Tour of the island

  Djerba, Tunisia
Sunday, February 17, 2008

This was one of the highlights of the holiday - a tour of the island with our own private taxi. The previous day, when we had taken a taxi back to the hotel, we had been lucky enough to get a very nice, young taxi-driver who spoke excellent English. There were not many English-speaking taxi-drivers, as there were far more French, German and Italian-speaking tourists. The guy told us that there were only two he knew of that spoke fluent English. He offered us a tour of the island, and since this was a trip I was planning on doing anyway, it seemed good to use his services. My French is ok for getting by, but for understanding detailed explanations, it would obviously be better to have an English-speaking guide. He told me to ring him if we were interested.

I rang the following morning, but he was already booked. Instead, he sent his colleague, an older man who was very nice. His name was Habib, which he explained meant darling, or friend! How charming! His English was excellent, and he gave me the impression of being a  very serious man, one who took his religion seriously and who was thoughtful and sincere. We found many topics of mutual interest to talk about on our 4 - 5 hour tour, and he was a good guide. We started by looking at an old, disused mosque. It was so peaceful and quiet, with it's simple, white-washed walls and basic interior. We found out that as well as worship and the study of the Koran, commerce was an important part of the life of the mosque, and he showed us a room where people gave their tithes of corn and oil, which was then given to the poor. (That's not unlike a function of the church too.)

On our route to the El Ghriba mosque, we stopped to see a traditional menzel, or Djerban house. It also was white-washed with a dome, built around a central courtyard. Our guide particularly pointed out the garden, which contained a well, a water reserve for irrigating the garden, and a beautiful gate to the house. Habib explained that there were three sections to the garden - planted in the following order - the palms, the orange/fruit trees and the grass.

Djerba contains the most important Jewish pilgrimage site in North Africa, and has a Jewish community of about 1000, although there have been many, many more in the past.

El Ghriba synagogue

The El Ghriba synagogue contains the world's oldest Torah scroll and is built in Moorish architecture. The history of the synagogue is reported to back 2000 years, making it the oldest in Africa, and one of the oldest in the world. The present building dates from the 19th century, and replaces the one built in the 16th century. When we arrived, we found security to be very tight, all bags and persons being scanned. Since we arrived together with a large party of Americans, it took quite a long time before we could enter. But it was nice to chat to the Americans who, incidentally were the only English-speaking tourists we saw on the whole of the trip. The reason for the tight security was that, sadly in 2002, a truck-load of explosives was detonated  by Al Qaeda near the synagogue, killing 21 people, 14 of whom were German tourists. I took my lead from the Americans and put my scarf over my head. They had obviously been told by their guide to do so, and for the rest of the trip, I was able to get in on their English-commentary. We also removed our shoes when we went into the inner sanctuary. There were several men, reading the Torah aloud and rocking back and forth. Inside we saw amongst other things the raised, highly decorative and curtained part for the teaching of the Torah. It also seemed unusual to see Hebrew script in Tunisia, where we were used to the sight of the Arabic writing.

Inside the synagogue

Outside the synagogue, there were many rooms for the pilgrims to stay in. Before leaving, we met the taxi-driver I had rung, together with his party. He came over to make sure we were ok, and we were able to tell him how happy we were with our guide. He laughed and said, "Well, he's very nice, but not young like me!"

Then it was on to Guellala, the pottery centre of Djerba, and one of the most important in Tunisia. A guy took us down a cellar, where we could see the wet earth used for pottery. After, he gave us a demonstration of pottery making at the wheel, and we looked around the large warehouse. One of the funny trinkets was a "magic camel", where you could put water in the jug and it disappeared. I didn't end up buying anything, because I found the prices quite expensive in comparison with what they had elsewhere. Also, pottery was not on my priorites this trip and it not easy to carry in ruck-sacks. T

Djerban pottery

hen is was on to the splendid Museum of Guellala, one of the largest, cultural places, stretching over an area of 4000 metres squared. Here there was specialized pavillions, each developing an independent topic of the show program: feast, traditions, customs, traditional handicraft, lengends and myths, architecture, traditional music, a gallery of paintings, mosaics, calligraphy etc. It took a long time to see all this, and in fact we never got around it all. It really was one of the best museums I have ever been to, with life-sized models used to give a good idea of how things were. Of the many scenes portrayed, I will remember the one of the new bride, who enjoys two months of being waited on by her female attendent. Nice one! We enjoyed Habib's company too, as we were able to ask him questions and he was very knowledgeable. He explained why he didn't believe in the folklore magic customs that were portrayed, as they caused one not to trust in Allah, but in other powers, and we found we had the same outlook here.

Guellala museum

By this time we were hungry, and so we drove into the centre of Guellala and bought sandwiches. We asked Habib to join us, but he wanted to wait until he got home for dinner. We did, however pop into a café together, where he insisted on treating us to drinks. Lastly, we returned to Houmt Souk to try and get the leather jacket Paul Eric and seen in the shop, but alas the shop was closed. Habib drove us to the sister shop in Midoun, but they didn't have the jacket. Still, we knew we would have time in Houmt Souk the next day, on our way to Sfax. We thanked Habib for the trip, and we all agreed we had had a great day.