Aid Mabrouk!

Today was the last day of fasting for Ramadan, so I decided to go out in style. Geida, my roommate, and I went down to Ave. Bourguiba and grabbed a decent prix-fixe iftar meal with brik, couscous, caramel flan, and tea. After, I took her down to my favorite cafe during Ramadan - Chawachina (I totally butchered that spelling). It's back in the medina past the Zeitouna mosque and hosts nightly music and is assured to be buzzing once the clock hits 10:00. We sipped on mint tea with pine nuts, Geida went through two shishas, and I also got to taste one of my favorite late-night snacks here, draw. Draw (once again, spelling...) is basically a type of pudding that you top with fruits secs (almonds, pistachios, etc) and copious sugar and then eat while it's still piping hot. It's quite sugary and very tasty.

Chawachina is great because it's a very traditional cafe in the enclosed part of the medina right before the jewelry quarter, so you sit either along the walkway of the medina or on the benches constructed on a long hallway perpendicular to the main route. Also, when it's not Ramadan, the prices are absurdly reasonable - not more than 300 millimes or so for a cup of sticky-sweet mint tea.

The cafe was also where I got the first 2 of four small world sightings for the night. Two teachers from AMIDEAST came by to watch the music as well. Afterwards, we walked back out by the Zeitouna mosque and ran into Simon, the American professor that I ate at Dar Bel Hadj with last week. Once we were out on Bourguiba, which at that point was almost unwalkable due to the number of people, I ran into an old student from this summer, Yosr (who claims to be keeping up on this blog - so Hi Yosr!).

It was a very fitting way to end an interesting and rewarding Ramadan. Tomorrow I am off to some natural springs on Cap Bon with Hichem and his family to relax. I'm also hoping to go to the Hammam and get a serious massage.

Today went well also - we met with three representatives from an internet-based Tunisian radio station Tounes Bledi. They have about 250,000 registered listeners and get people from all over the Maghreb, France, and Francophone Canada - they are actually based in Quebec. They are going to work on promoting American Corner programming that I'm putting together, and I'm going to go and get a tour of their studio next week and hopefully soon go on the air with them - maybe even a radio show down the road...?