To Sousse and back again

Ok, so the internet is still down at home (and might be for a bit longer), so I thought I'd recap my weekend a bit, in lieu of posting all the photos I took this weekend.

On Friday, I went out to the American Ambassador's house in Sidi Bou Said - which is a gorgeous house overlooking the Meditteranean. There was a private concert for Kantara (check them out on MySpace), along with some great catered food (cocktail meatballs!), and non-Tunisian beer (the local bran is barely serviceable and called "Celtia"). I told the caterers to keep it coming, so I got a very decent meal out of it. The show was great as well, very intimate. Afterwards, I went out in Tunis, which is quickly becoming quite the adventure, if you're up for it. Tunis has a great night scene - the only unfortunate part is that its mostly clubs - and you're bound to meet new people wherever you go. I met a cool new group of Tunisian guys that hopefully I'll be seeing more of.



On Saturday, I hopped on the train and took a two-hour ride down to Sousse. It's down the coast and is a very popular spot for Tunisians and tourists alike during the scorching summer. I stayed with Myriam, an alumni of the Yes Program, and her family at her house. Sousse is a great spot to check out, my only concern was all the tourism... It's full of Germans, Russians, French, and everybody else.

On Saturday night, I went to my first Tunisian wedding... As Myriam put it, it's something everyone does, but nobody really likes to do. The actual ceremony mostly involved ridiculously loud music. The band wasn't exactly stellar, and compensated with an ear drum-shattering turn of the volume knob. We went out for air after about an hour and didn't come back... My advice - invited to a wedding? bring earplugs.

On Sunday, I went around some areas just outside of Sousse, such as El Kantaoui and Hergla. I'd strongly reccomend Hergla - it's a calm fishing village just starting to feel the pangs of development, unlike the overly-developed Kantaoui area. There's a great little cafe called Cafe Sidi Said with decent sandwiches and Turkish coffee overlooking the port.

The highlight of the weekend was the non-tourist element. I loved staying with Myriam and her family - it was a great opportunity to get to know some more Tunisians in an informal setting. Nothing beats spending a few days with a family, experiencing their hospitality, and having some great conversations. Myriam's dad teaches at the Medical college in Sousse, and got his PhD from the University of Bordeaux, so he was a smart and worldly guy - we had some good talks about safeguarding traditional elements of Tunisia in the face of its rapid globalization... something which can appear very difficult to do. He introduced me to a local breakfast called bsisa, which is a powdered grain that you add sugar and water to, stir up, and eat for breakfast. It has some spices in it, and makes a really satisfying breakfast (if you make sure the water is cold). For anyone coming here, I'd reccomend checking it out. If you ask for bsisa moulu at a decent market, you should be able to find it. Add water, and ta-da! We also broke bread and ate some absolutely excellent local olive oil with some harissa (North African chili paste - it's on everything).

After Sousse, I grabbed the train back up to Tunis to go to the Ozomatli concert, which was Sunday night in Carthage. Ozomatli is a West Los Angeles band that has won a few Grammy's and does a great latin/funk/rap/rock thing. They're here on a goodwill tour, and they really got the crowd going last night. It was a fantastic show. They followed it up by a private show here at Amideast this morning for our Access students. Imagine a band like that crammed into our basement lounge!

Anyways, now it's off to relax before the week continues.