the top of the rocks. The only problem was when the train whistled, signaling its departure, and we were hiking up the opposite side of the canyon. We made a few running leaps through the muddy river, climbed over the metal railings on the wrong side of the train and managed to hoist ourselves up onto the train just before it chugged off. I felt sort of like an outlaw in a western :) Here are some photos of the canyons we went through (and the Lezard Rouge itself):

After our train hopping adventures around the canyons of Metlaoui, we continued on to Tozeur. Tozeur is a pretty desert oasis and among my favorite of the towns we visited. When we arrived, we ate lunch at a local restaurant and had a choice of couscous with lamb, chicken, or camel. There was also a meatless option for the couple vegetarians in our group. Lamb is arguably my favorite meat these days, so that's what I opted for, though many of my friends decided to try the camel. I don't have much trouble trying new and strange meats---I fully plan on trying wild boar during our northern excursion in three weeks. But I had become too attached to camels to be able to comfortably order some with my couscous. After all, I was frustrated with the way I had seen camels exploited and overworked down south. My solution was to launch the CLF, which, naturally, stands for Camel Liberation Front, and I clued some of my amused classmates into my in depth camel release plans. I also happened to be sitting next to my friend Gaby who is allergic to horses. He was pretty sure that made him allergic to camels, too, and didn't plan on risking his health and passed on the camel ride planned for a few days later. Of course, this made him a natural CLF opponent, as were my friends who were happily chowing down on their supposedly delicious camel couscous. We got into a heated pro-camel/anti-camel argument and it soon became clear that a showdown was in order this week. Despite initial opposition, I remained confident that after our desert camel ride in a few days that I could turn some opinions towards the CLF. Regardless, I had no intention of eating what I viewed as misunderstood (and adorable) animals. I stuck with lamb.

After lunch we checked into our hotel, another nice place. I stayed in a triple room with Courtney and Sarah and we ended up with a nice balcony. We had a little time to relax but an hour later we had to be ready to go on a field study assignment. We broke up into two groups of eight and were sent to two different museums. In our discussion afterwards, we came to the conclusion that we were sent to these museums in order to look at them critically, and both destinations were so absurd it really wasn't that hard. I went to a popular culture museum filled with costumed wax figures. The figures were posed and dressed according to Tunisian customs. The museum itself was the brainchild of a rich benefactor interested in showing off the lives wealthy desert Tunisians, but other lifestyles weren't adequately represented. The museum was filled with expensive jewelry collections, glass and furniture displays and other demonstrations of wealth but clearly the museum owner had little interest in conveying other Tunisian lifestyles. Even more strange were the other exhibits outside the museum but still part of the complex. A mini "souk" lead to a collection of gift shops, while a fun house-esque exhibit lead tourists through the stories from 1001 Arabian Nights. For the record, none of those stories have anything to do with Tunisia or with the Maghreb at all, for that matter. Once again, our 5 DT admission fee clued us in to the fact that this was yet another inaccurate or misleading display of North African life meant to appeal to the romanticized Western view of the Arab world. Tourists dig Orientalism and many Tunisian tourist traps are making money off of it.

After hitching a horse drawn carriage ride back to the hotel for about 2 DT a piece, we went straight for the buffet dinner. We were relieved to find more options than just couscous. For the record, I don't even want to look at the stuff for at least a full week. It was my lunch AND dinner for most of the trip, I think because it's easy to serve to large groups and it's pretty much a staple here. The best part of the buffet was the dessert line. I gorged on blood oranges, mousse, tiramisu, baklava and cake. Following a discussion, we went to the hotel bar. Sarah, Lee, and I started playing a game of cards when some local Tozeur guys came up to us to talk. They were very friendly and asked how we liked the desert, where we were from, innocent questions like that. Then one of them asked Lee if he could buy me in exchange for 200 camels. Seriously. Lee laughed out loud and told the guy it sounded like a deal. I joked back, saying he should've at least bartered a little. I think I'm worth at least triple that price :P Despite serious inquisition into my existence as a commercial object, they seemed friendly enough. When they saw us playing cards, they taught us a Tunisian card game. After a few rounds, they asked to learn an American game. We opted for something relatively easy (or so we thought) so we taught them B.S. That was an experience within itself because with their little English and our shwaya Arabic, it was sort of difficult to explain that if you don't have the cards you need to put down that you lie and put down other cards instead. Then if someone knows you're lying, they call out B.S. and you have to take all the cards in the pile. The English numbers were throwing them off, too, so we eventually resorted to counting in Arabic. It was immensely entertaining when we caught them trying to put down khamza thlethas, for example (5 threes). Finally I explained the concept of the game through an open hand demonstration, one of the guys caught on and explained it to his buddies. The rest of the game was hilarious, they loved yelling "liar!" (which became easier than trying to explain what B.S. stood for) and shoving the pile of cards at each other when they caught each other telling half truths. All in all, a very entertaining cultural interaction. We went to bed at a pretty reasonable time that night, ready to wake up early for some four wheel drive tours of desert oases.

Hello, My Name is Maureen and I am a Makroud-aholic.

2009-03-02T05:00:00.005-06:00

On Monday morning I left Sidi Bou and started to make my way south. Our first stop was in Kairouan, Islam's 4th holiest city. Kairouan is a fascinating, ancient city and we were able to visit a shrine and the Great Mosque. It's rare here for non-Muslims to be able to enter mosques but we were allowed inside the courtyard to take a look. Only followers of Islam could enter the prayer room however. The building itself is very interesting architecturally because the columns used to build it are left over from the Roman empire. I guess early Arab conquerers weren't real concerned with symmetry or matching because none of the columns are alike. They literally recycled columns from all sorts of random Roman buildings---the capitals (the top part of the column with the decoration) are a range of different designs. Here's a picture---how many different capital designs do you count?

We also stopped at a cafe with a well that supposedly contains water attributed with incredible religious and healthful virtues. Muslims who drink from the well on a regular basis are exempt from a pilgrimage to Mecca. Water is drawn from the well by a water wheel pulled by a blinded, muzzled camel who looked as if he hadn't seen life outside the dark cafe interior. A little put off by the treatment of the animal (hint: more animal cruelty to come in later posts), we left the well room and opted instead to drink mint tea and Turkish coffee and to smoke some chicha.

The greatest discovery I made in Kairouan, however, had nothing to do with architecture, religion or history. It had to do with food. Surprised? Here's the deal: Kairouan is famous for their Makroud, little seminola cookies with date centers sprinkled with sesame seeds. They are absolutely, completely addicting and though you can find them throughout Tunisia, my first and best Makroud experience occurred in Kairouan. After we bought a kilo to share we spent the entire rest of the trip taking turns buying kilos or two kilos or more of the delicious desserts and each time they were gone as soon as someone mentioned they had a box full in their possession. I absolutely expect to go through some sort of painful withdrawal when I go back to the states and I'm dreading it. I also wish I could say that previous statement was a joke!

After Kairouan we continued on to Sbeitla, a Roman ruins site. It's extremely well preserved, though having also seen the colosseum at El Jem, I have to say it doesn't quite compare but that will be clear in later posts when I put up El Jem pics. Here are a few views of the temples at Sbeitla.

While most Roman cities chose to construct a single temple in honor of the three most important gods (Jupiter, Juno and Minerva), three were built at Sbeitla, one for each god. The ruins of a theatre also remain.

Finally we reached Gafsa, a town known for little more than a convenient overnight hotel stop for desert-bound travelers. That is exactly what we used it for. The hotel we stayed at, Hotel Gafsa Palace, was rather extravagant, however, and a nice treat after a long bus ride. We ended the night with a group game of charades in one of the hotel rooms. Tunisian charades was a bit of an adventure, especially when trying to act out "lablabi" or "S'lim, the Coste waiter." :)

Hammamet: The Disney World of Tunisia

2009-02-22T16:12:00.007-06:00

Today my family took me to Hammamet, a resort town down the coast from Tunis. It's a beach community but also the most touristy spot I've been in all of Tunisia. The location is beautiful but as soon as you step through the gates of the "medina," all feeling of authenticity is lost. At the entrance sit two live camels. The baby one caught my eye immediately and the man standing with the camels told me I could pet it. Then he kindly asked if I wanted to take a picture of them. As I started to get out my camera, however, he told me it would cost me 3 dinars. This seems to happen a lot in tourist traps here. Everyone demands money for the right to take pictures. I thanked him and passed. I'm going to the south tomorrow and I get to ride camels in the desert. I'd have plenty of photo opportunities.

The souks only sell to tourists...stuffed camels, calendars, post cards, "Tunisian" outfits that no one here actually wears. Everything is a fixed price, as well. What kind of souk is a souk without bartering? The medina is dotted with overpriced restaurants, boasting Italian fare or fresh fish or couscous and performers take the various stages. Today I watched a snake charmer. The cobras were very cool and I took pictures, but the show itself was over the top. The guy wore an outfit that resembled something from the movie, Aladdin. Afterwards, he passed around a hat to everyone who watched, and under that kind of pressure, who doesn't give a dinar? Regardless, here are the real stars of the show:

Advertisements for belly dancing performances dotted the Medina as well, offering dinner theatre-like shows. This, along with the giant hotels that resembled desert structures or palaces, made me start to wonder if Hammamet was more like Disney World...or Las Vegas. Everything is made to represent the stereotypes held by Western tourists and to perpetuate Orientalist views of the Middle East and North Africa. Those seeking sea, sun and sand will be more than happy in Hammamet but I'd hope tourists don't see the resort town as a real representation of Tunisian life. I know the country's economy is dependent on tourism to a significant extent but Hammamet sells a stereotypical view of the Arab "other," of an exotic world that doesn't exist here in Tunisia if it even still exists at all. Suddenly I was so frustrated with my interpretation of the misrepresentation Hammamet had to offer that I forgot the real reason I was there--- I was supposed to be enjoying a day at the beach.

So for the moment I sent my criticisms to the back of my mind and appreciated the change of scenery. My family is beginning to notice my camel obsession. They bought me a cute stuffed camel and a gold plate with a camel and my name engraved on it. Finally, when we were leaving the medina, my host dad insisted I get my picture taken with the camel. I told him it was not a big deal and that 3 dinars was an atrociously expensive price for photographs but he wouldn't hear anything of it. The next thing I knew I was sitting on a kneeling camel. What I didn't know was how camels get up once they have someone on their back. They lift their back legs up first. I wasn't exactly ready, nearly toppling face first down the front of the camel. Luckily, his front legs went next and I was able to regain my balance. It was a challenge, but I'll be ready for it in the south when we get to ride camels across the desert. This particular camel's name was SamSam and he was especially nice for letting Wesjdene snap pictures in his face with me on his back. Here are a few:

So like I said, tomorrow I leave for the south. We get to go to Kairouan, the 4th holiest city in Islam (and the only one in North Africa) tomorrow and then spend the week making our way further south. We'll see more Roman and Punic ruins, head into the Sahara desert, visit oases and Star Wars sets (scenes from the Star Wars movies were filmed in Tunisia. Remember the planet where Luke Skywalker grows up? That's the Tunisian desert). Finally we get to spend a few days on the island of Djerba, off the coast between Tunisia and Libya. It's nicknamed "the Polynesia of the Mediterranean" and it's supposed to be gorgeous. It's also reportedly the island of the Lotus Eaters in Homer's The Odyssey. I really don't know what my internet access will be like there (if it exists at all) so I may have to wait to post until next week. I get back next Sunday.

On that note, I'll leave you all with another beach view. Here's a photo from La Goulette, a northern Tunis suburb known for its delicious seafood.

Where in the world?

2009-02-21T10:05:00.002-06:00

So if you didn't know where Tunisia was before you looked at a map, don't sweat it. At first I was annoyed when no one in the states knew where I was going this semester. I'd say Tunisia and they'd either go "Where's that?" or "Indonesia?" No...not quite. When I told them it was an Arab country in North Africa, I was often asked very intelligent questions like "Will you have to wear a burka?" "Do you get to see giraffes on a Safari?" "Isn't there an AIDs epidemic there?" or "Watch out for terrorists." When I explained that Tunisia was a progressive country with a secular government on the Mediterranean (far away from the Serengeti), they were skeptical. When I explained the country had significant European influence and flair and that it was a hop skip and a jump away from Sicily, they didn't even believe me. It was incredibly obnoxious.

Two and a half weeks later I was sitting in Coste, the cafe beneath SIT. One of the waiters there, S'leem (I don't really know how to transliterate it from Arabic, that's my best guess), loves serving my friends and I when we go in there. He asked us all where we were from. My friend Emily was then dubbed "Boston," my friend Lindsay nicknamed "New York," and then he came to me. Minneapolis, I told him. "Miami!" He replied. No, I explained. Minneapolis. It's in Minnesota. It's up north, a few states away from Chicago. It borders Canada. "By Montreal?" He asked. Not really. Not by Montreal at all. Sort of by Winnepeg, I suppose. I guess Winnepeg didn't ring a bell either. I got him to finally be able to say Minneapolis and left it at that. The next day we walked through the door at Coste and were greeted with "Boston! New York! Miami!" And I don't have the heart to tell S'leem he's off by almost the entire length of the country.

We've become quite the commodity at Coste. S'leem always insists on serving us, gives us 50% off drinks, and tells me every day that I am beautiful. About 20 times per visit. Every day when he brings the check, it comes on a tray with a handful of wrapped candies. And every day he dumps the entire tray into my bag. The other day he asked me to marry him. I told him I didn't think my boyfriend would approve, but he's still persistent! My friends all give me a hard time about it, saying how great it is to get coffee at Coste with me because of the VIP treatment. The other day, a few of us were craving chocolate croissants but they aren't on the menu. Lindsay speaks French so she asked S'leem if Coste had pain au chocolate, the French term for chocolate croissants. His reply? "For you, no. For Miami? Of course!" Two minutes later we had a tray of chocolate croissants. We always get a plate of complimentary cookies with our coffee as well. When we ran out the other day, everyone joked that I should ask S'leem for another plate. Before I even got a chance to ask, he walked over, asked "Encore bisqui?" brought over another plate, and pushed it over to me. "For you, Miami," he winked. "No sharing."

So we all ended up with another plate of cookies!

I think we're a little spoiled at Coste because when we go to other cafes and actually have to pay full price for our coffee, don't get extra cookies and can't order stuff that isn't on the menu, it just isn't the same!

At the end of the day, however, I'm a little less judgmental of those Americans who are oblivious to Tunisia's existence. S'leem isn't the only Tunisian who has never heard of Minneapolis or Minnesota. Most people I've talked to here seem to know both coasts and Chicago, but anything beyond that is a mystery to them. I'll have to have my family send some pictures of snow and cold and ice rinks. Then maybe they'll understand.

Can I get some harissa with that?

2009-02-16T08:34:00.003-06:00

I decided that instead of just telling you about all the wonderful food i'm eating that I'd share some of the recipes I've been picking up! Here are a few of my favorite meals I've had on the trip so far.

LABLABI

*WARNING: Lablabi looks like cafeteria food gone bad when finished. It tastes, however, like yummy goodness. Do not let the appearance sway you from eating it, I assure you it's delicious!*

A note about harissa: harissa CAN be found in the states in specialty food sections of luxury grocery stores. Apparently Crate and Barrel and Williams Sonoma also have excellent varieties.

Ingredients (serves four):

2 cups dried or canned chickpeas (cups/tbsp are all rough estimates)

2 baguettes

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 tbsp harissa (or more if you like spicy foods. I'd recommend doubling that.)

1/2 tbsp cumin

pinch of salt to taste

1/2 a lemon (or equivalent amount of lemon juice)

3 tbsp olive oil

4 poached or soft boiled eggs

1. Wash chickpeas and soak overnight (this is if you're using dried chickpeas like we do here. If you've bought them in a can, skip this step.)

2. In a large pot, cover chickpeas with water and bring to a boil. Cook for about 15 minutes or until chickpeas are tender. (And again, if using canned chickpeas, drain them, rinse them and heat them up in about 4 cups of water).

3. Break each baguette in half and break up each half into little pieces. Divide the broken up break evenly among four bowls.

4. Add garlic, harissa, cumin and salt to chickpeas and water. Simmer for 10 minutes.

5. Immediately add olive oil and lemon juice before serving. Pour soup over broken up bread.

6. Here's the tricky part. When I've seen lablabi made in restaurants here, the cooks break a raw egg over a steaming bowl of lablabi and the egg cooks on its own. I know that sounds a little sketchy so if you'd rather, my host mom recommends poaching or soft boiling the eggs and putting one egg on top of each bowl.

7. Mix it all up and enjoy!

COUSCOUS

Tunisian couscous is much spicier than other versions of couscous found in the Maghreb (North African) region. Try a little harissa before you decide how much to put in and remember that you can always add more, but it's a little harder to take it out.

Ingredients (makes 4 cups):

2 cups uncooked couscous

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, cubed

1 large green pepper, cubed (We use a mild green pepper different from those found in the U.S. here but I don't know the name of it. Regular green peppers should make a fine substitute.)

1 large zucchini, cubed

2 potatoes

2 carrots

2 cups chickpeas, canned or dried (if dried, soak them overnight)

4 tbsp tomato paste

1 to 1 1/2 tbsps harissa

1/2 tbsp paprika

1/2 tbsp cumin

1/2 tbsp cinnamon

1 cup tomato sauce

pinch of salt, to taste

1. Saute the onions and the olive oil over medium heat.

2. Add tomato paste, chickpeas, and cup of water. Boil for 15 minutes.

3. Cut up veggies, add them the pot and bring back to a boil. Add spices as well. Cook for 30-45 minutes or until vegetables are cooked well.

4. Prepare couscous as directed, except when adding water, substitute a cup of tomato sauce for a cup of water. For instance if your couscous box says to add 2 cups of water, add a cup of water and a cup of tomato sauce.

5. Pour veggies and sauce over couscous and enjoy!

Note: This type of veggie couscous is used as a base for all couscous recipes. I have eaten it like this but I have also added chicken (rotisserie style), fish, and lamb. Feel free to experiment.

One more recipe...this one is a good appetizer for either of the other two recipes!

BRIK (pronounced breek)

Ingredients (makes 4):

1 6 oz can of tuna

2 tbsp chopped parsley

2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese

4 eggroll or wonton wrappers (this is a substitute. The dough used for briks here is a lot like a wonton wrapper only it's much larger. Usually briks are folded over into a triangle but if that is impossible given the size of the wrappers, I'd put one on top of the other and make a sort of pillow.)

4 eggs

Olive oil for frying

4 lemon wedges or lemon juice

1. Mix together tuna, parsley, cheese, salt and pepper.

2. Spoon about a quarter of the mixture onto one half of the wonton wrappers (if you think they are big enough to fold over after you add the egg too. Otherwise just put it in the middle.)

3. Make a dent in the tuna/parsley/cheese mixture to hold most of the egg in place and break the egg into the nice little holding place you've created for it.

4. Fold the wrapper in half into a triangle shape (if it's big enough) or put another wrapper on top to form a "pillow." Seal the sides.

5. Fry in about a half inch of olive oil until the briks are golden on one side then flip. Remove from heat and sprinkle with lemon juice and serve!

*WARNING: Briks can be a challenge to eat without the egg yolk trickling down your chin. I've had lots of practice, but don't worry if it happens. It's a learning curve!*

Ok so try some of these out and let me know what you think! Enjoy!

Tunisia lesson #4: Don't forget to tie your camel!

2009-02-16T08:07:00.005-06:00

I got a really good walk in yesterday from the flea market in Gammarth to the beach walkway in La Marsa. It felt great to exercise. My friends Sarah, Courtney, Toney and I went to a sandwich place Mounir recommended to us and then walked down to the beach. It was sunny during our walk to La Marsa but by the time we reached the beach, big grey clouds had started to cover up the sky and the temperature dropped off. I am amazed how much the sun makes a difference in temperature here. When the sun was out yesterday it was gorgeous but as soon as it hid behind the clouds again we all put our sweatshirts back on.

We wanted to walk along the beach anyway so we bundled up and took a few pictures. Here's a picture Toney took of Sarah, Courtney and me. In case you couldn't tell, it was pretty windy.

After we got too cold at the beach we decided to head home but as we were walking back, Rachel called me. She had stuck her scarf in my bag earlier in the day and was with another part of our group on the street overlooking the beach. I let her know we were down ON the beach and on our way up. "Sounds good," she replied. "We're over by the camel." Rachel has quite the sense of humor so I kind of laughed her comment off, thinking I had missed a joke.

Sarah, Toney, Courtney and I walked up the beach toward the street where Rachel was and couldn't find the road up to it. I guess it was on the other side of the beach, but we decided we could just climb up the hill and jump the fence. La Corniche, the street overlooking the beach, has a white stone balcony with columns and we had to figure out a way to get over that. After a little scrambling and some rock climbing, we got up to La Corniche, jumped the balcony ledge and walked to where Rachel was. Then we saw it. There was definitely a camel on the beach.

I had expected to see a lot of camels when we take our excursion to the southern part of the country next week but you just don't see camels walking around La Marsa every day. This one had been left with its front legs tied together so it couldn't run off. I had read that this is what Tunisians in the desert do to keep their camels in one place but still allowing them to graze. This one was walking around with the limited mobility it had with a rope around its legs, chewing on some grass. Here's a picture of him.

Tunisia is TP Free...

2009-02-16T07:47:00.003-06:00

Tunisia has really gone beyond my expectations of modernity in many ways. My family has a billion TV channels and wireless internet, American music plays on the radio. I forget sometimes that I am in a different country. At least until I use the bathroom.

Most Tunisians don't use toilet paper. Yeah, you heard me. In fact, they find it disgusting. Attached to every Tunisian toilet is a little hose with water that comes out when you turn a knob. Instead of toilet paper, they just wash with the hose and then wash their hands. They see it as far cleaner than just wiping with toilet paper.

You can buy T.P. in the stores, but it's mostly immigrants, expats and tourists who buy it off the shelves. Our host families got it for us, so there's toilet paper in my bathroom at home, but there's no guarantee it'll be there anywhere else. Once my friends and I went to use the bathroom at a cafe and there was a man working there who handed us a few squares before we walked in. Then, we found out, he wanted a tip.

Other places don't even have waiters to sell you some toilet paper. There isn't even a holder for it in the public bathrooms at the mall in La Marsa. They are hose-only facilities. Most of us have had to use the hose a handful of times and it is a very interesting experience. I can see eye to eye with my Tunisians on many more things than I expected, but bathroom customs aren't one of them. We've all just learned to hold it until we find a T.P friendly place!

A few facts about floose

2009-02-15T14:55:00.002-06:00

A note on DT vs. TD...I've seen the Tunisian currency abbreviated both ways but from here on out I will be using DT, which seems to be the more common of the two.

So "floose" is Tunisian Arabic for money. I know I've talked about the DT before but here's a rundown of how currency works in Tunisia. It's definitely different from anything I'm familiar with in the western world.

The Tunisian Dinar is split into 1000 millemes, so prices look like this (a Tunisian sandwich for $3,530 DT) instead of this (an American sandwich for $3.50). I've never seen so many coins in my life. There is a 5 DT coin with a silver center and a gold edge, a 1DT coin that is the same size and all silver, a smaller 500 milleme (half a DT) silver coin, a gold colored 10o milleme coin that is the same size as the 1 and 5 coins, a gold colored 50 milleme coin that, to my eyes is indistinguishable from the 100 except for the number printed on the front. A smaller 20 milleme coin is gold colored as well and the 10 is even smaller than the 20 and feels fake. There are apparently 5 milleme coins circulating as well, they are small and silver, but I have yet to see one and it doesn't matter because you can't buy anything with 5 millemes anyway. Even a piece of candy is usually at least 50.

The paper money is far simpler. There are 5, 10, 20 and 30 DT bills. That's what we get out of the ATMs here, but that means that we end up with a LOT of change. When a train ticket is less than a dinar and we usually have 10 DT bills as our lowest form of paper currency, we'll end up with at least a 5 coin and 4 dinar coins, plus whatever small useless change is left.

Everything is very cheap here, though, if you know where and how to shop. In the Medina, the souk owners will barter with you. Today we went to a flea market where we had to do the same thing. When the shop owners see foreigners, they'll often start much more expensive than the item is worth, but if you know better, you can get whatever you're buying down to a far more reasonable price. For instance, I am taking an oriental dance (the politically correct term for belly dancing) class at a local dance studio in Sidi Bou and all the students in the class were told to buy the scarves with the jingly coins on them (I'm sure they have a real name but I don't know it) to tie around our waists. The instructor told us not to pay more than 10 dinars for them. When we went to the medina to buy them, the first souk we went to sold scarves to a few of my friends for 6 DT. I wanted to look at other colors, so I kept looking in other souks. When I found the one I wanted (black with gold coins), I asked the souk owner how much. He told me 12 dinars to start out with. I laughed, thanked him, and started to walk away. Then he dropped his price to 10. At least now I was in the suggested price range, but it still wasn't good enough. When I told him that my friends got their scarves for 6 and that I'd just go back there, magically he dropped the price on his scarves to 6 as well!

Taxis are also amazingly cheap here. The meter starts at 400 millemes and today my friend Courtney and I got to Gammarth, a few suburbs north of Sidi Bou Said where we both live, for 1,430 DT. Split two or more ways, taxis sometimes end up being cheaper than the train or the bus.

In a way, we're all becoming rather frugal. One of my favorite stories happened when I went with two friends to recharge the minutes on my phone. We all put 5 DT worth of time on our cell phones and I walked out of the store to wait with some other friends and Courtney and Lee came out of the store with disgusted looks on their faces. Turns out they wanted to buy a pack of gummy bears. The guy behind the counter just said "three" and they assumed he meant 300 millemes. That would be about right for the size of this pack of gummy worms. No, he wanted three dinars for them. "Three dinars?" Lee said to us, later, outside the store. He was exasperated. "For gummy bears? They're just regular gummy bears, they aren't even sour! Or worms!" I guess the guy at the candy store/phone recharging stand wasn't into bartering because he ended up without a sale. Keep in mind depending where you go you can get a sandwich for 3 dinars. You could get more than three round trip train tickets to Tunis for 3 dinars. That's the equivalent to 2 cups of gelato or 9 or 10 bottled waters or a couple kilos of blood oranges. 3 dinars for a pack of gummy bears? You have to be kidding :)

Tunisia lesson #3: Socks + marble staircase = disaster!

2009-02-10T10:04:00.002-06:00

So I toppled down about 15 stairs this morning.

The Tunisian family I live with has a townhouse with a steep staircase with marble steps that leads up to my bedroom and the rest of the second floor. I guess I wasn't quite awake this morning because I ended up slipping on one of the first steps and falling most the way down. I was OK, not injured minus a few scrapes, but my host mom immediately ran over to me, frantically fussing in a combination of Arabic and French I only sort of understood. Her mother also jumped up from her seat on the couch and my brother rushed over to see if I was OK. When I finally conveyed to them through broken Arabic and a quick game of charades that I was, in fact, unharmed with the exception of my ego, the mood quickly changed. They all burst out laughing. So if nothing else, I can guarantee their new American daughter provides some pretty good entertainment! My mom gave me a pair of slippers to wear after that. The next few times I walked up and down the staircase, all eyes were on me to make sure I didn't face plant again.

I absolutely love my family! Wajdi takes me to Coste, the trendy cafe underneath the SIT building, to hang out with his friends, almost every night. Last night I ran into Ryan, another SIT student and his host brother and he, Wajdi and their friends taught Ryan dirty words in Arabic while my overprotective brother covered my ears :P My sister, Woosdehn, excitedly showed me the A she got on her test yesterday. She also made honor roll and has the certificate to prove it! She's 17 and speaks the most English out of my whole family. She's also learning Spanish and we studied together last night after she figured out that I still have bits of high school espanol floating around my head. My mom owns a few shops, including a lingerie store in a mall in La Marsa, and she bought me a polka dotted pajama set yesterday! My dad does something regarding imports and exports between Europe and Africa though I don't know the details thanks to the language barrier. All I know is that he wakes up very early (around 5AM) to go to work every day. My grandmother (my host mom's mom) lives close and spent the night last night. She was actually born in Algeria.

I still live in Sidi Bou Said, which is really nice. I only have a three minute walk to school every day, and in my opinion, this is the most beautiful suburb of Tunis. I already know where the best places to eat are, where the supermarket is, where I can recharge my cell phone with more dinars, and how to get to Tunis or any of the surrounding towns. It's definitely convenient.

My bedroom is actually bigger than my room back in the states and I have a desk, a large bed and a big closet. The house itself is actually three stories. The living room and dining room/small kitchen are on the first floor, the bedrooms are on the second floor, and there's another kitchen and a terrace on the top floor.

Last night after I got out of my shower, Woosdehn asked if I wanted to dry my hair. Usually I just scrunch it and let it air dry curly but my mother absolutely refused to let me go to bed with my hair wet. I expected her to just show me where the hair dryer was, but instead, she sat me down and did my hair for me. Then she promised to do it every night. I was a little taken aback by such pampering, especially because my hair is thick and takes a long time. With a little translation help from Woosdehn, my mom told me that I had pretty hair, that I was beautiful and that she loved having me as a daughter and wanted to keep me. So my guess is that I've made an OK impression! My hair also happens to look fantastic today. When we talked about our host families in class and shared our stories, I told everyone about my mom doing my hair and Mounir explained everything. It turns out that a lot of people in Tunisia believe that if you go to bed or outside with wet hair that you will get very, very sick. Not just a cold, but something gross and evil. So most Tunisian parents refuse to let their children go to sleep without dry hair.

The only challenge has been conveying the fact that while the food is very good, I am not a bottomless pit (despite popular belief to the contrary). For breakfast this morning, my mom gave me a bowl of cereal and some OJ. After I ate that, she made me a giant sandwich with cheese and marmalade and a mug of coffee. After that was gone, she asked me if I wanted a banana and when I tried to tell her I was full, she handed it to me anyway. This is usually how most meals go here, I swear I had 7 different plates in front of me for dinner last night!

For gifts, I brought some photo books from Minnesota and a bag with Minnesota phrases and towns on them. The best part was trying to explain Minnesota speech to my siblings. Wajdi says uffda all the time now and Woosdehn likes to respond with "you betcha!"

The other "twin cities": The European Quarter and the Medina

2009-02-10T09:24:00.004-06:00

The city of Tunis happens to be split into two distinct parts. From the train station that runs from the northern suburbs to downtown, the European Quarter stretches ahead. A large French cathedral anchors the middle and cafes, patisseries and high end shopping dot the main street. I've never been to Europe (minus the Paris airport) but it's easy to tell that this part of Tunis has a very euro feel, influenced greatly by the country's past under French control. Tunis, of course, isn't the only part of Tunisian culture with French flair. Most native Tunisians speak using "code-switching," a linguistic term for using more than one language in conversation. It's not unusual for a single sentence to switch from Arabic to French and back to Arabic again. I'm learning French as quickly as I'm learning Tunisian Arabic.

Blocks and blocks in from the train station, however, you reach an arch called the Porte de France or Bab el Bahr (which in English means 'door to the sea'). There used to be an entire wall separating the modern city of Tunis from the Medina but it was broken down when the two worlds of Tunis grew closer together. The Bab el Bahr yields to a maze of souks ("markets," basically, but there isn't a sufficient English word to describe them) which form concentric circles around a central mosque. Historically, each souk had a trade associated with it. The "purer" trades like perfumes and books made up the closest souks to the mosque while less "pure" trades (tanned hides, meats, and these days electronics and plastic 'junk from Libya' as Mounir likes to say) could be found in the souks closer to the outskirts of the Medina. On my first visit to the Medina, I ate excellent rotisserie chicken with couscous and french fries (of course). The street vendors have great food, too. Another day we ate chapatis with harissa, thon (tuna) and omelette inside. I can guarantee you I remember exactly where I got them because I will be patronizing that particular chapati stand rather frequently :P From the very center of the Medina rise two minarets. One is rectangular and plain, a typical Tunisian design. The other is Turkish from when Tunisia was under Ottoman control and is more lavishly decorated. Here are pictures of both:

The best view of all of Tunis is from the rooftops of the shops in the Medina. Take a look at this view!

Tunisia lesson #2: Tunisian pre-teen boys got game!

2009-02-07T06:50:00.005-06:00

Sorry I haven't updated for a few days! Internet access (especially reliable access) is hard to come by here! I hope my host family has internet.

*edit...my host family DOES have internet, which should make blogging regularly a lot easier! We had to figure out some bugs with the WIFI but it's working now!*

On Thursday morning we visited Carthage, which was one of the places in the Tunis area I wanted to see the most. Here's a short background, for those who don't know. Around 800 B.C., a Phoenician princess named Elissa fled Phoenicia (modern Lebanon, though the empire extended into parts of Syria, Israel and the former state of Palestine) because her brother wanted sole rights to the throne and had already murdered her husband. She founded Carthage in 814 B.C. Carthage peaked under Hannibal, and the Carthaginian Empire was Rome's biggest threat to expansion. Tensions over control of the Mediterranean led to the Punic Wars and during the 3rd Punic war in 146 B.C. Rome razed Carthage to the ground. By the 1st century A.D. the Romans had rebuilt Carthage when the nearby city of Utica failed to serve as an adequate new capital.

Carthage came under control of a number of different empires following the fall of Rome. The Vandals captured Carthage in the 5th century A.D., and Muslim conquerors took over the city 200 years later.

Both Punic and Roman ruins remain and we got to see the Roman Baths and Punic mausoleums, shrines, tombs and aqueducts. It was so cool to be able to see broken Roman busts and columns and the tombstones that were placed over the victims of Carthaginian sacrifice.

When we were at the Roman Baths, a group of Tunisian school kids were visiting the ruins and wanted to show off their English skills to us. They introduced themselves to us and followed us around asking us questions. When they saw my camera, one of the boys asked if I could take a picture of them! So here they are:

They were so cute, but the funniest part is how brazen the young boys around here are. They've all got game by the time they're 10 or 11 years old! One of them, who couldn't have been older than 12 asked me for my phone number! I told a little white lie and said that I didn't have a working phone in Tunisia. I thought that was kinder than "I think I'm a little old for you, kid!"

After our visit to the ruins we went to a restaurant that serves fresh fish. It was a little hole in the wall but I had really delicious sea bass. I've never really eaten fish that hasn't been de-boned and cut into a filet before this trip, so I was a little unnerved by the eyes and head and tail. Once I got past the visual, though, I realized how good fresh fish really is. The meal also came with bread (hobs in Arabic, at least here in Tunisia), a salad with eggs, and french fries. Fries are almost as ubiquitous as harissa here. They come with every meal, it seems. Before I left the states I was convinced I was going to eat less and maybe even lose weight. Man, was I ever mistaken! Tunisians love to tell you "tcoul, tcoul," which, roughly translated, means "eat more"!

We've also been taking "survival Tunisian Arabic" classes to help us learn the Tunisian dialect. It's very different from fus'ha (Modern Standard Arabic), so this class has been crucial in being understood better here. It came in especially handy Thursday night when we met our host families at a reception.

My brother was the only member of my family able to make the reception. His name is Wadje and he's 21 years old. He attends a university in Tunis. Wadje is learning English at school but his English is the equivalent of my Tunisian Arabic---minimal. I also don't speak French, which doesn't help! He loves soccer, though, and he wants to take me to the stadium to see a match!

Tunisia lesson #1: 5 TDs will not QUITE buy you a panini

2009-02-05T11:17:00.004-06:00

After landing in Tunisia, we met with SIT staff including Mounir, the Academic Director. Mounir happens to be the coolest person ever, but more on that later. We boarded a tour bus and left for Sidi Bou Said, a northern suburb of Tunis. Ironically, Sidi Bou Said was the picturesque Tunisian background I put on my computer before I left. Now I get to live there for orientation! All the buildings are blue and white and the city sits on top of a hill overlooking the Mediterranean. Our hotel only has 8 rooms and we take up all of them. Here's my door:

Adorable, right? I share the room with two other girls, Sara and Rachel. And when we wake up in the mornings we get to see THIS:

I'm basically in paradise.

After we dropped our stuff off at the hotel we got to explore a little bit. The town is surrounded by markets and shops and everyone wants to sell you SOMETHING---carpets, plates, stuffed animal camels, jewelry, the list goes on and on. And we're a little conspicuous walking around as a group of 20 something Americans so everyone tries to get us to buy something. We stopped at a sandwich shop a few blocks from our hotel for lunch. I got a chicken sandwich with harissa (a spicy pepper spread that Tunisians put on everything) and vegetables. They put french fries in it, too. When I went to pay I grabbed a bottled water as well and through a bout of miscommunication, all of the other SIT students and I realized that our sandwiches and drinks came to at least 5.5 TDs (Tunisian Dinars). We pulled out the 5 TD coin we were each given for lunch and they gave us our food anyway. We were the most business they had seen all day, though, so they didn't even seem to care. It reminded us to stop at the ATM, though.

After lunch we took a bus tour of the Tunis suburbs---Sidi Bou Said, Carthage, La Marsa, etc. Then we headed back to Sidi Bou Said to drink mint shai (shai is arabic for "tea") in the cafe connected to our hotel. It also happens to be a hookah bar and Mounir has promised to pass the hookah around with us later this week.

That evening we ate dinner in La Marsa at "the best pizza place in all of Tunis" according to Mounir. It WAS pretty good. And our bread came with harissa. No surprise there. I put some on my pizza, too. Tunisians eat it on everything, why can't I?

By the time we got back from dinner, we all wanted to sleep. I took a cold shower (still haven't been able to get hot water yet) and got ready for bed when a giant cockroach walked across our floor. Luckily I was in a room with two girls who aren't totally freaked by bugs. One actually happens to be the daughter of an entemologist. In fact, she even knew what kind of cockroach it was. Whatever it was, it was big and FAST. We spent 5 minutes straight trying to catch him in the lid of Rachel's deodorant but finally we did and we let him outside.

Exhausted, we curled up and went to bed.

Air France=THE best way to fly internationally

2009-02-05T10:39:00.003-06:00

My day started at 4:00 AM on Tuesday, February 3rd. That's when I woke up to catch my 7AM flight to JFK to meet the group for travel to Tunisia. I happened to overpack my backpack so lugging it around everywhere did NOT help my stress level. I ordered a mango iced tea and a piece of coffee cake from Caribou while I waited in the gate for my plane but was so nervous that I didn't feel like eating or drinking anything, which is funny because I love to eat.

Once the plane took off, however, my stress level dropped off significantly. I was going to live in Tunisia for 3 and a half MONTHS. I was going on an adventure! And I was excited.

Once we landed in JFK I realized I needed to get to Terminal 1 and had no idea how to do that. Luckily, the girl I sat next to on the plane lived in NYC and she showed me how to hop on the airbus to get there. When we were getting on to the elevator, a guy who also happened to be looking for Terminal 1 asked if he could follow us. When he said he was looking for the AirFrance desk, I asked where he was going. His name was Jeff and he was going to Jordan with SIT. We were on the same flight to Paris. Jeff and I were relieved to find each other and grabbed lunch before we got our tickets and met with our groups.

Everyone in my group seemed really friendly. We all chatted politely while waiting for the plane, finding out where everyone went to school, their majors and why they chose the SIT Tunisia program.

But now for the highlight of the day. The meal we got on AirFrance was actually GOOD! I mean, it should have been, it was a 7 hour flight (not to mention the fact that we had to wait on the plane for an hour before takeoff while the plane was "de-iced".) But I have no confidence in the hospitality of airlines anymore. This was a surprise. We got to choose between beef and mashed potatoes or cheese ravioli. I opted for the ravioli, and it was delicious, but I also got chocolate cake AND chocolate pudding AND bread AND a 7 grain middle eastern salad with chicken (also very yummy) AND cheeeeeese. I love cheese.

Even the drinks were free. And I'm not talking ginger ale, either. I mean they gave me a whisky and 7 UP for nothing. (Apparently there's no drinking age on AirFrance flights, sorry Mom!) :)

They served us breakfast, too. On both flights. AWESOME.

The only problem with the flight to Paris was that my feelings started to get the best of me. I don't know if it was the length of the flight or the fact that it was so late or what, but I started second guessing things. I missed my boyfriend, I missed my family, I missed my puppy and I wasn't going to see them for more than three months straight.

We got on our final flight from Paris to Tunisia at 8:45 AM Paris time and as soon as we started the descent into Tunisia 2 and a half hours later my mood did a 180. The view was spectacular and I knew that everything was going to be OK. More than OK, in fact. I was in for the trip of a lifetime.

We got to Tunisia at a little past 11:00AM on February 4th. It was a beautiful, clear day (which doesn't always happen here...the sand has blown up from the desert today so it's a little foggier.) and it was about 65 degrees!

I knew the minute I stepped outside that I wanted to be here and was going to have an amazing time.