Time off in Tunisia

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  Tunis, Tunisia
Friday, December 29, 2006

As soon as we stepped foot off the jetway and saw the signs in Arabic script, we knew that Tunisia would be a very different experience than anything before.  The wait for our luggage to show up on the belt was nearly as long as the flight itself, a quick 40 minute hop across from Malta.  Our friend Syrine met us after we'd gotten through immigration with a bit more difficulty than usual.  It was clear that English is going to be a lot less useful here than it has been.  The guys toting machine guns and badges had spoken next to none, and hadn't let us go through until one of them said "Tourist?", then waved us on our way.
 
Syrine took us straight to her home, where we met her mother Selma, Selma's husband Lotfi, and their daughter Zeineb.  In between our adventures around Tunis for the next few days, we were treated as a part of the family and fed like kings and queens.  Selma has got to be one of the best cooks I've ever met.  Every dish from her kitchen has a new and wonderful taste that kept us eating long beyond the full mark.
 
We visited Sidi Bou Said, a beautiful town painted all in white with sky blue trim.  It's built out on a mountainous peninsula with views of the Mediterranean Sea far below.  Sitting in a small cafe on the hilltop, we watched the sun set into the clouds of hookah smoke from other tables.
 
Everyone in the family here was a veterinarian, except Zaneib (and she's got a pretty good excuse, turning 16 on Sunday.)   Lutvieg was also the owner of a pet food factory, and had a French couple visiting, Patrick and Lynne, who were helping him expand into the production of dry food.
 
So, the two languages spoken here are Arabic and French, and since we know just about nothing in French and absolutely nothing in Arabic, this kept us out of most conversations.  Everyone was very kind to speak English with us as much as they could, getting out a dictionary and looking up words when Syrine wasn't around or refused to help them.  But it has been an interesting experience being the only people at the table who sometimes have no idea what is being said.
 
An excursion into Tunis the next day by train brought us into the souk, a area of small streets with shops everywhere and hanging wares crowding the passageway in an effort to catch eyes.  Everything for nothing seems to be the Tunisian catchphrase, but the salespitch is not as hard here as in many other markets we've been to.  Cierra's been looking for some earrings, and she found some silver and red coral ones here at a price too good to pass up.  We also walked through some old Tunisian homes, with their skylighted central courtyard and beautiful ceramic tilework.  Tunisian architecture is very interesting, with lots of curves, domes, arches, and not very many right angles.  Unfortunately, they value their privacy so highly that most homes are obscured by flat white concrete walls built right up to the road, so that driving around in neighborhoods here is like driving through a giant maze of blind corners.  You can't see much of the homes behind these walls, but the ones we've visited are incredibly nice. 
 
We happened to visit right at one of the very important Muslim holidays, Aid el Kabir ,when they honor the sacrifice of Abraham.  Willing to lay down the life of his own son, Allah instead told him to sacrifice a sheep.  Now, on December 30th, every family who can afford to sacrifices a sheep in celebration.  A graph of the world's sheep population must have some pretty sharp downward spikes every year around this time.  On the way through Tunis, the streets were filled with the next day's sacrifices, all roped to the children, alternately dragging them and being dragged on a wavering course towards their homes (and their barbecues.) When Lotfi returned in the evening, he brought home a good-sized 2 year old ram and tied him up next to the garage.  Although nobody wanted to spend too much time getting to know the poor fellow, I couldn't resist naming him Tasty.  That may sound a bit flip, but it's true, and the next few paragraphs sound a lot better if I don't have to keep referring to "the sheep."
The next morning, the butcher was running late on what must be his busiest day of the year, so we had time to have breakfast with Tasty's bleating making its way in the window.  Then the butcher was here, and most of the family went outside to witness the sacrifice and help to skin and prepare the carcass.  Cierra chose to stay inside and miss the actual killing, but I decided that this was an unusual opportunity to see a thing that we as Americans have mostly chosen to hide from ourselves, animals at the moment of slaughter for their meat.  I'm going to write about what I saw here in a somewhat graphic way, so if you'd like to remain in the house with Cierra, please scroll past the following paragraph without looking.
 
The butcher and his assistant held Tasty down on the gravel of the driveway, facing East, towards Mecca.  It was pretty difficult to continue looking as the knife cut quickly into his neck.  Then the torrent of blood came gouting out, under surprisingly high pressure, and a whole lot of it.  He tried very briefly to raise his head once the butcher released it, but it sank back to the ground as he lost conciousness.  There was a loud gurgling hiss of air, some leg spasms, and then all was quiet for a few minutes.  I thought it was all over, but finally the body started to twitch violently, first slowly, then in a great disorganized sideways gallop.  Finally, this ceased, and I allowed my eyes to wander away.  The uneasiness I felt in my stomach must have shown on my face, because Lotfi asked if this was something I'd never seen.  I told him yes.  Then they got out a bicycle pump and inflated Tasty until he looked like a baby float in the Macy's Day Parade.  This is to make skinning the carcass easier.  It definititely made me nervous that he would pop and I would have to clean sheep bits off my face.  As there were more veterinarians than not in the crowd, once removal of the organs began, it became a autopsy.  Take a look at this spot on the liver... what do you think that is? Don't know, Doc, but I'm pretty sure that cause of death was a massive hemmorage due to your knife blade.  Seriously, though, it was an interesting thing to watch, and though it made me a bit queasy in my stomach to watch an animal die, I think it was a pretty humane way to do it. 
 
Tasty lived up to his name at the incredible feast we had later that day, which was shared with even more members of the family.  Lotfi's mom Joe (pronounced Jo) showed up ranting about Saddam Hussein, who'd been hanged the night before.  She was happy that he was gone, but also recommended the same punishment for President Bush.  She said a lot of other things, but they were all in French and we couldn't make them out or get them translated due to the tendency of everyone to be laughing too hard to explain.  Lotfi showed off his improving English skills by imploring his mother to "Be cool. Be cool." in between laughing fits, then informing Selma "Okay, baby.  I go to sleep now.  I am much tired." Joe continued to be a source of family entertainment throughout the several days we passed at Syrine's house, clearly the one member of the family who had the right to say absolutely anything. 
Oh yes, and we tried the more interesting parts of the the sheep, including the liver, which tasted pretty much like liver... no surprise there.  After a bit of encouragement from the family, we also tried a bit of the testes, which weren't bad.  I've seen the video that was taken of me eating them and I didn't wince once.  Really.
 Jaafar and Syrine took us out on New Year's Eve to a party at one of his friend's places.  Another great feast, with wine we brought along, and after dinner, there was Arabic dancing.  Which we tried to imitate.  Shortly after, Syrine said it was time to go, and we were relieved to be heading home.  Turns out that Syrine just wanted to go to a disco, and Cierra and I had to get dropped off at the house before they went.  (It was 2:30 am and we old fogies were falling asleep).
Cierra started off the New Year in style with a horseback ride on the beach with Lotfi's sister Malek.  I tagged along on foot with Syrine and her mom, and got some good pictures, and also saw a mini camel caravan complete with baby camel walking beside the sea.  We did a bit more exploring in the area, but the next day it was time to leave Tunis bright and early with Syrine and Jaafar so that we could see more of coastal Tunisia.
A three day road trip followed, with visits to many beach towns, some touristy, some not.  A complete account might make you fall forward and damage your keyboard, so we'll stick with the highlights.  One of the real treats was getting to see Syrine and Jaafar together.  So in love, these two.  You couldn't help but smile when you saw Syrine look at him... there's only a few times in my life that I've seen two people that happy to be around each other. 
Stopping in El Jem, we found a 2000 year old Roman Coliseum.  It's huge, once seating 30,000 people in a town that now has a population of 20,000.  Clearly, some things have changed here since this was built.  Happily, one of the side effects of this decline is that we can actually afford to visit the inside of this arena, and we spent a bit of time clambering around and admiring the design of this old place.  It's in worse shape than the one in Rome, but this just makes it more interesting, as you can see the foundations in places.  We also got to ride a camel around outside the place.  Camels are easier to ride than horses, if you can hang on during the somewhat wild stage where the camel gets up off its knees.
Monastir's restaurant scene gave us some trouble at lunch, when we stopped at a pizza place and extremely slow service forced us to cancel part of our order and leave, making a bit of a scene.  Syrine described the ordeal as a "catastrophe".  When we said we only used that word to describe a "complete disaster", Syrine replied with great spirit, "Waiting 2 hours for a pizza is a complete disaster!"  Thankfully, we got a much better deal with dinner at "Le Pirate", easily the best meal I'll ever have in a place with a plastic skull and crossbones on the roof.  I didn't have very high expectations due to the outdoor decor, but once inside, the waiters brought out some soup, then an appetizer of oysters and a fancy cheese.  We'd never seen a menu, and I got the idea that this place was a set meal.  Jaafar informed me that it was around 20 bucks a person, which relieved me because we could pay it and I didn't have to worry about unscrewing the casing on the bathroom window.  Then they brought out around 10 large bowls, each with a different dish in it.  Shellfish in the shell, shrimp, octopus stew, 2 different types of salad, fried things... the table creaked under the weight of all of this.  Syrine says that this is the entree.  Wow.  So, I'd just about eaten my fill when it comes out in our conversation that in Tunisia, the entree means that it's the first course, and there's way more coming.  Okay, now hold on.  Is this some kind of joke?  Out comes the hugest platter you've ever seen with 5 whole cooked fish, heads and all.  We each get a whole fish and it's so delicious that I somehow managed to down my whole one.  Then there was ice cream, and fruit and tea and cookies and really I'm just glad to have gotten out of there without rupturing something.  20 dollars for this feast.  Now that's the deal of the year.
We also discovered that in Tunisia, nothing is ever really closed, if you know the right people.  We got into Bourgiba's Tomb (the first President of Tunisia) in the nighttime, and got a special tour of some coastal cave-quarries that were used to get stone for the ancient structures at Carthage.  The caves were closed "for safety reasons", but a little conversation from Jaafar, and the watchmen at both places were willing to give us a personal tour for a little (wink) donation. 
From witnessing the production of traditional woven rugs to trying Lablabi to the amazing views of the Mediterranean from an ancient fortification high above Kelibia, we managed to pack into 3 days more than we would normally get to do in a week.  But like every part of this trip, no matter how much fun we have, time never stops and we have to be moving along.  Upon returning to Tunis, we have one last wonderful meal from Selma's kitchen and turn in. 
How lucky we have been on this trip of ours.  On reflection, we really had no idea what to expect from Tunisia, we mostly included it because our friend Syrine lived there and didn't mind if we came and visited.  But it turned out to be an amazing place full of great food and interesting characters.  It's also the only Arabic-speaking, and only Muslim country on our whole journey, and as this trip is an effort to get an overview of the way the world lives, it's really turned out to be an essential stop. 
And with that, I must go to bed.  In the morning, we catch a flight to London.... 
 

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