Week 4. The honeymoon is over. Sort of.
Time evaporates here. Even more so now that I've started teaching. In fact I'd be hard pressed to tell you what I've done since my last email. I've met a lot of people at Andreas' (Austrian roomate's) cafe (I have probably spent about half of my life in Tunis in this cafe. I love it. And the coffee seems to be getting cheaper and cheaper...). I've gotten lost in the Medina. I've spent days looking for a cheap CD player. I've learned a handful of Arabic words. I've been to the beach. I've observed a lot of classes. I've eaten so much couscous I feel like it should be bubbling out of my pores.
Last Friday I started teaching English, so I've had to cut back to only a few hours a day at the cafe. Fortunately I like my students, because otherwise I'm afraid would resent them terribly for putting an end to my decadent month-long extended vacation (mid May to mid June). Of course before I started work I heard all kinds of horror stories about students biting each other and throwing things, rich and obnoxious parents going postal, etc. etc., and I was visualizing a return to my life in Corsica. But so far my classes have been dreamy. The 13-17 year olds laugh at my bad jokes, and the 11-13 year olds are soft and cherubic. How much can they change in the course of a 3 week class? Ask me in 3 weeks.
I haven't quite figured out my routine here, but for the moment it goes something like this:
The sound of Andreas' alarm clock wakes me around 5:30. I have no idea how Ryan sleeps through it. It's piercing and fills the whole apartment. Andreas snoozes until...11 or so. Then (every morning) I wonder if it would really be too scandalous to go to the store and buy bread in my pyjamas. Every morning I convince myself to get dressed first, which includes ironing before breakfast, which I think should be illegal. We live on a hill overlooking the city, so on the way back from the store there is a view of Tunis wrapped in its sunrise-pink blanket of pollution, and I think to myself, 'how lovely. I think it was a good idea to move here,' or else, 'Whose life is this?' Then I go home, eat, finish planning my lessons and mosey over to the highway to hail a cab. Hailing a cab on a highway is hilarious. Also the fact that there are always people playing Frogger with their lives to cross the highway. I am surprised that there are not guts splattered over half the road and most of the cars. And then the Yellow Bus goes by, so packed with people that they are hanging on to the doorframe with one hand and the rest of them is dangling out over the highway. I seem much more concerned about this than anyone else. They will make it into town Insh'Allah. If Allah wills it.
Then I go to work, I teach for 5 hours, and am done by 1:30. Then I go into town and do errands. (Most of the time I don't actually do this, but I always mean to. Usually, the gravitational pull of the cafe is too strong for me. So I go there and 'Lesson Plan'. I plan my next mint tea, or smoothie, or I plan what music they will play next.) Then I go home for dinner, wondering why nothing on my list is done and saying 'roadwa insh'Allah'. Which is Arabic for mañana, mañana. After dinner it's time to go back to the cafe, or walk around downtown, and then suddenly it's midnight and time to catch a cab home.
This routine is of course punctuated by fun events. For example, one day last week one of the 4 dozen mangy cats in the neighborhood jumped in one of our windows and peed in my bed. Another time Ryan and I went to a gallery run by a retired military attache whose forehead occasionally furrowed into a perfect heart shape. He's looking forward to showing Ryan's work, which Ryan thinks is funny considering he's never seen it. Being from New York carries a ridiculous amount of weight here.
And now, I think it's high time to go back to the cafe.
Bislemeh, baby.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Friday, May 26, 2006
L'Arrivée à Tunis
Where to begin.... there's nowhere to begin, but if I start thinking about that I'll end up sitting in our apartment all day with flies buzzing in and out of my open mouth.
We are in Tunis, Ryan and I, and can be reached/visited at the following...
Résidence El Houda
Nord Hilton
Bloc D 3/1
1002 Belvedère. Tunis.
TUNISIE
At the end of three days we had an apartment, jobs, and a social schedule too booked to believe. Granted, the apartment is a little scuzzy, the jobs don't start until June 9, and the social schedule involves constantly wondering who you can trust (no one? everyone?) and scheming how to evade the undesirables. I apologize that this is a ridiculously boring account that doesn't begin to do justice to the past few days. Highlights:
*Haley and Ryan take a 22 hour boat ride from Marseille to Tunis and note remarkable similarities between these two cities. We arrived around 10 Sunday morning and were duped into paying 4 times too much for the taxi from the port to the hotel. Classic wetbacks
*Monday we went to Institut Bourghiba School (of redundancy) and verified we were signed up for Arabic classes in July, etc. There we met Saif and Tarek, who decided to take our apartment search personally. Saif allegedly found an apartment for some Italians last month who never got over this kindness. 8 hours later we parted ways, still with no apartment. We felt almost guilty about it, but nothing was what we were looking for. We did see a decadent apartment with 3 balconies, 2 living rooms and a view of all of Tunis. But after careful consideration we decided that this was ridiculous and we could certainly find cheaper.
*Tuesday we found cheaper. Andreas the Austrian knows Omer the Macedonian who's married to Machin the Tunisian who's mother has an apartment to rent with no contract for 500 DT a month (417 dollars). Divided by three it's...cheap. And it's not far from A) work B) lots of chicha bars C) downtown D) the Sheradon. Andreas became our flatmate.
*Tuesday I also sprained my foot. And ate a really big sausage.
*Wednesday we moved in, observed classes at Amideast where we'll be working teaching English to kids, and went out with Andreas and Omer. At the party I spent most of the time talking to a beautiful French Algerian who is a free lance news correspondant in Iraq when he's not studying Arabic in Tunis. He looked the part. I felt like he should have been carrying around a mic and a cardboard TV frame. His novel about American soldiers in Iraq came out last week. Bien sur.
*Thursday we went grocery shopping and started the futile process of cleaning the apartment, with the help of Judy the Cleaning Monkey. She does laundry, toilets, surfaces, dishes.... anything you want, JUDY does. (this cleaning product has a picture of a monkey on it and comes in 'Force océan' or 'citron'. We chose 'force océan'.)
*Thursday we also decided that the official food of Tunisia is Tuna. Everything you get comes with tuna: pizza, salad of any kind, olive oil and harrissa. Bring on the mercury. Welcome to Tunasia, have a brik à thon.
*Here we are, it's Friday, my foot is entirely healed, and we're about to go to Tarek's for couscous.
*Oh, and it's hot. Go go gadget sunblock.
We are in Tunis, Ryan and I, and can be reached/visited at the following...
Résidence El Houda
Nord Hilton
Bloc D 3/1
1002 Belvedère. Tunis.
TUNISIE
At the end of three days we had an apartment, jobs, and a social schedule too booked to believe. Granted, the apartment is a little scuzzy, the jobs don't start until June 9, and the social schedule involves constantly wondering who you can trust (no one? everyone?) and scheming how to evade the undesirables. I apologize that this is a ridiculously boring account that doesn't begin to do justice to the past few days. Highlights:
*Haley and Ryan take a 22 hour boat ride from Marseille to Tunis and note remarkable similarities between these two cities. We arrived around 10 Sunday morning and were duped into paying 4 times too much for the taxi from the port to the hotel. Classic wetbacks
*Monday we went to Institut Bourghiba School (of redundancy) and verified we were signed up for Arabic classes in July, etc. There we met Saif and Tarek, who decided to take our apartment search personally. Saif allegedly found an apartment for some Italians last month who never got over this kindness. 8 hours later we parted ways, still with no apartment. We felt almost guilty about it, but nothing was what we were looking for. We did see a decadent apartment with 3 balconies, 2 living rooms and a view of all of Tunis. But after careful consideration we decided that this was ridiculous and we could certainly find cheaper.
*Tuesday we found cheaper. Andreas the Austrian knows Omer the Macedonian who's married to Machin the Tunisian who's mother has an apartment to rent with no contract for 500 DT a month (417 dollars). Divided by three it's...cheap. And it's not far from A) work B) lots of chicha bars C) downtown D) the Sheradon. Andreas became our flatmate.
Chicha bar with Saif and Tarek
*Wednesday we moved in, observed classes at Amideast where we'll be working teaching English to kids, and went out with Andreas and Omer. At the party I spent most of the time talking to a beautiful French Algerian who is a free lance news correspondant in Iraq when he's not studying Arabic in Tunis. He looked the part. I felt like he should have been carrying around a mic and a cardboard TV frame. His novel about American soldiers in Iraq came out last week. Bien sur.
*Thursday we went grocery shopping and started the futile process of cleaning the apartment, with the help of Judy the Cleaning Monkey. She does laundry, toilets, surfaces, dishes.... anything you want, JUDY does. (this cleaning product has a picture of a monkey on it and comes in 'Force océan' or 'citron'. We chose 'force océan'.)
Haley and Judy
Ryan and Dinars
Ry's room
*Thursday we also decided that the official food of Tunisia is Tuna. Everything you get comes with tuna: pizza, salad of any kind, olive oil and harrissa. Bring on the mercury. Welcome to Tunasia, have a brik à thon.
*Here we are, it's Friday, my foot is entirely healed, and we're about to go to Tarek's for couscous.
*Oh, and it's hot. Go go gadget sunblock.
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