Esperance VS Jendouba

I just got back from my first soccer (or should I say football?) match between Tunis Esperance and Jendouba. Esperance rocked the house - in the first half and scored two goals, and then just let the second half slip away with nothing of notice. Despite that, I had a fun time. The atmosphere was great, and except for one cheer involving "Guantanamo" I felt totally at ease (even then, I just laughed).

When I arrived at the stadium with my buddies Slim and Maoz (I have no clue if I spelled that right), we had a quick exchange that went something like this:

Slim: "There's a lot of police here."
Me: "Yeah, why?"
Slim: "Well, there was kind of a problem yesterday in Bizerte." (Another city just 45 min North of Tunis).
Me: "Oh, you mean like burning cars, etc?"
Slim: "Yeah, kind of like that."

Despite that, the atmosphere for the whole game was very convivial. Jendouba, the opposing team, has kind of a reputation as being the "redneck" part of Tunisia (despite that, I was recently there for a weekend and had a great time - the people are very nice), so there were plenty of Jendouba chants - even being called a "Jendoubee" or a resident of Jendouba, is an insult here.

Also, I was able to go into the season ticket area, because, well I'm an American. I just kind of followed Slim in, and looked at the guard, and Slim was like "he's American." I guess that works.

The two big teams here in Tunis are Club Africain and Esperance. I'd advise anyone coming out here to choose their loyalties carefully. I've been a modest fan of Esperance up until today, when I became a full-fledged supporter. My advice is find out who your new Tunisian friends support and roll with it.


Last night, I experienced a Ramadan night in the Medina. I met up with Rim downtown around nine, and we had some tea at my favorite cafe on Ave. Habib Bourguiba - Cafe du Theatre. After that, we headed into the medina and went to a traditional medina cafe, which is basically benches and chairs lining the medina streets. There was a group of Sufi musicians doing some very cool chants, and I stayed there until well after 2:00 AM. It's definitely the other side of Ramadan.