The problem with my life these days back in the U.S. is that all sorts of people smarter and more articulate than me keep stealing my damn ideas and publishing them in essays or books. Ahem, Elizabeth Gilbert. But my story is actually better than hers because my end is bittersweet, not sappy, and therefore superior. Happy endings are for schmucks. More on vile Elizabeth later as she merits her own entry. But today I read something quite lovely from a professor giving a speech to freshmen in college. I am slightly embarrassed at how much graduation type speeches resonate with me at the present. Oh well, I forgive myself. Cue Stanford professor guy (William Deresiewicz):
“Moral imagination is hard, and it's hard in a completely different way than the hard things you're used to doing. And not only that, it's not enough. If you're going to invent your own life, if you're going to be truly autonomous, you also need courage: moral courage. The courage to act on your values in the face of what everyone's going to say and do to try to make you change your mind. Because they're not going to like it. Morally courageous individuals tend to make the people around them very uncomfortable. They don't fit in with everybody else's ideas about the way the world is supposed to work, and still worse, they make them feel insecure about the choices that they themselves have made—or failed to make. People don't mind being in prison as long as no one else is free. But stage a jailbreak, and everybody else freaks out.”
I found this article while job searching on-line and quite frankly it made me quite relieved. This professor’s whole premise is that we basically get on a track in life, and keep moving along, keep specializing, keep narrowing our focus. He suggests that maybe we all need time to jump off the track and take a route that is less programmed. Since I have been back in the U.S., I’ve been second guessing myself, wondering if this whole taking a year to travel, rethinking my career was a ridiculous thing to do. And maybe it is and was, but maybe we need a bit more of the ridiculous in this world. I quit my job, my apartment, and my life in order to do things I love, to explore some old passions and find new interests. I traveled completely uninhibited, unplanned and unorganized, something I’ve certainly never done before. And I think it’s time to take some inventory.
I never wrote about the end of my trip. Maybe I should do some backpedaling. I started this blog with an entry wherein I bragged about the fact that I have no keys. I didn’t then in Aug. 2009 and don’t now. Having staged my own successful jailbreak, here’s where I’ve landed a year into unchained living. And yes, I make others a bit uncomfortable, myself included as this directionlessness is so un-American. But the rewards for staging one's own jailbreak can be great.
Inventory of what I (still) don’t have: a job (ok, a real one), a car, a house, mortgage, an apartment, a marriage, children, significant other, financial debt of any kind (and well, needless to say I've got a lot less in savings!). Interestingly I’ve still got no keys.
What I have now that I didn’t have a year ago: A new favorite artist (Mapplethorpe), love of Majda Rumi and Nissar Qabanni, improved Arabic, amazing concerts attended: Chucho Valdés, Adir, Ismaël Lô, La Danse Fait Sa Comedie (incredible, stunning group of dancers from France). I have new friends and renewed friendships, including people I can now visit in Rwanda, Japan, Turkey, South Korean, Tunisia, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, Kansas, San Francisco and Florida. I have a wedding in Provence, nights in the dessert, days spent on Mediterranean beaches, and hiking in the Alps. I left soulprints along every step of northern Spain, from the French Pyrenees to the Atlantic, at end of the medieval earth in Finisterre. I have a month in my life in which every single day I drank good wine, ate good chocolate, and walked an average of 25 kilometers a day (and I say kilometers because it sounds longer than miles). A love affair with handsome Uruguayan, complete with romantic chance meeting, tango lessons, and week in stormy Venice with whole days spent not seeing Venice. I have moments and people, food that is delicious, and good conversions that are nourishing. I have thoughts and ideas, time spent thinking and reading, ruminating on Islam in Tunisia, Islamophobia in Europe, the veil, the minarets. How best to teach foreign languages? Is Jazz more alive outside of the U.S.? How will these blood oranges taste with dates, cinnamon and coconut? (Delicious, indescribably delicious) Can a person eat too many vegetables? How much French is really in Tunisian Derja? I also have a good end to a childhood story.
My final days in Tunis were simple and I didn't know how to write about them. I went to my favorite beaches. Saw my friends, shared meals, drank lots and lots of coffee, smoked some chincha (hookah in Tunis) and had conversations. Said goodbye to my favorite places, namely the second-hand market at Ibn Khaldoun where I spent about 40 dollars for an entire new wardrobe. Saw the ruins at Carthage since it seemed silly to leave without at least visiting once. Bought lots of gifts in the Medina, spent hours in the jewelry section, sifting through boxes of treasures, meeting Turkish diplomats. Then I wandered on to buy gifts of olive wood, leather, and Tunisian cotton. I did my final run in the Parc Belvedere. I didn’t cry. I threw my own personal goodbye party to Tunis from the rooftop of my apartment with some chocolate and a bottle of wine, while I listened to noise from the streets and watched the clothes blowing about on the lines above all the apartments under the starry warm sky. Paid my final bills, somewhat of a herculean task but it was accomplished. On the penultimate night I waged a furious battle in my bedroom with an evil cockroach that I initially mistook for a mouse. As we spared, it had the gall to run across my bare foot which caused me to kick it so quickly that I tossed it into the air and it landed on my bed, entangling its stupid self in my bed sheets. Thereby causing me to scream (and clearly change my sheets!). Then it crawled under the bed, where I could finally see its huge antennae twitching, smugly waiting in the dead middle of the space under my bed. Vile beast. Ultimately, I won, and in punishment for touching my bare foot the bug was left under a shoebox with a large rock on top that no one would disturb. The next night, after a final meal of my favorite fish in La Goulette, I left Tunis. Boarded the plane and watched the sparkly lights of the coast fade from view, and felt calm. And didn’t cry.
I never wrote about leaving Tunis because I’m not sure what to make of the end. Sure, I’m back in MN, a place which I’ve never been able to leave completely, yet to which I don’t completely belong. And I feel that the trip is not over. I might keep traveling. As you may have guessed, I have a few other places on my list. But I am going to keep living in a way that is morally imaginative and morally courageous. In forgoing comfort, safety, things known, familiar, and reassuring, I’ve made a very good gamble. Whilst my bank account has taken a serious beating, I feel richer. All these things I would not exchange for any key. Keys are for prisons.
Last night I saw the play The Last Seder. I went by myself, thanks to a really nice guy I work with whose wife gave me a ticket as she’s the stage manager at the Park Square theatre in St. Paul. Having been a participant in a number of very lovely Passover Seders, the whole play felt familiar. And it seemed somehow like I was cheating, as if a Midwestern product of Catholic schools has no business nodding in recognition of the hiding of the afikomen, the open door for Elijah, the why of the bitter herbs and the youngest asking questions. The actors sang dayenu and I hummed along. Then each character took turns saying “if I had only my family and nothing else, dayenu.” It is enough. Or another “if I had only my husband and nothing else, dayenu” and “if I had only this day and nothing else, dayenu.”
As for me, if I had only what this year afforded and nothing else, dayenu. So much more than enough.
P.S. Read the professor’s whole articles, it’s fantastic.
http://chronicle.com/article/What-Are-You-Going-to-Do-With/124651/
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Dressed to kill (yourself that is)
It’s hot. I know this because this afternoon when I brought laundry to the roof of my apartment building and clipped each item onto the line, upon reaching the end, the first two items were already, completely bone dry. I think it was 102 today. And to all you people whining about the heat in New York and Boston, we’ve haven’t exactly the AC coverage that you enjoy. Your woeful Facebook posts win you no pity from me.
Considering the heat, it does surprise me when I pass women in the street dressed head to toe. Now, I may have stated previously that the general dress of Tunisian women ranges from Lindsay Lohan to various manifestations of an Orko from He-Man look. I kid not, better still is the fact that Lindsay and Orko can often be seen walking together arm-in-arm. Daily there’s mom walking down street in a failed-attempt-at-stylish leopard print dress that covers neck to ankle, holding daughter’s hand who is wearing skinny jeans and a Zara t-shirt that could only have been painted on. Mom and daughter are giggling and find their outfits totally unremarkable.
I concede that wearing shorts and a tank top really isn’t the smartest option with this blazing sun. There are plenty of examples of so-dressed, idiot tourists who come to Tunisia for a beach holiday, throw caution to the wind leaving the sunscreen at home, and therefore spend the final days of their trip idling in Tunis’s souks with exposed shoulders all a-blister. Ick. Even if the sun does not burn you to a lovely shade of lobster, it will beat down on your poor little epidermis, so it actually feels nicer to wear nice light, loose-fitting cotton. This I learned in Niger, where it was actually hot (140 degrees often and I actually saw it hit 155). Women and men wear the same clothing-concept: huge pieces of thin, thin cotton, draped loosely, and only once, about you to let optimal air flow and prevent sun from crisping your skin. No insane layers, no exposed skin. They are geniuses; this is what one wears in oppressive heat.
As the temperatures climb in Tunis women respond by removing their winter coats, or maybe they wear a shrug over a long-sleeved shirt, but it’s the men who look really ridiculous. Every day I see men in their 40s and 50s walking around in athletic shorts (thigh high ones!), tank tops, and flimsy plastic flip-flops. I think they believe that this constitutes being dressed. One could wash a car, sit on lawn furniture a la "Dad on Father’s Day" card, or God forbid, work out in such attire. It is beyond me how anyone could find it acceptable to walk into a bank, eat in a restaurant, or sit in your dentist’s office so dressed. Unless you are seven. The rest of you are simply flaunting the fact that it’s socially acceptable for men to look stupid.
Of the many couples sporting a look that says “Orko is escorted by Larry Bird circa 1983,” I saw my favorite today. This afternoon I passed a couple walking hand-in-hand down Rue de Marseille, being flirty. She was wearing a light turquoise, sparkly head scarf, one of the tight ones that covers the neck up to the chin, then she had on the ubiquitous white long sleeve t-shirt under a long, to the ankle sun dress (turquoise, hot pink and white): very Muslim chic. He was wearing basketball warm-up pants, the kind that swish when you walk like the pants are trying to get you to “be the net, feel the net.” He pairs these dashing pants with a tight, white tank top, which nicely highlights his skinny frame, and is cut so as to reveal both, both his nipples. We can’t see her neck, but we can see the gentleman’s nipples. Lovely.
However, in a rare moment of magnanimity on my part, I immediately recalled a couple I saw this January in Boston. It was a dark and snowy evening, a balmy 17 degrees, as I passed Gypsy Bar and noticed a couple waiting in line. She was wearing a black mini-skirt, and had really long, gorgeous, very naked legs. Her naturally long legs clearly were lacking 3 inches, so she was perched on pencil-thin silver heels. The top was sparkly and nicely displayed unnaturally high breasts, likely due to some really expensive gravity-defying bra. She had a coat on, but obviously it being well above zero degrees she needed to have it unbuttoned. He was in the every-man going out in Boston look: completely average-looking but probably really expensive jeans and some Brooks Brothers type button down shirt. As I pass them, my ankles tighten, they look up at me pleadingly, “Oh please don’t ever do that to us in this snow! “Oh darlings, you know mommy loves you too much! You keep running nicely and I’ll keep wearing comfortable shoes that make me look ten years older than I am.” Two little ankle voices squeal “yeah.”
So who is the more ridiculous couple? Mr. and Ms. Tunis, enjoying a stroll in the 101 heat while she sports 25 pounds of clothes and his nipples enjoy the breeze? Or Mr. and Ms. Boston-Clubbers, waiting in line as she is about to loose those nice legs to frostbite?
I will award each couple an honorable mention for adhering to the globally accepted rule that she must outdress him by a ratio of 6:1. However they both lose. Rather the men win because despite looking lame, they are dressed for the damn weather they are standing in. And the women lose because they are idiots. Blah, blah, I know: both women are responding to male-dominated social definitions of female beauty and control and manipulation of such beauty. In one context male pride depends on other men seeing his girlfriend’s long, sexy legs, thereby earning him “man-points” for how jealous other men are of him. While Mr. Nipple earns his man-points by showing off the prettily wrapped present parading down the street with him, and other men get to be jealous that only he gets to unwrap said present. (Although this couple could not have been over 23, and there’s no way a guy dressed like that has the money to get married in Tunisia, which really leaves him with only one package to play with).
Forget these tools, I blame the women. Lick your finger, hold it up in the air and guess what the temperature might be. Then try, try to think of what would make you not miserable in such weather. Ladies, all of you, can we please dress for ourselves? Can we consider the raging monsoon outdoors, the hazards of skin cancer, or the health and longevity of our ankles? Or can we at least, as Van Morrison chides, dress up for each other?
Considering the heat, it does surprise me when I pass women in the street dressed head to toe. Now, I may have stated previously that the general dress of Tunisian women ranges from Lindsay Lohan to various manifestations of an Orko from He-Man look. I kid not, better still is the fact that Lindsay and Orko can often be seen walking together arm-in-arm. Daily there’s mom walking down street in a failed-attempt-at-stylish leopard print dress that covers neck to ankle, holding daughter’s hand who is wearing skinny jeans and a Zara t-shirt that could only have been painted on. Mom and daughter are giggling and find their outfits totally unremarkable.
I concede that wearing shorts and a tank top really isn’t the smartest option with this blazing sun. There are plenty of examples of so-dressed, idiot tourists who come to Tunisia for a beach holiday, throw caution to the wind leaving the sunscreen at home, and therefore spend the final days of their trip idling in Tunis’s souks with exposed shoulders all a-blister. Ick. Even if the sun does not burn you to a lovely shade of lobster, it will beat down on your poor little epidermis, so it actually feels nicer to wear nice light, loose-fitting cotton. This I learned in Niger, where it was actually hot (140 degrees often and I actually saw it hit 155). Women and men wear the same clothing-concept: huge pieces of thin, thin cotton, draped loosely, and only once, about you to let optimal air flow and prevent sun from crisping your skin. No insane layers, no exposed skin. They are geniuses; this is what one wears in oppressive heat.
As the temperatures climb in Tunis women respond by removing their winter coats, or maybe they wear a shrug over a long-sleeved shirt, but it’s the men who look really ridiculous. Every day I see men in their 40s and 50s walking around in athletic shorts (thigh high ones!), tank tops, and flimsy plastic flip-flops. I think they believe that this constitutes being dressed. One could wash a car, sit on lawn furniture a la "Dad on Father’s Day" card, or God forbid, work out in such attire. It is beyond me how anyone could find it acceptable to walk into a bank, eat in a restaurant, or sit in your dentist’s office so dressed. Unless you are seven. The rest of you are simply flaunting the fact that it’s socially acceptable for men to look stupid.
Of the many couples sporting a look that says “Orko is escorted by Larry Bird circa 1983,” I saw my favorite today. This afternoon I passed a couple walking hand-in-hand down Rue de Marseille, being flirty. She was wearing a light turquoise, sparkly head scarf, one of the tight ones that covers the neck up to the chin, then she had on the ubiquitous white long sleeve t-shirt under a long, to the ankle sun dress (turquoise, hot pink and white): very Muslim chic. He was wearing basketball warm-up pants, the kind that swish when you walk like the pants are trying to get you to “be the net, feel the net.” He pairs these dashing pants with a tight, white tank top, which nicely highlights his skinny frame, and is cut so as to reveal both, both his nipples. We can’t see her neck, but we can see the gentleman’s nipples. Lovely.
However, in a rare moment of magnanimity on my part, I immediately recalled a couple I saw this January in Boston. It was a dark and snowy evening, a balmy 17 degrees, as I passed Gypsy Bar and noticed a couple waiting in line. She was wearing a black mini-skirt, and had really long, gorgeous, very naked legs. Her naturally long legs clearly were lacking 3 inches, so she was perched on pencil-thin silver heels. The top was sparkly and nicely displayed unnaturally high breasts, likely due to some really expensive gravity-defying bra. She had a coat on, but obviously it being well above zero degrees she needed to have it unbuttoned. He was in the every-man going out in Boston look: completely average-looking but probably really expensive jeans and some Brooks Brothers type button down shirt. As I pass them, my ankles tighten, they look up at me pleadingly, “Oh please don’t ever do that to us in this snow! “Oh darlings, you know mommy loves you too much! You keep running nicely and I’ll keep wearing comfortable shoes that make me look ten years older than I am.” Two little ankle voices squeal “yeah.”
So who is the more ridiculous couple? Mr. and Ms. Tunis, enjoying a stroll in the 101 heat while she sports 25 pounds of clothes and his nipples enjoy the breeze? Or Mr. and Ms. Boston-Clubbers, waiting in line as she is about to loose those nice legs to frostbite?
I will award each couple an honorable mention for adhering to the globally accepted rule that she must outdress him by a ratio of 6:1. However they both lose. Rather the men win because despite looking lame, they are dressed for the damn weather they are standing in. And the women lose because they are idiots. Blah, blah, I know: both women are responding to male-dominated social definitions of female beauty and control and manipulation of such beauty. In one context male pride depends on other men seeing his girlfriend’s long, sexy legs, thereby earning him “man-points” for how jealous other men are of him. While Mr. Nipple earns his man-points by showing off the prettily wrapped present parading down the street with him, and other men get to be jealous that only he gets to unwrap said present. (Although this couple could not have been over 23, and there’s no way a guy dressed like that has the money to get married in Tunisia, which really leaves him with only one package to play with).
Forget these tools, I blame the women. Lick your finger, hold it up in the air and guess what the temperature might be. Then try, try to think of what would make you not miserable in such weather. Ladies, all of you, can we please dress for ourselves? Can we consider the raging monsoon outdoors, the hazards of skin cancer, or the health and longevity of our ankles? Or can we at least, as Van Morrison chides, dress up for each other?
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Briefly and In Honor of the World Cup
Since the FIFA World Cup matches began in South Africa, I have had a very difficult time deciding who to cheer for. I’ve had the chance to meet people from lots and lots of soccer-obsessed places this year. And as I support professional teams based solely on who I know would be pleased with the outcome, this has been a challenging FIFA finals season.
Just a few weeks ago, I walked by a huge Vive Algérie sign a few blocks from my apartment. Therefore I was kind of happy that I was not in Tunis when the U.S. team beat Algeria. Despite the fact that I have met three (3!) exceedingly interesting, cool, attractive Uruguayans this year, I, like most people on planet earth (saving the Uruguayans), really wanted Ghana to win. There’s something fantastic about Swedes, South Koreans, Swiss, and Americans and all cheering for Ghana. At the wedding in Mazan we had a missing groomsman due to Brazil’s win the Friday before the ceremony. (He did make the actual wedding!) I watched cars careen down the tiny streets of Geneva with bodies hanging out of the windows whipping German flags about and honking. Saw all Africans living in Switzerland at a bar on the corner of Rachida’s block! And I overheard an awesome conversation on the train from Domodossola to Geneva between two young guys in their twenties discussing the world cup in French, as it was their only language in common. Conversation went something like: Where are you from? Italy, you? Perú, it’s in South America. To the Italy guy’s credit, he was all “oh yes, that’s right, South America. Are you from Lima?” And the guy from Peru was actually surprised the Italian knew where Lima was. Wow, whose bad geography is the Peruvian judging people on? Please not the Americans. (Oh, am realizing that he was the third Peruvian I met this year too!). Animated conversation about the World Cup ensued and the boys exchanged Facebook profiles at the end.
I watched the final match between the Netherlands and Spain at the Italian cultural center with a bunch of Spanish, some Italians and plenty of Tunisian men eager to provide young European women with a variety of ways to celebrate after the game. Thoughtful, really. Pleasant, festive atmosphere was complete with international camaraderie as Italians and Tunisian were also quite enthused about Spain. Yet we also got to enjoy some silly manifestations of nationalism run amok, as after the game there were Madrileños running about Tunis dressed in the Spanish flag, screaming Iniesta!
In the end, and most importantly, Paul was right, and as my friend Peter said, in pulpo veritas! (As he seems to have all the answers, can someone ask the octopus what to do about the Gulf of Mexico?) Silly clothing and silly chanting aside, go World Cup, and people who like soccer, and people who cheer for guys that live on other side of the world from you.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
The Psychology of Moving
I am a serial mover. I have moved twelve times since I moved away from home at the age of 18. Let me clarify that I define moving as the packing up of all possessions, the permanent removal of one’s self from what was home for a time, and the transporting of life and all its accoutrements to a new place of residence. Moving, really moving. In this number of twelve, I am not including going back to Minnesota between university years to spend summers working at coffee shops, painting schools and nanny-ing awesome kids. Nor am I counting the move to Vermont for the summer of 2008. The green mountains surrounding Middlebury were a very temporary home indeed, but it was the perfect escape from my life at the moment. And for that, I’ll always be grateful for the memories of days spent in the library, of evenings swimming in the state of the art pool and running in those silent hills. No, for moving, I’m counting the times when the place I slept became home, my taxes arrived in the mailbox, the walls were decorated with my pictures, and I cooked dinner while listening to On Point and looked forward to drinking my coffee curled up with a book on Saturday mornings.
When I first moved to Boston in 1997, I walked off the airplane with two suitcases, neither of which had wheels. I traveled about the city on public transit to arrive at the first of three separate places which would become home on Bay State Road. Then there was the apartment on Commonwealth Ave, where we had the break-in and I lost my grandma’s jewelry. In Brookline, I lived on avenues University Road, Clark Road, Alton Place and Beacon Street. In Southie, I spent two years spent living along the legendary St. Patty’s day parade route, just a block or two from the housing projects and the Patrick Gavin School. And finally there was Roxbury, on Cedar Park, with a backyard garden to die for, the nicest landlord I’ve had and great roommates.
As for my non-Bostonian living, I've been in Tunisia six months now. And I am reflecting on how easily we can adapt to new environments. Living here is not difficult in the least. The food is good, the people are open and friendly, the weather is great, hot but it’s no oppressive sub-Saharan heat. I can ignore irritating men and their comments reflecting a state of continual weakness and frustration. I love walking in the souks, and above all I love the vegetable and fruit markets. And the view of the sea. When I lived in Niger, I also felt comfortable, which is a little shocking as it is not a comfortable place to live. The food is extremely different, the climate one of the harshest on earth. Yet, just as I finally do in Tunis, I began to identify things as mine: my bread guy, my pagne-seller, my tailor (who painted J-Crew in red paint over the door of his shop). There was my lizard who crawled onto the metal frame at the foot of my bed each night to do his little push-ups and eat mosquitoes as they tried desperately to find holes in my mosquito netting. Each night, as the temperature dipped to a crisp 98 degrees, he would poke his pointy, little head (very little, he could not have been more than 2 inches long) over the rim of the frame and reach one little tiny lizard hand up and hoist himself up to lie parallel along the bar. And the lizard's routine became mine. I waited to fall asleep until I saw him. Thanked him for eating the mosquitoes and worried a bit that if he ate a malarial mosquito would he, my little lizard, get malaria. So quickly had I developed affection for this little creature that I was quite upset on the terrible day when roommate stepped on and killed him. I carried its little corpse outside and buried it in the sand. Woefully I announced to my teacher the next morning that "Djama ay danfana wii" (Djama killed my lizard.) She found this hilarious and laughed until she was crying. I managed to laugh too, but I am very in touch with my inner five-year old who was very upset that she was laughing. Poor little lizard, he was like a guardian angel to me, protecting me from scary African diseases, sitting at the edge of my bed and wishing me sweet, malaria-free dreams!
Madrid too became mine, but in a far more anonymous way. A foreigner in a city with lots of foreigners, I was typical and uninteresting. Well, except when I was running in the streets with Jonielle training for the marathon. Oh, that made us a bit of a spectacle! And it’s fun to be a spectacle. I developed a kinship to the Metro, to Rioja, to returning home at 4 a.m. and to my French and Moroccan friends. Tunis is a fantastic middle ground between the false-familiarity of Europe and the time-travel of West Africa. There are a lot of tourists here, but they can’t say anything in Derja. So I look like them, but by opening my mouth can set myself apart, into the far nicer category of temporary resident who is studying, who appreciates the language and culture for more than cheap goods in the market that come from China anyhow.
I am pleased knowing that I can adapt to almost any environment; can live in temperatures hovering at 140 degrees, can learn to eat just about anything and could care less about the damn water pressure. So long as I have a place to sleep, food to eat, drinkable water, and pleasant ways to occupy my time, I can adjust. Despite my ease at adapting, my own personal psychology of moving is troubling. I fit everywhere and nowhere. I love Boston, but I’m not of Boston. I am very much Minnesotan, but I rarely feel that I belong there. This sensation of out-of-place-ness is an old one for me. I remember feeling very clearly and painfully as I was about to leave the hospital when I was ten that I didn't want to stay in the hospital (sad as I was to see the IV drip of morphine go), but I didn't want to go home either. I felt out of place, felt that I really belonged nowhere at the moment. I’ve never resolved that dilemma, and the limbo continues.
When I first lived in Southie, I spent my initial weeks dreaming of caves, and being trapped and suffocating, the walls were falling in on me. These nightmares reflected my desire to be back in Brookline, which was comfortable and familiar. I belonged in Southie (or so my name would suggest) and I didn’t. My house was a reflection of the new Boston, with a mix of white, black and Indian Americans roommates. We belonged insofar as our multi-ethnic house sat at the edge of black Dorchester and white Southie. But we didn’t, we, the college-educated young people, were nestled awkwardly in the old, working-class Boston. It was a fascinating experiment, but there was a clear understanding of the non-permanence of our living situation.
Coolidge Corner is my favorite neighborhood in Boston. There I could step outside my front door and go the Brookline Booksmith, see an independent film, eat great Indian food, and buy fairly-traded jewelry from everywhere. Roxbury was a bit of a shock, as my house was so far from the T, yet for the first time I had a real back yard and a garden. The breezes that would blow into the kitchen brought an incredible smell of flowers whose names I cannot be bothered to learn. But it was so residential, too residential. And therefore I didn’t really feel at home. Roxbury was too calm, but Brookline was too rich. So while I can live anywhere, no place feels completely like home. There's the fact that I've never really left Minnesota, kind of like all the Irish writers who physically left Ireland and never, ever left psychologically. Not unlike them, my moving is always characterized by a state of hesitance. I've never bought housing, always rented, always wanting and needing to be ready to leave if I have to.
I woke this past Monday surprised to find myself back in my apartment in Tunis, where I’ve lived since February. After my two week vacation in Europe it was so amusing to see Tunis as the normal, as the mundane life I’ve been living. I went about doing errands and found it nice to walk through the markets, saw my vendors again, and they asked me where I had been. I renewed a new month at my gym. Weinik kunti? Where were you? And welcome back! I guess I can now count living in Tunis as move number thirteen. With a backpack and a suitcase I arrived in February, and I took classes, visited cities, saw the south, saw the north, met lots of Italians and a few Tunisians. Returned back to my apartment tired after a breathless vacation, and settled back into a routine. So it’s home. But not for long.
In August 2009, almost, almost a year ago, I moved out of Boston. Not knowing if it would be permanent. I very half-assedly, haphazardly packed up my life and its accoutrements. Now I need to find a place for that life. It may involve the moving of all my current orphaned things from Boston to MN. That will be onerous, as it would consist in moving twelve years of books, wine glasses, and beautiful things from the beautiful places I’ve lived, things that I cannot part with. Now where do all these things belong? Where does their owner belong?!
I’ve decided that this fall, I will try to belong in MN. I am looking forward to the experience of living, and this time I plan on really living, in MN. It will never be my Boston, and I will not insult either with unfair comparisons. This time, I will not skip along on the thin upper layers of Minnesota, as I have done since the day I left in August 1997, that moment when I let my Minnesota life freeze, remain of a time that no longer exists. Each summer, each Christmas, I’ve gone back to visit a still-life version of the something I once lived. My life a frozen replica surrounded by that which continued to expand and grow. When I left Eileen was thirteen. She’s twenty-five. Rosemary was forty-six, this October she turns sixty. That a lot of life to revive.
No more, I will try to live in my new, old home state as I’ve lived in Tunis, making genuine efforts at meeting people, finding kindred spirits, exploring places I don’t know. I will try to wandering around with interest and curiosity, will chat with the people who work and live in areas I don't know. I am really looking forward to this experiment.
But, I know myself well, and I have a feeling that fourteen is not the final number.
When I first moved to Boston in 1997, I walked off the airplane with two suitcases, neither of which had wheels. I traveled about the city on public transit to arrive at the first of three separate places which would become home on Bay State Road. Then there was the apartment on Commonwealth Ave, where we had the break-in and I lost my grandma’s jewelry. In Brookline, I lived on avenues University Road, Clark Road, Alton Place and Beacon Street. In Southie, I spent two years spent living along the legendary St. Patty’s day parade route, just a block or two from the housing projects and the Patrick Gavin School. And finally there was Roxbury, on Cedar Park, with a backyard garden to die for, the nicest landlord I’ve had and great roommates.
As for my non-Bostonian living, I've been in Tunisia six months now. And I am reflecting on how easily we can adapt to new environments. Living here is not difficult in the least. The food is good, the people are open and friendly, the weather is great, hot but it’s no oppressive sub-Saharan heat. I can ignore irritating men and their comments reflecting a state of continual weakness and frustration. I love walking in the souks, and above all I love the vegetable and fruit markets. And the view of the sea. When I lived in Niger, I also felt comfortable, which is a little shocking as it is not a comfortable place to live. The food is extremely different, the climate one of the harshest on earth. Yet, just as I finally do in Tunis, I began to identify things as mine: my bread guy, my pagne-seller, my tailor (who painted J-Crew in red paint over the door of his shop). There was my lizard who crawled onto the metal frame at the foot of my bed each night to do his little push-ups and eat mosquitoes as they tried desperately to find holes in my mosquito netting. Each night, as the temperature dipped to a crisp 98 degrees, he would poke his pointy, little head (very little, he could not have been more than 2 inches long) over the rim of the frame and reach one little tiny lizard hand up and hoist himself up to lie parallel along the bar. And the lizard's routine became mine. I waited to fall asleep until I saw him. Thanked him for eating the mosquitoes and worried a bit that if he ate a malarial mosquito would he, my little lizard, get malaria. So quickly had I developed affection for this little creature that I was quite upset on the terrible day when roommate stepped on and killed him. I carried its little corpse outside and buried it in the sand. Woefully I announced to my teacher the next morning that "Djama ay danfana wii" (Djama killed my lizard.) She found this hilarious and laughed until she was crying. I managed to laugh too, but I am very in touch with my inner five-year old who was very upset that she was laughing. Poor little lizard, he was like a guardian angel to me, protecting me from scary African diseases, sitting at the edge of my bed and wishing me sweet, malaria-free dreams!
Madrid too became mine, but in a far more anonymous way. A foreigner in a city with lots of foreigners, I was typical and uninteresting. Well, except when I was running in the streets with Jonielle training for the marathon. Oh, that made us a bit of a spectacle! And it’s fun to be a spectacle. I developed a kinship to the Metro, to Rioja, to returning home at 4 a.m. and to my French and Moroccan friends. Tunis is a fantastic middle ground between the false-familiarity of Europe and the time-travel of West Africa. There are a lot of tourists here, but they can’t say anything in Derja. So I look like them, but by opening my mouth can set myself apart, into the far nicer category of temporary resident who is studying, who appreciates the language and culture for more than cheap goods in the market that come from China anyhow.
I am pleased knowing that I can adapt to almost any environment; can live in temperatures hovering at 140 degrees, can learn to eat just about anything and could care less about the damn water pressure. So long as I have a place to sleep, food to eat, drinkable water, and pleasant ways to occupy my time, I can adjust. Despite my ease at adapting, my own personal psychology of moving is troubling. I fit everywhere and nowhere. I love Boston, but I’m not of Boston. I am very much Minnesotan, but I rarely feel that I belong there. This sensation of out-of-place-ness is an old one for me. I remember feeling very clearly and painfully as I was about to leave the hospital when I was ten that I didn't want to stay in the hospital (sad as I was to see the IV drip of morphine go), but I didn't want to go home either. I felt out of place, felt that I really belonged nowhere at the moment. I’ve never resolved that dilemma, and the limbo continues.
When I first lived in Southie, I spent my initial weeks dreaming of caves, and being trapped and suffocating, the walls were falling in on me. These nightmares reflected my desire to be back in Brookline, which was comfortable and familiar. I belonged in Southie (or so my name would suggest) and I didn’t. My house was a reflection of the new Boston, with a mix of white, black and Indian Americans roommates. We belonged insofar as our multi-ethnic house sat at the edge of black Dorchester and white Southie. But we didn’t, we, the college-educated young people, were nestled awkwardly in the old, working-class Boston. It was a fascinating experiment, but there was a clear understanding of the non-permanence of our living situation.
Coolidge Corner is my favorite neighborhood in Boston. There I could step outside my front door and go the Brookline Booksmith, see an independent film, eat great Indian food, and buy fairly-traded jewelry from everywhere. Roxbury was a bit of a shock, as my house was so far from the T, yet for the first time I had a real back yard and a garden. The breezes that would blow into the kitchen brought an incredible smell of flowers whose names I cannot be bothered to learn. But it was so residential, too residential. And therefore I didn’t really feel at home. Roxbury was too calm, but Brookline was too rich. So while I can live anywhere, no place feels completely like home. There's the fact that I've never really left Minnesota, kind of like all the Irish writers who physically left Ireland and never, ever left psychologically. Not unlike them, my moving is always characterized by a state of hesitance. I've never bought housing, always rented, always wanting and needing to be ready to leave if I have to.
I woke this past Monday surprised to find myself back in my apartment in Tunis, where I’ve lived since February. After my two week vacation in Europe it was so amusing to see Tunis as the normal, as the mundane life I’ve been living. I went about doing errands and found it nice to walk through the markets, saw my vendors again, and they asked me where I had been. I renewed a new month at my gym. Weinik kunti? Where were you? And welcome back! I guess I can now count living in Tunis as move number thirteen. With a backpack and a suitcase I arrived in February, and I took classes, visited cities, saw the south, saw the north, met lots of Italians and a few Tunisians. Returned back to my apartment tired after a breathless vacation, and settled back into a routine. So it’s home. But not for long.
In August 2009, almost, almost a year ago, I moved out of Boston. Not knowing if it would be permanent. I very half-assedly, haphazardly packed up my life and its accoutrements. Now I need to find a place for that life. It may involve the moving of all my current orphaned things from Boston to MN. That will be onerous, as it would consist in moving twelve years of books, wine glasses, and beautiful things from the beautiful places I’ve lived, things that I cannot part with. Now where do all these things belong? Where does their owner belong?!
I’ve decided that this fall, I will try to belong in MN. I am looking forward to the experience of living, and this time I plan on really living, in MN. It will never be my Boston, and I will not insult either with unfair comparisons. This time, I will not skip along on the thin upper layers of Minnesota, as I have done since the day I left in August 1997, that moment when I let my Minnesota life freeze, remain of a time that no longer exists. Each summer, each Christmas, I’ve gone back to visit a still-life version of the something I once lived. My life a frozen replica surrounded by that which continued to expand and grow. When I left Eileen was thirteen. She’s twenty-five. Rosemary was forty-six, this October she turns sixty. That a lot of life to revive.
No more, I will try to live in my new, old home state as I’ve lived in Tunis, making genuine efforts at meeting people, finding kindred spirits, exploring places I don’t know. I will try to wandering around with interest and curiosity, will chat with the people who work and live in areas I don't know. I am really looking forward to this experiment.
But, I know myself well, and I have a feeling that fourteen is not the final number.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Generosity and a Wedding in Provence
Last week I had the good fortune of attending my friend Heather's wedding in Southern France. She first told me of the wedding plans while I was visiting her in London last November, as I was en route from one place to another. When I stayed with her and Michael again in January, on my way to Tunisia, I decided then that come hell or high water (in form of dwindling teacher-salary reserves!) I was going to attend this wedding. Because, in fairness, I would be closer than nearly all other guests, Tunis being only a little one-hour hop over the Mediterranean. But also because I wanted to. Because I was really happy for Heather. Because she and Mike had hosted me twice. Because there in that apartment I saw evidence of a life well-lived together, a life that celebrates pleasures great and small: travel books on the coffee table, pictures draw by nieces and nephews on the fridge, Parisian teas and chocolates on the countertops, more wine in the fridge than food, and lots of good scotch! Who would not want to celebrate such a pair?
However, in my life as a former high school teacher turned aimless traveler, this is not exactly the sort of thing that fits into my budget. Never will I be able to afford a week of foie gras, caviar, champagne, and restaurants with three Michelin stars. Knowing that this week would damage the savings, I purchased my wedding outfit at the second hand market in Tunis for under $25 dollars and I arrived in France ready and willing to “throw the house out the window,” as the Mexicans do for quinceañera parties. I was not going to worry about the cost, and focus instead on having a fabulous time. And have a fabulous time I did, and spend much money, I did not.
Heather invited me to join her family in a farm house that her parents were renting for the week before the wedding. So I joined them. I flew from Tunis to Marseille, and took a train from Marseille to Avignon. Heather and Michael picked me up at the station, so I didn't have to take a cab. Then I spent five days visiting towns and markets of Provence, having rosé with every lunch, and playing with Heather’s rambunctious nieces and nephew. We ran into and out of, and back into the pool. Then kicked plastic soccer balls up into the air, squealed with glee and did it again, and again. What is it about children and their inability to be bored by repetition? Amazing, tiring, never dull. I slept in a white bed, with fluffy white, 8 million-count cotton sheets and a pillow that makes one think of clouds, all in a white room, decorated with small hints of things minty-colored, and a window looking out onto the riotous green of the trees in the yard.
Every meal was delicious, and I was treated at every turn. The dinner on Thursday night, before the actual wedding festivities began may have been my favorite. It was a Provence style barbecue. Meat was cooked on a grill, there were cheeses and breads and salads made of all delicious things grown in the ground, warmed and ripened by the actual sun. The spread was magnificent, not simply because of the food, but the company and the ambiance. Relatives and friends, many people connecting different parts of Heather and Michael’s lives came together and found all sorts of things to laugh about. You know the scene, everyone does. Imagine a long wooden table, covered with cloth printed with flowers of Provence surrounded by chairs of wrought iron. The table is outside, on a patio, half under the trellis dripping with leaves and flowers. The sun has set, leaving orange-ish, warm light, and all is blurred at the edges thanks to the endless bottles of rosé and Côte du Rhone. Talk is lively, and buzzes about, conversations from one end of the table to the other rise softly, float above the guests, become intertwined and fall back into the mouths of the speakers, content with full bellies and good company. This scene is in a thousand movies, all taking place in Provence, Tuscany, or some such idealized location. I don’t care how over-done or how repeated ad nauseam, it really is as lovely as it sounds.
From the heavenly country house, we moved into the heavenly Château Mazan where wedding events were took place from Friday to Sunday. The couple exchanged vows at a vineyard, Château Unang. We had wine before and during the ceremony, a most refined custom that everyone should copy at every future wedding I attend! I recited the Irish Blessing, which begins with the road rising to meet you, as everyone knows, and ends with “May pure be the joys that surround you,/ May true be the hearts that love you.” Thoroughly blessed, we returned to Château Mazan for champagne, ridiculous appetizers parading about looking prettier than anything a person should eat, followed by dancing and countless courses of one beautiful dish to the next.
Sunday morning and brunch was another blur of foods decadent and delectable. Slowly guests began leaving for train stations, for airports, for a final visit to a town unexplored. The château emptied of all people save me. Really, just me. Heather and Michael left to take final group to the train station and I had the cold water of the pool under the hot sun and fuchsia colored flowers all to myself. So I sat at the edge of the pool and observed the jarring contrast from the night before. No noise, no music blasting past 3 a.m. So void of people, it's like you could see the holes of left by those I had only just been talking to, a Christine-shaped hole here, a Manisha and Vineet shaped hole there, and wee holes in the shape of whirling dervishes where Nico and Arianne twirled about on the dance floor. I sat there a long while, dangling my legs in the water, and thinking of why specifically it was such a nice wedding. In such an elegant environment, it could have seemed stuffy, it never did. It could have been arrogant or showy, yet wasn’t. The couple, their parents and sisters, exuded happiness and a desire that we share in that joy. Share we did. Friends dropped work, used up vacation days, battled inevitable French transit worker strike, flew across oceans and seas, in order to join in the celebration. Generosity flowed more recklessly and freely than the wine, which is really saying something.
I have had the deep and profound fortune of knowing many generous people in my life. There is nothing, nothing like a generous person. From the reckless abandon of my sister Eileen, who would empty her bank account for a friend. To Patrick's uncanny ability to give perfect gifts, generous gifts, always things you didn't ask for but love more than anything you've ever bought for yourself. Shannon's generosity in the form of bottomless empathy for others. To Rosie, well, what can one say of a life time spent teaching, of being hostess and of opening her home to anyone in need of a place to stay? Generosity incarnate. So I consider myself an expert in judging generosity. And anyone can give things or money away. That's not generous. For giving to be generous it's measured in hows and whys. Concerning how, there must be no grand-standing, no waiting until the bill arrived and being dramatic. Simply, I'm treating you. Thanks for being here with us. The why must be out of love, of gratitude and of desire to share in another person’s joy.
On many occasions the groom treated me, not because he is able to, but because he clearly wanted to. Because he was saying thanks for celebrating the wedding with them, thanks for being there for Heather. Every time he treated, he gave me the impression that it was I doing him the favor. Michael, I always thought you were lucky to be with Heather. Who is dear to me for the many, many conversations we had in our kitchen in Southie, over coffee in our pjs with light streaming in the windows and onto out bare feet. These were usually about our families. You can understand a lot about a person when you hear her talk about her mom and sister, her fathers. Heather is a person of depth and beauty. So clearly, you are lucky to have my lovely friend as a partner. And Heather, you, dear, are too a very lucky person indeed. I can think of nothing more priceless in a partner than true generosity. It’s clear that you both love life, love eating, love wine, love travel, and new challenges and experiences. But more importantly you love sharing these passions with all the great people in your lives.
It’s quite appropriate that one of the readings at the ceremony was an excerpt from Hugo’s les Miserables. “You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness.” I would clarify that yes, you can give without loving, but you cannot give generously without loving. Generosity without love is impossible. Only loving spirits are generous and know the true meaning of giving. Congratulations and happy marriage!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Triumph and Disaster
"If you can dreams, and not make dreams your master
If you can think, but not make thoughts your aim.
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
and treat those two impostors just the same.
Then yours in the world, my son, and everything that's in it."
My friend Emre, who until recently was a classmate of mine at the Bourguiba school, posted this quote of Rudyard Kipling's on his Facebook page. I loved it immediately but am faced with the distressing situation that I have now gone from discovering pithy sayings in those horrid quotable quote books, to learning of them via FB status updates. I fear that this is a terrible sign of intellectual atrophy. Notwithstanding the embarrassing way in which I discovered it, I love the sentiments expressed in said quotable quote. I find it lovely and compelling, even uplifting. Until, of course, I realized that I fail at each of his suggestions.
I love to travel for all the typical, standard reasons, but also a very significant part of my passion for wandering is the insane luxury of day-dreaming that comes with the hours spent between places. I look forward to flights, and always, always reserve a window seat in order to stare out the window and let my imagination run wild. I dream recklessly, and elaborately, and I am quite certain that I permit these dreams to hold too much power over me.
In thinking, well, thinking is often my goal. When I was teaching, I could not stop thinking about students, their academic success, their personal challenges. I couldn't stop thinking about my lessons, mostly the ones that failed. I thought about these things with the specific goal of thinking-up ways to improve things, to teach a lesson more effectively, to reach a student who seemed alienated. I know that this is not the sense in which Kipling implies. He's referring to thinkers who aim to be lofty in theirs thoughts, and think with the goal of creating a valuable idea. (This would be opposed to the great thinkers who think because they cannot help it.) Fine, I'm sometimes guilty of that too. I want to come up with cool ideas. And I try to.
Per triumph and disaster, throughout my life I'd say that I have tended to meet triumph with glee and elation, and disaster with indignation and anger (well, depending on the disaster). But I think that I have made small gains in this area. I see this year as a triumph, sprinkled with mini-disasters. And I see them both as the necessary results of a year of traveling (or really the necessary result of a year of living anywhere, anytime). My Arabic is not as good as I had hoped it would become. I have no friend in Tunis of a Madame Habibou calibur (my host mother in Niger). I did quite poorly on some sections of the exam, namely the grammar. I have let opportunities slip by, have failed to pursue chances to improve my language, have been lazy with relationships. But I have met these personal disasters calmly, without anger and with little frustration and disappointment. I'm going to attempt to treat triumph calmly too. You are all laughing, I know, as my general reaction to everything is rarely short of hyperbolic. Well, I can try.
I like this likening of triumph and disaster. In the Prophet, Khalil Gibran describes the sameness of joy and sorrow; he describes these emotions as mirrors of one another, two sides of a coin. "For the deeper that sorrow carves into your soul the more joy you can contain." How can you be joyful when facing triumph if you don't know the disappointment, fear, sadness of disaster? I like the challenge of reacting to them as one in the same, of knowing that one could just as easily have arrived at your doorstep disguised as the other.
Still, it's likely that I'll remain still somewhat bewitched by dreaming.
If you can think, but not make thoughts your aim.
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
and treat those two impostors just the same.
Then yours in the world, my son, and everything that's in it."
My friend Emre, who until recently was a classmate of mine at the Bourguiba school, posted this quote of Rudyard Kipling's on his Facebook page. I loved it immediately but am faced with the distressing situation that I have now gone from discovering pithy sayings in those horrid quotable quote books, to learning of them via FB status updates. I fear that this is a terrible sign of intellectual atrophy. Notwithstanding the embarrassing way in which I discovered it, I love the sentiments expressed in said quotable quote. I find it lovely and compelling, even uplifting. Until, of course, I realized that I fail at each of his suggestions.
I love to travel for all the typical, standard reasons, but also a very significant part of my passion for wandering is the insane luxury of day-dreaming that comes with the hours spent between places. I look forward to flights, and always, always reserve a window seat in order to stare out the window and let my imagination run wild. I dream recklessly, and elaborately, and I am quite certain that I permit these dreams to hold too much power over me.
In thinking, well, thinking is often my goal. When I was teaching, I could not stop thinking about students, their academic success, their personal challenges. I couldn't stop thinking about my lessons, mostly the ones that failed. I thought about these things with the specific goal of thinking-up ways to improve things, to teach a lesson more effectively, to reach a student who seemed alienated. I know that this is not the sense in which Kipling implies. He's referring to thinkers who aim to be lofty in theirs thoughts, and think with the goal of creating a valuable idea. (This would be opposed to the great thinkers who think because they cannot help it.) Fine, I'm sometimes guilty of that too. I want to come up with cool ideas. And I try to.
Per triumph and disaster, throughout my life I'd say that I have tended to meet triumph with glee and elation, and disaster with indignation and anger (well, depending on the disaster). But I think that I have made small gains in this area. I see this year as a triumph, sprinkled with mini-disasters. And I see them both as the necessary results of a year of traveling (or really the necessary result of a year of living anywhere, anytime). My Arabic is not as good as I had hoped it would become. I have no friend in Tunis of a Madame Habibou calibur (my host mother in Niger). I did quite poorly on some sections of the exam, namely the grammar. I have let opportunities slip by, have failed to pursue chances to improve my language, have been lazy with relationships. But I have met these personal disasters calmly, without anger and with little frustration and disappointment. I'm going to attempt to treat triumph calmly too. You are all laughing, I know, as my general reaction to everything is rarely short of hyperbolic. Well, I can try.
I like this likening of triumph and disaster. In the Prophet, Khalil Gibran describes the sameness of joy and sorrow; he describes these emotions as mirrors of one another, two sides of a coin. "For the deeper that sorrow carves into your soul the more joy you can contain." How can you be joyful when facing triumph if you don't know the disappointment, fear, sadness of disaster? I like the challenge of reacting to them as one in the same, of knowing that one could just as easily have arrived at your doorstep disguised as the other.
Still, it's likely that I'll remain still somewhat bewitched by dreaming.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Great Expectations
You can't always get what you want. You often get what you need. But more often that not, you do get what you expect.
I expected last weekend to be fun. It was. I made lots of plans, had two parties on Friday, both involved dancing -always a good sign, got home at 4 a.m. Saturday had great food at a friend's house and spent lovely evening visiting. I expected to do poorly on my first round of exams. I did. I did not know what to expect, when I haphazardly decided to spend a few months in Tunisia. And I've experienced a range of all things fun, entertaining, enjoyable, frustrating, and aggravating. Which is the only logical result of living anywhere for more than ten minutes. But now I have to go about developing expectations for the remainder of my time here. Otherwise I may fall into the trap of expecting to little and getting just that.
Many fellow international students here have reached the saturation point, are tired of all things Tunisian and are looking forward to leaving. During my very entertaining last weekend, my friend Eri had our class over for a delicious Japanese dinner. (Oh my god, she can cook! I'd get so fat if I were married to this woman. Esther is a more appropriate cooking partner, heavy on the fruits, vegetables and while we love our Swiss chocolate, we do eat more at lunch and opt for lighter dinners.) Well, during this decadent Japanese feast, our conversations turned to plans of leaving, and one of our Spanish friends commented that the only reason she is here is to learn Arabic not to really to get to know Tunisia. I know where this comes from, she's tired. She's fed up with unfriendly comments in streets. But what a terrible way to study a language, for what? Itself? A language is an empty, sad thing without its speakers to breath life into it. Speakers of course include its artists, musicians, poets, and writers. So even if you have no friends, love the music, read some books, even in translation. Love the city, walking about, getting lost in souks and taking the metro only 20 minutes out of the city to land at the beautiful beach at La Marsa. I always, always love my cities. Boston is the city I will always love the most. But I have loved each one. I love Tunis for the sunshine, the vegetables markets, the view of the sea, the lake, and the mountains when I do my weekend morning runs up in the parc Belvedere. Am even experiencing new found love for the crazy women at my gym who connect me to Tunisia, even if they walk forever on tread mills and snap at me for "running too fast and breaking the machines."
Expectations can really shape our interactions with people. My friend Clementine has had many unfortunate experiences with Tunisians. She is Rwandan and encounters racist comments and behavior from taxi drivers, people in the streets, and even from the occasional instructor at the Bourguiba school! This behavior is inexcusable, but unfortunately these negative experiences have caused her to expect it. So she braces herself for it, acts aggressively and sometimes the taxi driver, or waiter is rude because he is reacting to her aggression not race. Yet, I think that she does not see that its her low expectations that people are willing to meet.
When foreign women expect men to be rude, and I can willingly admit that I am perhaps one of the worst examples, we might invite more rude behavior than if we walked about giving off airs of genuine indifference rather than aggressive disdain. I am not suggesting that our expectations necessarily cause poor behavior in others. But if we expect the guy in the marlet to cheat us with prices, he will observe how we are behaving, probably justifiably be offended and then be inclined to increase his prices. It was the "tax de peau" in Niamey. There's a cafe a few blocks from my house and I've paid three different prices for a cafe direct. But I am nice to everyone there and they let me study in peace. So what's an extra 50 cents from time to time? I have a great affection for my vendors at the market, and I don't think I've ever paid an unreasonable price. I'm nice to them. I expect them to be nice to me. And they invariably are.
So as I attempt to prepare for my final round of exams, I'm going to be pleased with what I've learned. Will try not to judge myself too harshly, a nearly impossible task for me. I expect that I will do slightly better than I did in March. But more importantly, I expect that I will continue to improve my Arabic beyond the exams. I know that I outstrip many of my classmates in "la vie Tunisienne" and that's a valuable measure of my success here. I'll stay until August. I am going to continue "teaching" my informal and endless weight lifting and yoga classes at the gym. I'll be better about long coffees, and taking lots of afternoon trips to La Marsa to swim in the Mediterranean. I'll study at Cafe Etoile du Nord. I'll go out dancing with Khaoula. And I expect to have a great time.
I expected last weekend to be fun. It was. I made lots of plans, had two parties on Friday, both involved dancing -always a good sign, got home at 4 a.m. Saturday had great food at a friend's house and spent lovely evening visiting. I expected to do poorly on my first round of exams. I did. I did not know what to expect, when I haphazardly decided to spend a few months in Tunisia. And I've experienced a range of all things fun, entertaining, enjoyable, frustrating, and aggravating. Which is the only logical result of living anywhere for more than ten minutes. But now I have to go about developing expectations for the remainder of my time here. Otherwise I may fall into the trap of expecting to little and getting just that.
Many fellow international students here have reached the saturation point, are tired of all things Tunisian and are looking forward to leaving. During my very entertaining last weekend, my friend Eri had our class over for a delicious Japanese dinner. (Oh my god, she can cook! I'd get so fat if I were married to this woman. Esther is a more appropriate cooking partner, heavy on the fruits, vegetables and while we love our Swiss chocolate, we do eat more at lunch and opt for lighter dinners.) Well, during this decadent Japanese feast, our conversations turned to plans of leaving, and one of our Spanish friends commented that the only reason she is here is to learn Arabic not to really to get to know Tunisia. I know where this comes from, she's tired. She's fed up with unfriendly comments in streets. But what a terrible way to study a language, for what? Itself? A language is an empty, sad thing without its speakers to breath life into it. Speakers of course include its artists, musicians, poets, and writers. So even if you have no friends, love the music, read some books, even in translation. Love the city, walking about, getting lost in souks and taking the metro only 20 minutes out of the city to land at the beautiful beach at La Marsa. I always, always love my cities. Boston is the city I will always love the most. But I have loved each one. I love Tunis for the sunshine, the vegetables markets, the view of the sea, the lake, and the mountains when I do my weekend morning runs up in the parc Belvedere. Am even experiencing new found love for the crazy women at my gym who connect me to Tunisia, even if they walk forever on tread mills and snap at me for "running too fast and breaking the machines."
Expectations can really shape our interactions with people. My friend Clementine has had many unfortunate experiences with Tunisians. She is Rwandan and encounters racist comments and behavior from taxi drivers, people in the streets, and even from the occasional instructor at the Bourguiba school! This behavior is inexcusable, but unfortunately these negative experiences have caused her to expect it. So she braces herself for it, acts aggressively and sometimes the taxi driver, or waiter is rude because he is reacting to her aggression not race. Yet, I think that she does not see that its her low expectations that people are willing to meet.
When foreign women expect men to be rude, and I can willingly admit that I am perhaps one of the worst examples, we might invite more rude behavior than if we walked about giving off airs of genuine indifference rather than aggressive disdain. I am not suggesting that our expectations necessarily cause poor behavior in others. But if we expect the guy in the marlet to cheat us with prices, he will observe how we are behaving, probably justifiably be offended and then be inclined to increase his prices. It was the "tax de peau" in Niamey. There's a cafe a few blocks from my house and I've paid three different prices for a cafe direct. But I am nice to everyone there and they let me study in peace. So what's an extra 50 cents from time to time? I have a great affection for my vendors at the market, and I don't think I've ever paid an unreasonable price. I'm nice to them. I expect them to be nice to me. And they invariably are.
So as I attempt to prepare for my final round of exams, I'm going to be pleased with what I've learned. Will try not to judge myself too harshly, a nearly impossible task for me. I expect that I will do slightly better than I did in March. But more importantly, I expect that I will continue to improve my Arabic beyond the exams. I know that I outstrip many of my classmates in "la vie Tunisienne" and that's a valuable measure of my success here. I'll stay until August. I am going to continue "teaching" my informal and endless weight lifting and yoga classes at the gym. I'll be better about long coffees, and taking lots of afternoon trips to La Marsa to swim in the Mediterranean. I'll study at Cafe Etoile du Nord. I'll go out dancing with Khaoula. And I expect to have a great time.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
The oldest fear in the book
I just told my sister to "be safe." I don't usually say things like this to her. I wonder if I sounded like an annoying, know-it-all, older-sister. She's in Kenya and is on her way to the West Bank in a few days. So I told her to be careful. And when I think about it, I am not sure what I mean. I think that I actually do not mean for her to be careful. What is she going to do? Go on a safari and try to pet some lion cubs? Or is she going to walk up to a security checkpoint between Israel and Palestine and insult an Israeli army officer? Pick up some stones? I don't think so. What I mean is that I hope that if someone is robbed, knifed, or hurt in anyway, well, I don't want it to be my sister. But it would sound bad if I said, hey Shannon, I hope that no one steals from you and that you are not stabbed. I know that she is as interested in avoiding those things as I am, so I'm sure she'll take "care" to avoid them.
Since I began traveling last August, I've received countless e-mails and Facebook posts telling me to be careful. Many friends and relatives are telling me to be safe in Tunisia. I think that they mean what I meant above to Shannon. I think they are saying, "I hope that you have good luck and that it's other people who get robbed or worse." We never seem to say these things to each other when we're at home.
I have been robbed twice in my life, and two of these two times occurred in Boston. The first, most unfortunately, occurred on my 22nd, i.e. golden, birthday. No one likes bad things happening to them on their birthdays, me especially because I revel in the day as if I were royalty and this day my coronation. Well on this particular birthday, I was out at a bar, dancing away, having consumed no more than 3 beers (I am legendary for my ability to dance like a fool while sober), and some asshole got my wallet out of my purse and exited the building before I noticed a thing. I lost all of 12 dollars in cash (ha ha sucker, take a closer look at your victim's clothes next time!) and promptly canceled all my credit cards. But I was far more upset about all the missing funeral cards, fortune cookie fortunes saying that I would cross many oceans in my lifetime, and a shamrock smashed between laminate from my aunt and uncle. Hey thief, you clearly don't give a shit about that stuff so once you've enjoyed the happy meal with my cash, have the decency to put the wallet with the memorabilia in a mailbox. The other insulting consequence of this was that from the end of September to Thanksgiving I was not allowed into one single bar in Boston. Having no license and an expired passport, I had to wait until I could get a new license back in Minnesota to prove that I was 22. All so that ass could have 12 dollars.
The second time I was robbed occurred only months later. Some horrible idiot held the door of my apartment building open for two individuals who did not live there, and who then proceeded to kick down our apartment door, and steal all things electronic (phones, computers, cameras), my eye glasses and every single piece of jewelry I owed, and my roommates Jina's underwear (hard to know if we should have been offended that only Jina's underwear was worthy of stealing). Then in a final act of assholishness, the fucker walked all over my bed with his nasty, dirty shoes leaving big-ass man footprints on my comforter. Being robbed is a rotten experience. You feel helpless and angry, and there's no outlet for your anger. I was brokenhearted about the loss of jewelry that was priceless to me. Betsy was a wreck over the loss of considerable work on her senior thesis. Jina was grossed out about the underwear. The police arrive, they try to help, and everyone knows you'll never see the stuff again.
When you are robbed while traveling, these feelings of anger and helplessness are exacerbated. You lose a wallet or a cell phone and you have to struggle to explain what happened to the police, you may be lost, confused and angry and it's difficult to deal with the issues in another language and cultural norms. Well, I am guessing that being robbed abroad is worse, I wouldn't know, because it's never happened to me. (Which it will now, because now that I've written this I am clearly tempting fate! Wait for next week's update when I bitch about losing all my pictures.) Well, for now, I've never been picket-pocked in Europe. In Syria, my sister and I just left our bags in restaurants, at the bus stations and walked about the town. People don't steal in Syria. Throughout three countries in West Africa, no attempt at a purse snatching. Same story in Central America...zip, nothing, nada. This could be due to my cautiousness when traveling. I always have extra copies of my credit cards, my passport, I leave travel itineraries (well, when I know them!) with loved ones. I memorized my passport number. But, really, I know that it's been mostly luck. Just like it was bad luck that the assholes robbed our apartment and no one else in the building.
There have been very few times when I've been genuinely afraid while traveling. On the most disastrous vacation known to man, my sisters and I were in Venezuela. At one point we were traveling by bus from Caracas to another town in hopes of arriving at a beach and rescuing a few pleasant days out of this catastrophe of a trip. Thanks to the nightmare that is bus travel in Venezuela, compounded by a monsoon-like storm, what should have been a 2 hour trip took more than 12. While on the interminable bus ride, we met a lovely middle-aged woman. We chatted about our families, homes. During the conversation she said to me, "You are the first North American I've ever talked to." "What do you think?" I asked. "Oh you and your sisters are wonderful." By the time we arrived in Maracay at 1 a.m the pension had given away our room, leaving us with nowhere to stay. So we found ourselves, three 20 something year old blond girls in an open-air bus station, with creepy flickering, greenish lights, and men crawling about. Our friend from the bus offered to let us stay with her. All sorts of ideas crossed my mind as I stood there deciding what to do. This nice woman could have been a person who sells organs on the black market. I looked at Shannon, she at me, and we shrugged, agreeing wordlessly to trust her. And it was a risk. But I went with my instincts. My gut said to trust her. Her son picked us up at the station and he drove all of us to the family's very modest house. We woke up her twin, 19-year old daughters, and evicted them from their own bedroom and gave the room to us for the night. We sat up that late into the night talking, drinking Pepsi and eating peanuts. I had a bag of granola, so I shared and they loved it. I slept lightly that night, listening to dogs fighting in the streets and trying to listen for anything....well that I should "be careful about." In the morning our host made arrepas, corn tortillas filled with cheese. Delicious. We sat at the kitchen table with the neighbor drinking coffee and discussed Hugo Chavez. It wasn't the beach that saved the trip. It was this nice Venezuelan woman and her family.
If you want to be depressed about the dangers of travel, there is no shortage of ugly stories. Mexico has become a dangerous place for American tourists. A Spanish couple was recently robbed and killed in Morocco. They had been traveling to Morocco for years, weren't at all novices to the region at all, spoke the language. They were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I don't think that they failed "to be careful." In other terrible news, there have been a string of stabbings at schools in China, various incidents have been reported of mentally unwell Chinese men entering Chinese schools and stabbing children and teachers. Random, horrible crimes can happen anywhere. Careful or not.
Just last year a young boy was killed right across the street from my best friend's apartment. And we lived in the same neighborhood. Yet, no one was telling me to be careful in Boston. If something should happen to me while I am in North Africa, will people at home blame it on the place? Thinking that, well, she's somewhere unfamiliar and therefore dangerous. I hope not. They say that statistically the most dangerous place for a woman is her own home. So far, only Boston has failed to keep me safe. And I don't love it any less.
Since I began traveling last August, I've received countless e-mails and Facebook posts telling me to be careful. Many friends and relatives are telling me to be safe in Tunisia. I think that they mean what I meant above to Shannon. I think they are saying, "I hope that you have good luck and that it's other people who get robbed or worse." We never seem to say these things to each other when we're at home.
I have been robbed twice in my life, and two of these two times occurred in Boston. The first, most unfortunately, occurred on my 22nd, i.e. golden, birthday. No one likes bad things happening to them on their birthdays, me especially because I revel in the day as if I were royalty and this day my coronation. Well on this particular birthday, I was out at a bar, dancing away, having consumed no more than 3 beers (I am legendary for my ability to dance like a fool while sober), and some asshole got my wallet out of my purse and exited the building before I noticed a thing. I lost all of 12 dollars in cash (ha ha sucker, take a closer look at your victim's clothes next time!) and promptly canceled all my credit cards. But I was far more upset about all the missing funeral cards, fortune cookie fortunes saying that I would cross many oceans in my lifetime, and a shamrock smashed between laminate from my aunt and uncle. Hey thief, you clearly don't give a shit about that stuff so once you've enjoyed the happy meal with my cash, have the decency to put the wallet with the memorabilia in a mailbox. The other insulting consequence of this was that from the end of September to Thanksgiving I was not allowed into one single bar in Boston. Having no license and an expired passport, I had to wait until I could get a new license back in Minnesota to prove that I was 22. All so that ass could have 12 dollars.
The second time I was robbed occurred only months later. Some horrible idiot held the door of my apartment building open for two individuals who did not live there, and who then proceeded to kick down our apartment door, and steal all things electronic (phones, computers, cameras), my eye glasses and every single piece of jewelry I owed, and my roommates Jina's underwear (hard to know if we should have been offended that only Jina's underwear was worthy of stealing). Then in a final act of assholishness, the fucker walked all over my bed with his nasty, dirty shoes leaving big-ass man footprints on my comforter. Being robbed is a rotten experience. You feel helpless and angry, and there's no outlet for your anger. I was brokenhearted about the loss of jewelry that was priceless to me. Betsy was a wreck over the loss of considerable work on her senior thesis. Jina was grossed out about the underwear. The police arrive, they try to help, and everyone knows you'll never see the stuff again.
When you are robbed while traveling, these feelings of anger and helplessness are exacerbated. You lose a wallet or a cell phone and you have to struggle to explain what happened to the police, you may be lost, confused and angry and it's difficult to deal with the issues in another language and cultural norms. Well, I am guessing that being robbed abroad is worse, I wouldn't know, because it's never happened to me. (Which it will now, because now that I've written this I am clearly tempting fate! Wait for next week's update when I bitch about losing all my pictures.) Well, for now, I've never been picket-pocked in Europe. In Syria, my sister and I just left our bags in restaurants, at the bus stations and walked about the town. People don't steal in Syria. Throughout three countries in West Africa, no attempt at a purse snatching. Same story in Central America...zip, nothing, nada. This could be due to my cautiousness when traveling. I always have extra copies of my credit cards, my passport, I leave travel itineraries (well, when I know them!) with loved ones. I memorized my passport number. But, really, I know that it's been mostly luck. Just like it was bad luck that the assholes robbed our apartment and no one else in the building.
There have been very few times when I've been genuinely afraid while traveling. On the most disastrous vacation known to man, my sisters and I were in Venezuela. At one point we were traveling by bus from Caracas to another town in hopes of arriving at a beach and rescuing a few pleasant days out of this catastrophe of a trip. Thanks to the nightmare that is bus travel in Venezuela, compounded by a monsoon-like storm, what should have been a 2 hour trip took more than 12. While on the interminable bus ride, we met a lovely middle-aged woman. We chatted about our families, homes. During the conversation she said to me, "You are the first North American I've ever talked to." "What do you think?" I asked. "Oh you and your sisters are wonderful." By the time we arrived in Maracay at 1 a.m the pension had given away our room, leaving us with nowhere to stay. So we found ourselves, three 20 something year old blond girls in an open-air bus station, with creepy flickering, greenish lights, and men crawling about. Our friend from the bus offered to let us stay with her. All sorts of ideas crossed my mind as I stood there deciding what to do. This nice woman could have been a person who sells organs on the black market. I looked at Shannon, she at me, and we shrugged, agreeing wordlessly to trust her. And it was a risk. But I went with my instincts. My gut said to trust her. Her son picked us up at the station and he drove all of us to the family's very modest house. We woke up her twin, 19-year old daughters, and evicted them from their own bedroom and gave the room to us for the night. We sat up that late into the night talking, drinking Pepsi and eating peanuts. I had a bag of granola, so I shared and they loved it. I slept lightly that night, listening to dogs fighting in the streets and trying to listen for anything....well that I should "be careful about." In the morning our host made arrepas, corn tortillas filled with cheese. Delicious. We sat at the kitchen table with the neighbor drinking coffee and discussed Hugo Chavez. It wasn't the beach that saved the trip. It was this nice Venezuelan woman and her family.
If you want to be depressed about the dangers of travel, there is no shortage of ugly stories. Mexico has become a dangerous place for American tourists. A Spanish couple was recently robbed and killed in Morocco. They had been traveling to Morocco for years, weren't at all novices to the region at all, spoke the language. They were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I don't think that they failed "to be careful." In other terrible news, there have been a string of stabbings at schools in China, various incidents have been reported of mentally unwell Chinese men entering Chinese schools and stabbing children and teachers. Random, horrible crimes can happen anywhere. Careful or not.
Just last year a young boy was killed right across the street from my best friend's apartment. And we lived in the same neighborhood. Yet, no one was telling me to be careful in Boston. If something should happen to me while I am in North Africa, will people at home blame it on the place? Thinking that, well, she's somewhere unfamiliar and therefore dangerous. I hope not. They say that statistically the most dangerous place for a woman is her own home. So far, only Boston has failed to keep me safe. And I don't love it any less.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
The hunt for bissap
Do you know what is in my fridge tonight? Bissap. And I could cry for how happy this makes me. Bissap is drink that is a beautiful deep red-ish purple color, a color that I don't think I've seen anywhere else on earth except in Bissap form. It is made by adding dried hibiscus flowers to boiling water. Letting it cool and adding whatever your preferred quantity of mint, lemon, ginger and sugar. Then it is chilled. I have never drank a more soothing, thirst-quenching liquid. Perhaps this is because I drank bissap in temperatures exceeding 140 degrees. There is nothing about it I don't love: the color, the smell, its very faint grainy texture, the slight kick of the ginger, the delicate sweetness, the fresh mint leaves floating about in the purple-red inky liquid, giving one the impression that the drink was the inspiration for many richly woven eastern carpet. Heaven, this drink. And it had been ten years since I've seen it.
This afternoon we, my roommate, her two siblings who are visiting from Switzerland, and I, were invited to have tea and cake at our friend's house. Our friend is a Catholic nun from Rwanda. In her attitudes, her opinions, and her humor, she confirms my belief that the Catholic Church would be a far, far superior institution should the nuns gain complete control tomorrow, and we do away with these silly priests, bishops and the like. This visit with the nuns was even lovelier than my usual visits to the nunnery, because as I opened the door to Clementine's and barely was the tip of my nose in her house did I spot a bottle on her living room table. I cried out, "Oh my god is that bissap?!" With as much joy as if I were seeing a long lost love. My reaction was hyperbolic (even for me). I drank about 4 glasses. Bissap is not a Rwandan drink but is made in various West African countries, and one of her fellow sisters is from Burkina Faso. Her parents sent the flowers from Ouagadougou. And the afternoon treat transported me back to Niger. I was back in Mme. Habibou's living room on the floor with Huseina, one of the six month old twins, in my lap. Sweat was pouring from my forehead and with a baby in one arm and a glass of bissap in the other, I had no free hands and could not wipe the sweat from my face. Least you be confused, this is a very happy memory.
My trouble here in Tunisia is that I have not yet discovered a bissap. Should I leave tomorrow, there is not one single thing that could cause such a visceral reaction ten years from now. No food, no name, no face, no smell, nothing. This is disappointing and slightly distressing. Am I failing here? There are plenty of things I like, enjoy and appreciate very much. Here I eat the most delicious oranges I've ever tasted, dates that are richer, sweeter and more satisfying that chocolate (okay depending on the chocolate). There's the glory that is Ibn Khaldoun and all the second hand markets. But these are things I can find elsewhere. I have nothing of bissap-calibur. Now I have the proverbial yardstick by which to measure my time in Tunisia. I will be ready to leave when I have found something that I will miss terribly.
It makes me wonder how we know when something ended. I walked the Camino De Santiago in the Fall, and the Camino ended, where it should have ended, not at Santiago, but for me at the ocean, from the mountains to the sea. It ended without the various lovely people I had met along the way. I walked those last 2 kilometers with my feet in the sand, and in the Atlantic. I was dizzy, hot, tired and the sand was uneven. I'm shocked I didn't sprain my ankle. I knew I had reached the end because the sunset over the Atlantic was glorious. And I walked west for the first time in 31 days as the moon rose over the bay. But it's quite easy to know when the Camino ends. What was I going to do, swim the Atlantic? People love the Camino because it's a goal, beginning, middle, and then a clear end. Ah sense of accomplishment. What about everything else in life? Jobs? Relationships? Cities? It's not always so easy to recognize the end. Or we don't want to see the end. Or it's just so much easier to keep going in the direction in which you started.
If I am honest, I have too many ungenerous feelings towards Tunisia at the moment. Which is odd, I've had no "honey-moon" experience here. And I wonder why. Has the novelty of travel in general worn off? France (1996) was a honeymoon from beginning to end and I cried like a baby when I got on the plane to return home. The other American students seemed to have had enough of Renoirs and camembert but I had just begun my lifelong love affair with French cheeses. I knew I was going to miss everything: my host family, the jazz concert (Herbie Hancock) at the roman ruins, the red wine, and cheese and chocolate every day. Niger (2000) was difficult at first, but I learned to love it. Loved mostly the people. Loved proving to myself that I could live pretty much anywhere. Loved how comfortable I was after I found places to belong: Lycee Korombe with my English students, the Habibous', Sue's house on Sunday for che bou jenn.
But I'm not sure what, years from now, I will love about my time in Tunisia. I'm now on a hunt, for what will be my Tunisian bissap. How can I leave until I find something here that will draw me back?
Don't leave home, unless you plan to leave home
When I travel I've always bring pictures of my family, a book or two in English, and one item of clothing that I love and believe looks nice on me. Oh, and a few pieces of jewelry, always my Claddagh ring because it never comes off and then some earrings because I feel naked without them. This is the first time I've traveled with an ipod and it makes running much easier. Music has been a nice thing to have, it's like little pieces of home to listen to as I fall asleep. I didn't bring many clothes and so I bought a bunch at the second hand market. Which led to my remarkable discoveries of the Minnesota University t-shirt and my favorite late Saturday morning activity of searching through piles of clothes at the Ibn Khaldoun market. I have found my Filene's basement in Tunis! I try to travel light, books were the heaviest thing I brought, but I did come to study, so I forgive myself. But I travel light mentally too, and that makes a big difference. I'm open to new foods, to a new schedule, to adjusting to not having certain things. I miss wine, beer, and grape-nuts, but I'm enjoying the fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh cheese from the market and all the delicious sweets.However, I've noticed that some people travel in such a way so as to have everything with them from home, with as little interruptions, and as few distractions from the place to which they have traveled as possible. This seems an odd way to travel. During a three week break from classes, I took a few small trips around Tunis and I ran into this phenomenon often. On my way between Kairouan, considered to be the fourth holiest city of Islam and the place from which Islam was spread across Africa, and El Jem, a city in Tunisian with a remarkable Roman amphitheater and coliseum, I spent a day and night in Sousse, a very touristy coastal town. Sousse was a fun departure from the solemnity of Kairouan. It's loud and lively and bustling, a port city that looks like there are ships parked downtown since the docks are so near the main town square. I arrived from Kairouan via louage, these conversion van-bus thingys that fit about 10-12 travelers. I love them. They seem mostly to be a mostly Tunisian way to travel, and are a good way to meet people. As I entered Sousse I saw large tourists buses along the water front and in front of the mammoth beach hotels. The buses are helpful if you want to travel to Tunisia, arrive at the airport, take transit to a beach town, and see as little of Tunisia as possible.
I was planning on staying at the youth hostel in Sousse which costs 10 dinars a night, but I had no reservations so I just thought I'd wander around and try to find something closer to the center of town. First thing I did was have a coffee on the beach. It was a windy but pleasant day, maybe in the low 70s. So I sat at a little table. I talked to the waiter in Tunisian Arabic, he was friendly, pleasant and seemed shocked that I spoke a bit of Derja. In Tunis, many of the young(ish) foreigners are students at the Bourguiba Institute so people expect us to speak a little Arabic. But since Sousse is such a magnificently touristy place, my ability to communicate was a novelty. I thoroughly enjoyed myself at this cafe. At my little table, I took a few pictures of my cappuccino and the ocean; two of my most favorite things on earth! I wrote some post cards, wrote in my journal, people-watched. There were plenty of middle-aged and elderly Europeans (I heard no American accents), some with sunburns (I wondered how), many wearing tiny tank tops (why?!), shorts, looking a bit silly in 70 degree, windy weather. When I went to pay, the waiter told me the cappuccino was a dinar (about 65 cents). I could see on the menu that he was wrong. It was listed in English, French, German, Dutch (maybe), Spanish and Italian, all as three dinars. I looked confused and he smiled and said "no, for you a dinar," I smiled back, thanked him. He told me to come back anytime.
I headed to the Medina, a really pretty Medina, with huge, stone walls, maybe 30 feet high, a beautiful warm, orange-ish, creamy color. I looked at trinket stalls quickly as I'm never interested in buying anything, the louder the stall person, the quicker I walk past. I came across the front door of a hotel called Hotel Medina which looked quite nice. I figured why not at least go in and ask the price for a room. The lobby was a courtyard with lovely tiled floors and walls, columns, and polished dark wood. I thought it might be expensive, but I asked the reception the price for one person for a night. 20 dinars, glorious!, my own bedroom, bathroom and tasty breakfast was well worth the price. So I stayed, had my own room in the Medina, in the middle of town, about a five minute walk to the train station, which was excellent as my train for El Jem left at 8 a.m. the next morning.
Once my room was secured my next order of business was to get a beer. I had read in my guide book that there is a British Pub where women can drink a beer and not be bothered by Tunisian men. It is not terribly normal here for women to frequent bars (women are not really seen in many of the coffee shops!), so the chance to have a beer undisturbed was too good to pass up. Plus I had not had a beer since I was actually in a real British pub in London in January. So I walked along the board walk, enjoying the waves and more people-watching, and I found the obscene 5 star hotel where this pub was located. After passing the maze of restaurants inside the hotel (Really inside the hotel! So when the hotel patrons want to eat, they do not even have to leave the hotel, and possibly hear Arabic or meet a Tunisian!) and there were also plenty of shops selling Medina-trinkets at ten times the price (too, too funny), I found the football themed bar (very kitsch). I ordered a beer and enjoyed every sip, while writing post cards. I was my first beer in over 2 months, and I enjoyed my break from Tunisian beerlessness. This pub was filled with Brits; I don't even think there were other Europeans. The TVs were broadcasting the results of a soccer match and everything was Manchester this and Manchester that. It was oddly quite in the bar. No cheering, very little talking. I wondered what everyone in this hotel was doing in Tunisia. Me? I was enjoying a much deserved little break from a culture where women don't drink beer. And I felt completely justified in my little break. But I wonder why does one need a break from Tunisia if you are here for 5 days? Aren't you here on vacation, taking a break from England, or wherever? Isn't that the whole idea of a vacation, taking a break from what you usually do? Hearing other languages, eating other food, maybe watch a soccer match in Arabic? English guys, you could walk into any coffee shop in the country and bond with the Tunisian guys over your mutual love of football. I can't because I am thoroughly disinterested in the sport and am totally above pretending to be. But seriously people, find something in common and chat about it. You don't even have to speak the same language, just pick a famous footballer, say his name and give a thumbs up sign (huge bonus if you say Zidane or anyone of Arab descent). The Tunisian guy will be so pleased he'll buy your coffee. But no, you're right this English enclave in Sousse is better.
As I strolled back towards the Medina and away from the tourist bubbles, I had a lovely rest of the evening watching the moon rise over the sea and seeing the lovely palm trees in moonlight accompanied by the smell of jasmine and bougainvillea. The Medina was quieter at night and the hotel was peaceful. I wanted to have another drink (hey I just had one beer at the pub and I had to walk about 4 kilometers to get it!), but there was no one but middle-aged and older men in the hotel bar. Sigh, fine my break is over. So I retired to my room and read some Mark Twain (must write about him in next blog, wow this book!).The next morning I caught my train to El Jem, and spent a wonderful few hours staring out the window at the landscape passing by. I arrived in El Jem early so there were few other tourists. I met a lovely French father- daughter couple. He was in his mid 50s, she her mid 20s. Darling, sweet, they even invited me to visit them in France when I go this summer. I might, they seemed quite genuine about the invite. He asked me I traveled often with my father. Oh, the image of me and my dad taking
buses, trains, and louages around North Africa. No, I replied, my dad is more of a lake in Minnesota type person. I showed him a photo on my camera of a successful father-daughter fishing expedition to Green Lake last summer to offer as proof.
As I continued to wander about El Jem, I overheard lots, almost exclusively in French, Spanish or Italian, and lots of comparisons of El Jem to the Roman ruins in Spain and France, to the Roman Coliseum (i.e, the one in Rome). Many tourists kept saying how they were surprised at how small this one was or the information is better in Rome. I felt like telling them that you can purchase a book, and discover that El Jem is smaller, has no other significant ruins in the area aside from the coliseum. None of this should be news. I got the impression that people were trying not to be impressed. Why are you here if you insist on finding whatever version you have at home superior? All of El Jem was covered in sand for centuries, isn't that interesting? This is why El Jem is well preserved. The Roman ruins at Dougga also, were buried and families farmed on top of the temples and baths of an ancient thriving town. That's quite interesting. No one is saying that there are not also interesting things in Europe. But didn't you leave Europe to see what someplace else might have to offer?
After visiting the mosaic museum in El Jem, I took the train back to Tunis. The only other non-Tunisians at the train station were the darling father-daughter French couple, confirming my suspicion that they were exactly the type of travelers I like. My train was an hour and a half late. No one on the platform seemed to complain. If this were Boston, people would have been having temper tantrums. Me too, I'd be bothering the conductor, asking what the delay was and when the next train would arrive. But I'm traveling somewhere else, in someone else's space, so I will act like them, and if the Tunisians waiting for the train on the platform in the hot sun (much hotter than the day before), are barely bothered by the delay. Oh, I will try to do the same. At least I had a book, curious, as I was the one and only person on the platform reading anything. When a train finally arrived there were no seats and I had to stand on a train for 2 hours until people got off in Sousse, and then some seats opened up. And I did not behave as me-the-Bostonian would have behaved, which is to complain to the conductor and ask for a refund because I clearly paid for a seat. No, just stood quietly in the aisle reading. So I was behaving Tunisian in not complaining about the lateness of the train. But very American in my never, ever getting on public transit without good reading material (because Americans would see that as time wasted, if you are waiting, multitask and read at the same time!). In the whole of my travels to seven cities via trains, louages and buses, I saw three men reading newspapers. That's it. Maybe in traveling I can pick up on the nicer qualities of Tunisians, not complaining about things you cannot change, and maybe they will see that a foreign woman is reading, and think, ah, what a good way to spend all this time that we are just standing here in the sun. Two young Tunisians students asked me about the book I was reading on the platform at El Jem. The title of the book is Palestine, it's a novel written by a Jewish Tunisian author named Hubert Haddad. The story is about an Israeli soldier who is injured and then two young Palestinians take care of him. The book humanizes both sides and argues for a real solution, a la The Lemon Tree. They had never heard of the author and one guy took out a pen and wrote his name down. This would not happen if you take an air conditioned bus from the airport to the beach and then back.
I enjoyed many of the towns I visited, but I actually liked the travel part the best. I like the getting from one place to another. It should take awhile, you should sit and watch the olive trees roll past, see the coast, watch kids playing in the street and try to eavesdrop on people in the train, since it's clearly not rude, just good language practice. It took me 8 hours to get from Matmata to Tunis, which seems about right, they are quite far away from one another and very, very different places geographically and culturally. So I find it disconcerting that the flight from London to Tunis was roughly two hours. It should not feel like you are traveling to a town nearby when you are in fact traveling to another continent, with another culture, and language. Maybe if the trip were longer people would think more about the distance they have crossed and make an effort to appreciate the language, food, and culture they have traveled to visit.
Monday, March 29, 2010
This Week in God (beep-boob-boo-beep-beep)
Photos: The cathedral in Tunis, the Synagogue in Tunis, and the great mosque of Kairouan.
The only bad thing about Stephen Colbert leaving the Daily Show in order to host his own was the end of the This-Week-in-God segment. Using his God-o-meter Stephen would beep-boob-boo-bee-beep his way into some news pieces on the antics of a tiny religious sect or the shenanigans of one of the major world players as they smite others and in so doing ignore their own religious tenets. Sometimes snide and offering biting criticism, sometimes just pointing out the absurd, it was always hilarious. If it were still running, I could pass along a number of worthy tidbits from the past week to the Daily Show writers.
A friend of a friend was over for coffee earlier this week. Our discussions ranged from relationships and sex (only reasonable as we were eating Lindt) to Tunisian politics, to poetry. Israel came up; I don't remember how or why. I give this young woman credit, because she clarified that it's not the Jews rather Israelis she has a problem with concerning the rights of Palestinians. I agree with her on points of Israel's non-compliance with UN resolutions, the separation wall, and the settlement expansion in the West Bank. It was only days earlier that Obama gave his carefully worded criticism of the development of new settlements, which was followed by Joe Liberman's reiteration of U.S. support of Israel and Netanyahu's brother-in-law calling the U.S. president anti-Semitic. Sigh. However, when she (the friend of the friend) says that she directs her frustration towards Israelis then I think, what of the Israeli peace activists? What of Martin Buber and the binational Zionists, who basically wanted to escape an actually anti-Semitic Europe, immigrate to British Mandate Palestine, and live peacefully along side the current residents of the land (like immigration everywhere, in principle). From reading Haaretz, it seems that there are people in Israel who are pro-peace and pro-Palestinian rights. I feel it would be good for people in Tunisia to know this, to know that many Israelis do not agree on these issues. In this discussion my solution was to grab a book of Mahmoud Darwish's poetry (we had already discovered our mutual admiration) and turn to a poem wherein Darwish describes a young couple, a Jewish girl and a Palestinian boy (and they have a daughter "and she'd be Jewish by birth"). We ended on a note that if Darwish can see a possible future, than so can we...inch'allah.
Later that week, while innocently copying pages of a book, and chatting with the nice guy who works at the photocopy shop, a guy walked in, greeted everyone, noticed I am foreign and started guessing where I am from. Italy? Spain? (Thank you dark hair!) France? No, the U.S. Oh, Obama! Do you like Obama? Yes, I like Obama. Ensuing non-interesting conversation about how the photocopier-guy looks like Obama (okay, he kind of does). Followed by conversation about how the U.S. congress is run by Jews and that Jews control all the money in the world. Sigh. I said that there were very few Jews in the American congress. He didn't seem convinced. I said that I didn't think Bill Gates was Jewish (maybe he is, I have no idea). Well, the guy didn't seem interested in my comments and after clearly not listening to me, walked out the door in the direction of the huge and beautiful synagogue in my neighborhood. At that moment I recalled an e-mail I had recently received from the Jewish Voice for Peace, on additional Passover questions wherein a Rabbi described ways to discuss peace in Israel at the Passover Seder. He advocated adding an olive to the Seder plate to recall the shared traditions of Arabs and Jews. (See the link below if you are interested.) At that moment, I wanted to apologize to this rabbi and to the people at JVP; they deserve better that this fool in the photocopy shop (and those who think like him). On my way back home I passed the Kosher butcher shop (sign on his door is in Hebrew, Arabic and French) and saw it was closed. I wondered what whether the genius from the photocopier thought that the local butcher was one of these rich Jews who ruled the world. In seeing the abandoned shop, I entertained the stupid fear that he had a run-in with the aforementioned gentleman. Then I realized it was Passover. Three guys were sitting out front the butcher shop drinking coffee and chatting. Whenever he's closed it seems that someone is sitting outside his shop on folding chairs drinking coffee. Do they watch it for him? Does someone need to? I'd love to ask.
Apparently David Patreaus also sees the importance of addressing this issue. In my catching up on American news, I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to read a piece that included comments General Patreaus made to congress concerning progress in "the region." He stated that no matter how the U.S. troops progress in Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans will not be able to meet strategic goals without addressing the Israel/Palestine conflict which lies at the heart of the issue for most Arabs when it comes to U.S. involvement in the Middle East. I am officially impressed with a U.S. general. That's a first. Now let's see if anyone in congress listens to him.
Then there have been a plethora of other religiously themed news pieces and none of them good. There was Glenn Beck telling his listeners (and me via Stephen Colbert) to leave their churches if on the church websites there is any mention of Social Justice. I mean, can we blame Glenn for failing to know that the Popes have been writing encyclicals on Social Justice for years, and years? These encyclicals are even pro-union and protecting worker’s rights! Maybe he's not Catholic and he does not know this? But even having to think about Christians being anti-social justice is exhausting. Then there are the multitude of articles from the U.S. and Europe, on the endless parade of cases of Catholic priest sexually torturing children and the pope's compliance, even endorsement of shielding these priests from civil prosecution. (Note: I am borrowing the phrase "sexual torture" from a columnist, I think from Salon.com. I felt that describing the behavior of priests in this way was stronger and therefore more appropriate than the term "abuse"). Then there were the comments on those articles, the Pope's denial of wrongdoing or rather his non-response to whatever new allegations there are. There's even a petition circulating in Great Britain to stop the Pope from visiting this fall! Apparently over 10,000 have signed. Then back to African news articles and more violence erupting between the Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, many killed, I don't remember how many.
I miss This-Week-in-God, as I am not finding any of this funny on my own.
Maybe in need of religious uplifting, maybe because there's nothing to do here at night, I went to mass on a Saturday night at 9 p.m. It was the Veillee Pascale mass, it began at 9 p.m. and ended at 11:30. The cathedral in Tunis was filled with the Catholics one would find in Tunisia, bluish-haired, wrinkled white people (maybe some expats and maybe some tourists) and young black people, all seeming to be roughly 25, all attractive, well dressed, and elegant. Ah, the Church's past (old, rich, white Europeans) and its future (non-English speaking, non-European, non-white). The mass began beautifully beginning in darkness, we passed around candles, and lit the candles row by row. Lovely. Then after a long and very drawn out prelude, the liturgy began. Ester leans over her friend Amin (who is sandwiched between us so he can ask of each of us questions about what's going on) and says with genuine concern in her eyes, "they are starting with Genesis?" After Genesis, we read from Exodus, and Ezekiel, and Isaiah, and who is Baruc in English? Well, then we read from the book that is called Baruc in French. By the time we reached like the 18th reading it was clear: Ester was bored, Amin was bored, Ester's poor siblings who flew in that afternoon from Milano, after driving to Milano from Switzerland, were also bored. Me? I was fascinated the whole time. One, I had my candle to play with and Amin kept trying to blow it out. It was like being at church with my brother Patrick when we were kids! Two, it was kind of fun explaining the Catholic mass to a 22 year old Muslim. But I didn’t know what to tell Amin about the standing and kneeling. After kneeling or sitting or standing for the 800th time Amin lets out a very audible "oh putain," which means “oh whore,” but is more like an “oh damn it,” but stronger, but not quite as strong as “oh fuck.” No matter how you translate it, not a great thing to say at mass. I was temporarily terrified to see how others would react. Happily, I realized that the people in the row in front of us were of the old white tourist type who blessedly were Anglophone and therefore took no offence to the putain comment. Then when Amin was not offering entertainment, I had all these amazing African women and their hair and clothes to admire. Oh, the hair extensions, the braids, the wigs, waxed hair, straighten or curled hair, dyed, and highlighted. It was incredible. And they were dressed to the nines. There were women dressed in silk a la the typical Nigerien boubous, long flowy, silky dresses that billow about and make the wearer look positively royal. Some wore the matching top and bottom set made of high quality, waxy African cotton, printed in bold colors and striking designs. When I decided it was rude to stare, I also could try to work on my French and actually listen to the readings. Or take time to admire the beautiful cathedral. But above all there was the choir. They sang a responsorial psalm in between each reading. They were elegant, sounded like bells, crisp and ringing in a clear tone. Their alleluia made me want to be Catholic forever. Oh, God they sounded amazing! Then, they sang in Ki-Swahili, and I decided I would not miss another Sunday mass. They sang this song that managed to be soft, sweet, uplifting, and energetic while they, dressed all in white, waved white, pom-pom looking things above their heads. Glorious. They could raise the dead with this music. A person might be facing the white light of heaven and turn back to hear this African choir signing in the one cathedral in Tunisia. The kiss of peace was lovely, at the end of mass the choir kept singing just for fun. People were cheery, and kissing on checks in the aisles. I liked it almost as much as midnight mass.
So, as my butcher closed shop while he celebrated Passover and said “next year in Jerusalem,” I think about all these little Jewish neighborhoods I've passed in various Tunisian towns that have faded away as many residents actually moved to Jerusalem. Then I go to mass with a Muslim who is as bored as my own siblings would be, but he's polite and curious and laughs about the standing and kneeling in a friendly way. I think we should attend one another's long Seders, and sit, stand, kneel, sit, stand, kneel and find everything interesting at mass save the priest. Then we should eat everyone's delicious holiday food, and recall being bored by everyone's endless prayers, and poke gentle fun at ourselves and one another. We should be able to recognize our own religious failings, and laugh, if they are in fact funny. But when faced with Catholic priests being criminals and torturing children, and the irony of Passover prayers recalling slavery in Egypt as Palestinians are denied freedom, and anti-Semitic beliefs such as "Jews control all the money on earth," well, I’m at a loss for a good response. Stephen, we really need This-Week-in-God. Can't you fit in into The Colbert Report?
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
The Tunisian-Mediterranean Diet a al my roommate et moi
Whenever I leave the U.S., I consider packing Grape-Nuts; often I have one or two large boxes in my suitcase until I realize that I am being an idiot and I should bring another sweatshirt or pair of shoes instead. I know, I know, you think Grape-Nuts are hard as rocks and tasteless. You are wrong; they are delicious. And I always anticipate living without them to be sad and depressing. Yet, I generally adapt rather quickly. For instance while walking the Camino in Spain this fall I found it rather easy to adjust to Grape-Nuts less living. I often ate breakfast twice, one breakfast at 6:00 a.m. which usually consisting of some combination of nuts, granola, yogurt and fruit, yum. Then I would want to eat again at 10, generally breakfast numero dos was cafe con leche and a chocolate croissant. In my backpack I would always have almonds, Milka chocolate, fruit, fresh bread and cheese, so that when I wanted to rest I had a perfect little picnic. Then I would eat a large meal either in the late afternoon or early evening upon arriving at the days' destination. This meal would inevitably consist of bread and olive oil on the table along with garlic soup, a salad with olives and tuna, then a meat, maybe escalope or some tasty, tasty fish. And obviously, you need to wash it down with wine, preferably a Spanish red. I do not think there was a day that I did not finish nearly an entire bottle. The amazing thing about walking between 25-35 kilometers a day is that you can really put down an impressive amount of food and alcohol!
The first thing one notices about the food in Tunisia (after you stop crying over the severe lack of Rioja) is Harissa. It is a red spicy sauce mixture, a combination of various chilis, garlic, and oil. It's potent, and reminds me of a spice from Niger called pili-pili, and its stronger version known as pili-pili ha-ha, because when the white people would eat it they would open their mouths, hold up a hand and go "ha-ha," hence "pili-pili-ha-ha." Harissa goes into most dishes. And when buying street food people very nicely ask you how much harissa you want. I generally opt for "shwaya, shwaya" (a little) which can either be a tasty small amount or a lot depending on the food vendor's definition of a little. The most common Tunisian food-snack is a sandwich called bric. It consists of fried thin filo dough, stuffed with vegetables, cheese and eggs. When eating bric, there is generally a game to see who can eat it without getting drippy egg yoke all over his shirt. They are good, but the egg is only partially cooked. And yes, I will eat sun-dried crickets in Niger, but I like my eggs well done. So I prefer the fricasse sandwiches; they are little round things made of fried dough (think beignets) and stuffed with hard-boiled egg, potatoes, some veggies, olives and harissa. People usually eat two of them and you should eat them quickly so as not to see how much oil soaks into the paper that the goodies are wrapped in. Also, take care not to swallow the olive pits!
Another dish that is common and affordable is Lablabi; think of it as a North African ratatouille. Lablabi is basically a stew-type thing made with whatever is in the kitchen topped with olive oil and harissa. Often when you order lablabi in a restaurant, you first wash your hands, then get a chuck of a bread that you tear into small pieces and put in your bowl. Then you bring the bowl up to the counter and tell the cook which of the vegetables you want. There are potatoes, carrots, olives, a mixture of very overly cooked onions and green peppers. Then he adds cooked chickpeas, pours vegetable broth over it, adds harissa and voila-dinner. It's really tasty and even more so if you can manage not to look at it much, since it basically looks like pig slop.
The general main courses are cous-cous based dishes. Cous-cous in North Africa is spicy, as it usually includes harissa. It is prepared in special pan that allow the cous-cous to steam over the meat and vegetable mix that cooks below. The result is a soft, fine cous-cous that has absorbed the flavors of the meats, often fish, lamb or goat, and vegetables. I have only had it a few times, and the best versions (aside from the homemade kinds) are in good restaurants that are a bit more expensive. My favorite was a small, elegant restaurant owned by a Jewish family that serves a lovely mixture of Arab and Jewish North African specialties. It's a popular place and people agree that they have some of the best cous-cous in Tunis. (see attached photos)
Since dining out is not an every day occurrence, my typical diet here is a Mediterranean inspired mixture of Swiss and American style cooking. My roommate Ester and I both love fresh fruits, vegetables, good chocolate, and experimenting in the kitchen. We begin the day with cereals, often a bland corn flake and if you try you can find versions in groceries stores without pounds of sugar. Which is really important to look for since the milk only comes in "so-much-fat-you-might-as-well-melt-a-stick-of-butter-and-pour-it-over-your-cereal" or the healthier "will-still-clog-your-arteries-but-you'll-get-a-few-more-years-of-life-with-this-milk." Along with cereal, some freshly squeezed orange juice and a coffee made in a perfect Bialetti espresso maker. We eat our biggest meal at mid-day, and these meals range from onion, mushroom and cheese risotto, Spanish tortilla, vegetable stews, or spinach, zucchini and eggplant over pasta, and Indian dishes, made more potent with harissa. We always have a delicious fresh salad. Fennel is plentiful, and we've invented a fennel, carrot, onion and parsley salad that is heavenly. Typically we eat something smaller for dinner. We love this cooked spinach salad Ester makes, along with homemade fresh cheese from the market. Last night we made steamed artichokes with a homemade garlic, cheese, and yogurt sauce. Then for dessert, I made fruit salad of dates, oranges and almonds. I toasted and caramelized the almonds, cut up some of juicy blood oranges, along with fresh, soft dates and added lots of cinnamon. Since Ester's parents are here from Switzerland, we are living in the lap of luxury with a fridge full of exquisite Swiss cheeses, fresh prosciutto and copious amounts of Lindt and Toblerone.
I think that food habits, new ways to prepare dishes or cook with different spices are among my favorite souvenirs from traveling. Learning to love someone else's food is a great way to keep the experience of living abroad alive when you return home. I came back from a summer in France with a Camembert addition and loving soup for dinner. I learned to make Spanish tortilla as a student in Madrid and I've been perfecting it ever since. I stopped fearing spice in West Africa and learned that what we call mangoes in the U.S. tastes nothing like the real thing. I've picked up great Indian, Afghan, and Argentinian recipes and cooking strategies from roommates and friends who've learned to cook from their mothers. In Tunisia I've come to appreciate that a simple mixture of good fresh ingredients makes a satisfying meal. The Tunisian cuisine leaves me with the impression that heaven is fruits that taste like the actual sun ripened them, vegetables that seem to have grown in the ground, the smell of thick, Italian espresso, and freshly-squeezed juice made from blood oranges that give the juice the rust color of a perfect summer sunset.
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