On The Heels of Hammamet...

I promise this won't become Engrish.com, but this is too good to pass up.

Family and Photo Roundup

Sophie, Audrey, and Brian

I just uploaded three albums to Facebook. These are photos taken last week while my sister, cousin, and my cousin's girlfriend visited me. We started off by going to Bizerte on the 18th with Lee, where we went to the market and had an amazing meal at Le Petit Mousse. On Monday, we hung out in Tunis and visited Sidi Bou Said and Carthage. Tuesday, we headed off to Sousse, and then went to El Jem on Wednesday, and then all the way back to Tunis that evening for dinner at Hichem's - tied with Le Petit Mousse for the culinary highpoint of the trip (Thanksgiving is a close third).

After that, we celebrated Thanksgiving in Tunis. Thursday, we went out at bought food and wine at Monoprix in preparation for the big meal. Returning home around 5pm, we found out that the gas had been cut in the neighborhood. What followed was the material that Thanksgiving TV specials are made of: we proceeded to make a thanksgiving meal using rotisserie chicken and exclusively an electric hot water heater. My mom had sent out hungry jack mashed potatoes in a packet, along with a packet for gravy and stove top stuffing. All three things required hot water, so we were able to heat up enough water (and stir fast enough!) to make a meal of chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce (from a can), and brie. I went out and bought some little tarts for desert to substitute for the unmade pumpkin pie. It turned into quite the fun night after all.

After that, Audrey and Brian split up with my sister and I - they went off to Nabeul on Friday and my sister came to AMIDEAST with me - where she sat in on my Access class. Friday night was rock night at Le Boeuf sur le Toit, and although the group covered way too much Staind, it was a fun show.

We rounded out the weekend with a nice day in La Marsa and some touristy shopping, along with a stop through Beb Jadid right as Club Africain beat Esperance - we went right by CA Headquarters and watched the celebrations.

It was great to have the family out here - it was a good opportunity to show Tunisia to people I love and also just to spend some time with some people I've know forever.

On that note, I'm planning on spending Christmas in Bruges, Belgium. I have great family friends there that are essentially family, and as much as I want to slaughter and eat an entire sheep for Aid al-Kabeer, I think I'll feel more at home celebrating Christmas with old friends. Hopefully I'll be able to stop off in Paris as well for a night.

Here are the photos albums:

Family Trip, pt. 1

Family Trip, pt. 2

Thanksgiving

This feels like a shot from a movie

I'm recovering from a nasty flu, and I'll be posting on Thanksgiving and my family's trip, along with photos, probably starting tomorrow. Luckily, one of my buddies here is a plastic surgeon in Tunis, and also a generalist, so he took out his stethoscope yesterday in the American Corner and wrote me a prescription for some meds that have been doing wonders.

This shot was taken by my sister in Carthage of me and a good friend of mine here in Tunis. My sister mistakenly had her ISO jacked up to 1600. I think it looks pretty damn cool this way.

The African Leadership Academy and other goings-on

Yesterday at AMIDEAST we had a great meeting with the head of SIT Study Abroad, Mary Lou Forward. They are starting a new program in Tunis this Spring, and AMIDEAST and CEMAT are helping to administrate the program. As it stands right now, I'll be helping out with cultural issues/student support, and we'll see what happens after that - hopefully I'll be accompanying them on excursions as well. Personally, I'm getting very interested in International Education as a field, so this is a great opportunity to continue to immerse myself in that world and see where it goes. For me, I've been able to benefit from several exchange programs, so I'd like to help others do the same.

Today, two young directors from the brand-new African Leadership Academy are here. Now this is a cool program. Their aim is to take 2-4 students from every African Country for the last two years of High School at their campus in Johannesburg. The program is fully funded (and quite well so, at that) and the head of the board of directors is Nelson Mandela. The problem in Francophone Africa is that the school is not on the Baccalaureate System, so there's a risk involved for Bac students (if they want to continue studying on the French system). Of course, in theory they could go to the states, but that involves a significant financial outlay. I hope the issues will be be worked out, because it's a great program with some dynamic ideas.

Update

Posting has been a little slow lately - sorry for the delays. Basically, without internet at home, I don't always have the time at AMIDEAST to sit down and reflect for a while - this last week has definitely been reflection-free. I am teaching two nights a week until 9pm in addition to running the American Corner.

Re: the internet. It turns out that bandwidth was way over capacity here in Tunis, so basically the telecom company just shut off a bunch of lines and took down the telephone poles. Incidentally, that would include my neighborhood... Not exactly a constructive way to solve a problem, but I'm sure people that still have telephone service are talking and surfing the internet free and clear.

This week is "International Education Week," so we're running a lot of sessions on studying abroad in the States. I'm going to lead a few discussions here at the American Corner, and I'll be screening the Graduate and Dead Poets' Society (yes, I know it's high school, but it's available and a good glimpse into some of the differences in educational systems). I think Old School might be pushing it a bit...

This coming Saturday, my sister and my cousin will be visiting for about a week. We initially planned to go down to Tozeur, but it's a long drive. So, we'll probably visit Bizerte, Kairouan, Sousse, El Jem, Dougga, and maybe even Tabarka and Ain Draham. I'm looking forward to having them around and doing some traveling again.

Lablabi, Part Two

I wrote my last post on lablabi about an hour after I ate it. I should have waited another hour or two to give everyone the full story. I think the picture speaks for itself. Teaching a two hour and forty minute class that evening was not fun.

Douraied, my friend who took me out for it yesterday, came in this morning, and I said, "Douraied! You should've warned me, that stuff gets you. I had a headache, a slight fever, and a bad stomach all night!"

"Well, that's lablabi!" was his response. It turns out he spent most of the night on the toilet, which wasn't the case with me. So, I guess I one-upped him on the capabilities of my Tunisian stomach.

Just a warning: When you add a shot of olive oil, a spoonful of cumin, a heaping spoonful of harissa (thick chili sauce), a very soft-cooked egg that has never been refrigerated, garlic, and chickpeas together, you're at the very least going to be very gassy. I'd suggest getting a bottle of Garci (the local sparkling water), Boga Cider (ugh...), Coke, or Tonic with your meal, and after...

Lablabi

(Image from harissa.com)

Lablabi is a "popular" (in the French sense) food that you can find at many quick-serve places in Tunis. It's a great, simple food that works the best when it's cold outside (it also knocks you off your feet and into nap time for half an hour). Basically, lablabi is a thick soup of chickpeas, garlic, and sometimes onion. You break bread up into little pieces, and then you ladle the soup over it. After, you add cumin (or during the cooking), harissa, olive oil, and lemon juice. You can also add a runny soft-boiled egg if you feel comfortable with it (I do it, but also I'm not here for a week-long excursion that could be shot by a bad egg).

Then you take two spoons and mash it all up. The resulting mixture is a nice, thick chickpea stew with a solid and simple flavor - the chickpeas and the olive oil and lemon come through, as does the harissa. Another great benefit is the price - a lablabi with an egg in Tunis is 1.500 TD, which is a steal.

Just go into a decent fast-food and ask "'Andik lablabi?"

Tunisia Tip #1 - Fruits Secs

Here in Tunisia there's quite a few ways in which I profit from experience. I've learned how to interact with people effectively, where to go for my chawarma sandwich, and which cafe has the best Lavazza. I figured I'd share a few random little things I've picked up here that might make your trip to Tunisia easier...

First off, snacking here can be a tough game. If you're like me and you like something savory, not sweet, you're in for a tough time. Most of the snacks are sugary, from the packaged cakes and cookies such as Sablitos, to the pastries. Also, most of the savory snacks are really quite awful. Stay away from packaged potato chips and "Sun Chips" which have nothing to do with the American brand.

The two decent things here are the Bugles and the fruits secs. Bugles are pretty much like the American variety, except for less flavoring. The fruits secs are where it's at. Fruits secs are nuts - and you can buy them at a lot of corner shops. Just look for big plastic containers of nuts or the "fruits secs" sign on a shop. They're a bit expensive here, but 100g of pistachios in-shall should cost in Tunis around 1.600TD, while cashews are around 2TD. It's the most solid option for snacking a in a salt-deprived snacking economy...

An ACCESS Halloween

I just put up 30-odd photos on a Facebook album - you can see them here.

Last Saturday, we had a big event for our ACCESS students with mummy wrapping, pumpkin carving, dancing, plus a dip into "mummy brains" (cooked spaghetti) for candy. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad the the program is up and running again.