On not speaking Tunisian Dialect

All my photos of Tunisia thus far are rather pretty. I know that this is a "bad" traveling habit of mine. I tend to take pictures of pretty things. Cooler, edgy people take pictures of garbage, dilapidated buildings and old men without teeth. Yet, in my desire to show off my pretty new surrounding, I have failed to post photos of dirty streets, graffiti, and mangy stray cats (so plentiful here that they may outnumber Minnesota mosquitoes in August). I also tend to clean up my reporting. Everything is cool, neat, fun... eew. The ugly stuff is often more interesting, so I will attempt to address some of my unintentional censorship.

I have every intention of getting myself organized and starting to learn some Tunisian Arabic. For the time being I am concentrating on upcoming exams, that I will likely fail since I missed the first 5 weeks of the 10 week term. C'est la vie. Nevertheless I have found one very notable benefit of not speaking Tunisian dialect yet. I have not gotten into any fights with people in the street because my language skills are bad enough that my desire not to sound stupid is trumping my desire to spew verbal invective (redundant, I know!) upon the many high class gentlemen who find it acceptable to verbally harass women in the streets. Now, any woman who has traveled to oh, say, shit-loads of places where the weather tends to be nice and the opinions of foreign women less so, will be unsurprised and unimpressed with this report. And I will not even attempt to compete with any woman, foreign or otherwise, who has spent more than three nanoseconds in Egypt. Tunisia is not comparable, and I'm not saying it is. It is really very easy to live here. Yet, the comments in the street, which no doubt the speakers themselves think of as benign, are obnoxious and make me want to punch men in the face. Nearly every man I've actually met has been incredibly friendly, open and accommodating. Yet, yet, I have not walked a distance of more six feet outside without being the target of some annoying "tse-tse" "madame, blah, blah," or generally ignorant comment. Sadly, these warm-ish places wherein such male behavior is plentiful and acceptable include large parts of Spain, Italy, I think a good chunk of everything boarding the Mediterranean, Central America, Venezuela.... Ladies, have you other places to add to the list? I spent a few weeks in Jordan and Syria, and experienced relatively few such comments. One guy actually said "Did it hurt when you fell" to which I replied yes, because I was limping from a recent ankle sprain. "No," he says, "when you fell from Heaven". Goofy, but not offensive. So I give Jordan and Syria gold stars in this category. Niger, Benin and Mali, fall into an entirely different category where people, no! clarification: not people, men -women never, ever engage in this harassing of people in the streets! Well the men in West Africa just kinda holler after all white people, regardless of sex. "Anassara, anassara." Yes, you have impressive visual skills. I am white, good job you! While annoying, it feels significantly less creepy and more related to your-whiteness-as-novelty and less related to men's very un-amusing sexual frustrations. I hate these comments, whether the tsk, tsk hissing sounds, or ear scratchingly bad attempts at English. I will never get used to them and I fantasize about ways to respond. Here are some of the things that I've wanted to say but didn't:

"Leave me alone, you are going to have far better luck with a goat."

"Gentlemen, sirs, I find you and your behavior so attractive that I would rather have sex with a cactus."

"Have you nothing to do? Is that why you are able to follow us all around this town on a sunny, glorious afternoon. Have you no job, no studies, can't you go play soccer somewhere? I'm sorry that you are so pitiful. I, on the other hand, have done and continue to do and accomplish many interesting and challenging things in my life. Things you will not accomplish because you are able to spend entire days following foreign women through the streets of your city. I'm going somewhere, you aren't. Move, you are in my way."

So annoyed have I been with said gentlemen, that I'm starting to think that this one Spanish girl a few levels about me is really cute. Of course, I think this may be illegal. So when I wanted to tell one guy that I'd take any woman on earth over him, it's a good thing I couldn't say it! I did pull out one "jódate, hijo de puta." Which I thoroughly enjoyed. Although there are many Spaniards here, so I may have to adjust and switch to chíngate.

In an feeble effort to lessen this serious irritant, I've dyed my hair. It's almost black. I love it. Wouldn't you find a woman with Elvira-hair-color more intimidating? I'll report back of effectiveness of said plan.