Back in Tunis

Sorry for the huge delay in posting, but the combination of the holidays and not having reliable internet made it hard to stay on top of everything.

I am now back in Tunis - I got back last Friday afternoon and started work yesterday. I think the best way to recap is just do a quick overview now and then hopefully tomorrow post some photos and write more in-depth when I have the time.

Dec 19th was Eid al-Adha, or known more informally, Eid al-Kabir - the "big" Eid(the "little" Eid is right after Ramadan and doesn't involve the whole sheep thing). This, for the uninitiated is quite an experience (I definitely count myself in that category). The gist is that days or weeks before Tunisian families buy a sheep. They house the sheep at home and keep it under close watch (sheep stealing is big business - these sheeps can easily cost $200) until the day of Eid. On the morning of Eid al-Adha, the men in the family who know what they are doing slaughter the sheep by slitting its throat to commemorate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son... Isaac... for God. Afterwards, the animal is skinned, the head is cut off, and then it is cleaned and prepared for good eats. Lots of good eats. Maybe a little too much sheep, actually.

I spent Eid at Hichem's house. I opted out of the killing of the sheep and showed up after they had already hung up the skinned carcass and were starting to clean it. The mother cleaned out the intestines while one of the daughters cleaned up (photos to come). What's important in Aid is that no part of the animal goes to waste, so everything is kept and washed. That day, we ate sheep bbq. Lots of of it. I also had some liver and, well, I'm not going to say what else I ate. On the first day you also burn the sheep heads to remove the skin so that they can be eaten later (I opted out of that - although brains can be quite common, Ojja a la Cervelle is a common Algerian dish). Walking through Ibn Khaldoum, on every corner I saw big fires being started in metal drums for the heads.

At its core, Eid al-Kabeer is just a big barbeque. At first I was a bit squeamish about it, but then I gave myself a metaphorial kick in the rear. I eat meat. I love meat - so why should I remove myself from the process? Anyways, I'll write a bit more about it later.

The next day, the 20th, I headed off on a flight to Brussels on Tunisair. At the airport, I was picked up (reeling from too much smoke inhalation on Eid) by Bruno, a very close family friend. He drove me back to Bruges, where I spent the holidays based there in their house in central Bruges. It's a beautiful old 15th-century house on the canal, and unlike most of the houses owned by Belgians, it retains its old charm instead of being totally revamped and modern. Bruno lives there with his wife Ariane. She met my dad back in the 1960s when he was studying in Germany, and our families have kept in touch and seen each other quite often over the last 15 years or so.

This was my fourth time in Bruges, and it was amazing as always. The trick with a city like Bruges is to stay off the touristy beaten paths and walk around at night, or find off-hours during the day to go out and take photos, etc.

I spent Christmas outside of Watten, which is a town by Dunkirk in Northern France. Ariane's family has a country house there called "Bleue Maison." We drank good wine, ate foie gras from Chez Josephine in Paris and had an all-around good time. It was super-bourgeois and I really liked it - a change of pace from my chawarma sandwiches.

Back in Tunis, I celebrated New Years pretty low-key with a dinner at Restaurant Chez Nous and a bottle of Vieux Magon. Now, I'm back in the swing of things at work and working on getting furniture for my new place, which my friend Sarra has affectionately called "Baghdad." I think once we get it cleaned up it'll be a bit more hospitable.