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Meet Gigi

This is Pet Rescue, episode three (given there's already been one puppy and one other kitten). She's primarily my roommate Amanda's responsibilty, but I like hanging out with her too. She's got a bad left front paw so Amanda's already taken her to the vet twice.

Sarkozy's in Town

Sarkozy (and Carla Bruni) is wrapping up a 3-day state visit today. He's been around since Monday and traffic and transport in general has been ground to a halt more than once. On Monday they shut down the entire downtown Avenue Bourguiba so that he could walk around - you could only get through at the extreme ends. That meant that the metro and bus services were stopped as well. It added two hours to a friend's commute.

The thing that really bothers me is that I went to school for four years in Washington, DC. We get a lot of state visits. I know it's not the same situation, but I've never experienced this level of security across the board. I mean, I got to get within five feet of Pervez Musharraf in DC without going through thirty cops.

Anyways, ranting aside, things have been good here lately. I literally just finished up a conversation with the Tunisian "Spielberg," otherwise known as Ferid Boughedir. His most famous movies are A Summer in La Goulette and Halfaouine. What's interesting is that I was showing him that his movies were available on Amazon.com and it turns out that the American version of A Summer in La Goulette being sold doesn't... well, actually have the rights to be selling it. He also agreed with me that $26 is a ridiculous price to pay for Halfaouine, so he's bringing me a French collection in Region Zero (i.e.: playable on all DVD players) for a "reasonable" price. Let's hope that works out. It was nice to finally meet him since my roommate Alison has known him for quite a while.

Also, my old roommate, Ben is coming in tonight to Tunis! This makes the fourth visit by friends/family from the States. Not bad. Tomorrow is Labor Day in Tunisia (and by my understanding, everywhere in the world except the USA?) so we're going to an American BBQ put on by the Tunisian American Chamber of Commerce so that I can network for that still-elusive job here. After we'll wander around Sidi Bou Said and probably have dinner at Le Carre Blanc on Marsa Plage - nothing beats exceptional steak and seafood.

Friday I reserved a table at Lodge, which is a very nice new lounge/restaurant right next to AMIDEAST, then we're going to see a Cuban singer who is in residency at La Maison Blanche - the hotel on Ave. Mohamed V. Saturday it's off to Bizerte, exploring the port and the Medina, plus the market. We'll probably eat at Le Petit Mousse, which has excellent food (including wild boar, of which there are plenty in Northern Tunisia - but rarely eaten by locals). Sunday we'll probably do the rest of Carthage, etc.

Radio

I will be on Radio TounesBledi's afternoon English radio show this Saturday. Here's the schedule and if you click on ecouter on the opper left you can listen in. It's 3PM-5PM, and I think Tunisia is GMT+1?

What's going on

Times have been busy here in Tunisia. Two weeks ago, AMIDEAST Tunisia hosted the board of directors of AMIDEAST in Tunis at Tunisia Palace. I got a chance to have lunch with them at La Salle a Manger and was very impressed - they're a really interesting group of people. In addition, most of AMIDEAST DC senior staff was out, attending the board of directors meeting and getting ready for the meeting of all the Country Directors of AMIDEAST in Yasmine Hammamet at the Sofitel.

I spent the weekend at the Sofitel - I gave a presentation on AIESEC (acronyms galore!) with Lee and we got a very positive response, most importantly from AMIDEAST's president. The country directors were a very cool crowd. There were of course the women who had married Arab men, as well as some other people who had a background in the region. Surprisingly, there was a huge Minnesota contingent there (I also hail from the land of 10,000 lakes)! The country directors of Morocco (who had taught at AMIDEAST Tunisia back in the day), Jordan, and the assistant director of Egypt are all from Minnesota.

The Sofitel was an exceptional hotel - the best consistent hotel buffet food I've ever had here and very nice rooms - and we had very nice dinners, including a night with couscous and belly dancing at the Barberousse in the old Hammamet medina. It was a great experience as well, being able to spend time with all of those fascinating people. The CD of Lebanon and I spent five hours haggling for carpets on Saturday and came away with some very cool stuff.

This past Sunday, I had dinner with Lee and the director of West Bank/Gaza. He did the Peace Corps in Tunisia in the mid-90s and this was his first time back to the country in 14 years. We ate at Le Carre Blanc in La Marsa and had exceptional seafood and steak. Steve is a very cool guy - it was great to hear his insights on how Tunisia has changed over the years. Where he worked, not a lot has - he was able to go to old neighborhoods and find the same families in the same houses.

Also, I saw an unbearably bad Tunisian movie this weekend - L'accident. Do not, I repeat, do not see this movie. Especially since the guy at the ticket counter lied about it having French subtitles.

Lately, my top priorities have been working on getting all the summer intern information squared away (we have 6 incoming) and hunting for jobs so that I can spend another year here. I figure another year out here will do me good - plus one of my biggest professional assets right now is my knowledge of Tunisia and how it operates.

Photos from the North

Amanda looking out over Jugurtha's Table

These places were a bit more of a retread for me, so I focused more on the students I went on the trip with, as a "chaperone." Included are Bizerte, Tabarka, Ain Draham, Chemtou, Bulla Regia, Kef, Haidra, Jugurtha's Table, Hammamet and Nabeul... We went to Dougga, but it was too rainy and windy to take photos, as were Thuburbo Majus and Zaghouan. Dougga was a bummer because it was the one stop on the trip that I hadn't been to before, and the weather was so wet and cold that it was barely worth stepping off the bus.

Album I
Album II
Album III
Album IV

A mosque in Kef

Bizerte

Belated Photos

Here's an album of photos from when my mom visited me.

I am getting back into the groove after a solid 2 weeks of running around, first with my mom and then to Monastir for a conference, and then a solid week chaperoning the SIT program around Northern Tunisia.

I have a lot of photos that I'll hopefully have time to upload tomorrow. I'd do it today, but there's a a lecture downtown on Tunisia in WWII, and there's no way I can miss that (especially being such a big fan of Rick Atkinson's book An Army at Dawn).

Also - I am strongly considering another year out here, and I am looking around for jobs. Anybody have any suggestions?

Back... for a bit.

Once again, I'm running around. My mother left Tunis yesterday, and tomorrow I am going down to Monastir with Lee to run a workshop on "Bridging the gap between America and the Arab World" at the AIESEC MENALDS conference (sorry for the acronyms!). After that I am helping out again on the SIT program's excursion. This time, we are spending the 22nd-29th in North and Western Tunisia. Every single site except Dougga I have been to before, so it will be a different experience this time around.

I had a great time here with my mom. We had a few little hiccups, including her friend's camera being stolen on the metro and one especially mean-spirited cop, but overall I was happy with how it turned out.

I had her stay at the Tunisia Palace downtown. It's run by one of the best chains in Tunisia, Golden Yasmin, and opened up about 5-6 months ago right by the porte de France at the Medina entrance. I chose it because it's a very convenient location and it's a nice building with good service and also nice dining facilities (which helped out when we went back to recharge for lunch). On Friday, when she came in, we went off to the medina and walked around a bit before having dinner at Dar Bel Hadj, which is one of several traditional houses turned into restaurants in the medina - there's also Dar El Jeld and Dar El Kheirat. We had great starters, average main plates and some very good Zgougou, along with a nice bottle of St. Augustin - one of the better labels in Tunisia along with Selian, Vieux Magon and Lansarine.

On Saturday we did the Bardo in the morning, had some good chawarma in Manar and then headed off to Bizerte and some beaches around the area. We had a great dinner at one of the best restaurants in Tunisia - especially for fish - Le Sport Nautique. Sunday we started a bit later, went to the Roman baths at Carthage, the American WWII Cemetary and then walked up to Sidi Bou Said for a late lunch at Tam Tam before Bambalounis (Tunisian doughnuts) and tea at Cafe des Delices. Monday was a lot of shopping, especially at Ed Dar. I got myself a killer Chechia (one of the red caps) and a great Barnous - which is a a big Tunisian wool cape/hood thing that will remind you quite a bit of Jedi robes (upon spending enough time in Tunisia, especially in the South, one will realize how much George Lucas "borrowed" for the look and feel of Star Wars - and let's not even get in to the Hidden Fortress).

On Monday night we had a fantastic dinner at one of my new favorite places - Le Carre Blanc in La Marsa. It's a beautiful restaurant that is literally on the water - sited in a Turkish bey's old bath house for his wives so that they could swim in the Mediterranean without being seen. The place has fantastic food - we had amazing calamari, and they do about ten different types of steak, all of which are incredible, from black truffle to 3-cheese.

Tuesday was massage/sauna at the hotel, and then back to Rome, where my mom had come in from.

I'll post some photos of Carthage and Bizerte when I get back from my trip in early April.

Photos from the South

A crazy camel in Douz

I posted 4 albums of my trip down South. I'll admit, I went a little overboard, but I had to go through over 700 photos and I got a little zealous clicking on the ones I wanted (especially the Star Wars set ones). There are also still captions missing/some details. I've been insanely busy lately - spent all of Wednesday at the Embassy and the Foreign Service Institute in Sidi Bou Said with a visiting AMIDEAST VP, and all of Thursday catching up on things. Plus, my mom is coming in today at 4:30 from Rome for a few days.

Album 1

Album 2

Album 3

Album 4

The Ribat in Monastir

Sidelined...

By a very nasty stomach flu.

I went out last Thursday to a very nice dinner at Chez Slah with Lee and two Rims. Had some great swordfish what is, in my opinion, the best place in Central Tunis for seafood, especially fish. If you want to go, make sure you make a reservation, otherwise you are not getting in.

It was when I got home when I realized that something I had eaten earlier or somehow gotten in my system earlier in the day didn't agree with me... That was followed by four days of absolute hell - the most sick I've ever been here, including a nonstop fever/chills cycle for the first 30 hours. Now, I'm back at work, but I still have a bit of trouble standing up straight - my stomach is still pretty worn out.

Anyways, I am still planning on uploading photos of the South very soon. The one on top is from just outside of an abandoned Berber village in the mountains by Tozeur. The one on bottom is a shot of our group exploring the Star Wars set in the desert outside of Nefta just before the sunset.

Sunday in Mateur

On Sunday I went out with Mehdi to visit his cousin Nizar's farm in Mateur, which is North of Tunis. It was a gorgeous day, and great to get away from Tunis for a bit (actually, something I've been doing a lot of lately). After, we went to the dam just outside of Mateur. It was built with Soviet help and finished up in 1983.

Me at the farm chilling with the puppy

Looking out over the dam

Also, sorry about the lack of posting for the last, er... month. I was stateside in Minneapolis, and then got a nasty bug while I was over there that I just got over a few days ago. After heading back to Tunis, I was still in sick-mode and going to the doctor, dealing with antibiotics and work and everything, and it just put me in no place to be reflective and write. (In retrospect, that might have helped me deal with all of it). After a week in Tunis, I chaperoned the SIT Program for a week in the South. We went to Sbeitla, Gafsa, Metlaoui, Tozeur, Nefta, Douz, Tataouine, Djerba, Monastir, Kairouan, Sousse, and Hammamet. Quite the trip. I'll write more about being back in the states and going to the South pretty soon. Also, I took roughly 700 photos down there, so I'll have to go through them and make a few albums. In the meantime, I figured Mateur was a good place to start, because it was an amazing day and just happened.

There is...

Free wifi in Tunis airport! And one power outlet at my gate. Get there early if you want to take advantage of it...

I am about to head home - Tunis to Frankfurt to Chicago to Minneapolis. Luckily, the layovers are mercifully quick, and I'm hoping for a smooth ride.

This whole 4AM flight thing is pretty awful, though. Just early enough that it's basically impossible to go to sleep. Thank you Lufthansa. And another thing to thank Lufthansa for: I have a 12 hour layover in Frankfurt coming back. And since it's United to Frankfurt, and then Lufthansa to Tunis, I don't get any hotel voucher - I'm hoping United will be more amenable to the idea. They're "Come fly the friendly skies" right? Plus, it's all a part of the same alliance. We'll see.

Packing up

I'm out of here Monday for ten days, so I've been taking care of some things at work and around Tunis before I head out. I have an interim head at the American Corner, Laurie Pessemier (I should pick up one of her paintings before I head out). I'm going out on Saturday night to a concert in Menzah 6 by an American group called Universes. They're out here on a State Dept grant, and it looks like it'll be an interesting show. After, I'm hoping to head out to Chez Slah - probably the best place for fish (and excellent meat and french fries) in central Tunis.

One of the best things about going back is that I can take stuff back - my goal here has always been to be as unencumbered as possible with things. They mostly just get in the way, and I try to keep it to clothes I wear at least every two weeks and books I'm reading, plus the obvious camera, laptop and DVDs. Also a quick shout-out: I am so glad I have a Leatherman here with me. I use it every day - from opening bottles of Tunisian wine to fixing the stove to tightening up screws around the house.

One of the things I'm most excited to take back is another part of my book collection. If you're visiting Tunis and you speak French, you should check out the local publishing house, Ceres Editions. They do some very cool Tunisian/North African-themed reprints at very reasonable prices (significantly less than Folio, J'ai Lu, etc). They have a special edition on Chateaubriand in Tunis, plus histories of North Africa, Flaubert's Salammbo, La Carthaginoise, books on Hannibal and also some photography books. The bookstore in the Medina, right past Zeitouna mosque and to the right when you're coming from the Porte de France has a good collection. You can also find them at better magazine stores, and bookstores such as Librairie al-Kitab on Avenue Bourguiba.

My goal is to take nothing back to Tunis besides a new pair of jeans and some food - especially some more Soy Vay Teriyaki Sauce and some Daddy Sam's BBQ Sauce (might just be a Minnesota thing?). I did just check out this clothing company(their winter collection is very cool) I found via the Sartorialist, but I'm not sure if they have stores in Minneapolis (if anywhere, probably at Intoto), and I'd imagine the prices are pretty steep.

La Salle a Manger

Lee, Mounir (the director of the SIT Program), and I had a good lunch today at a brand-new place right next to AMIDEAST called La Salle a Manger (3, rue Imam Sahmoum. Res: 71 793 283). It's got a nice menu with some French classics, including foie gras made in-house and boeuf bourguignon. The food is quite good, although it still needs a little bit of working on - the boeuf will be much better once they get their liquor license, for instance (their tiramisu could also benefit from a bit of rum). One of the chefs was an assistant chef at the venerable El Firma, which is one of my favorite places in Tunisia.

Overall, I was happy with the place. With one slight misstep on a weird hanging branches/blue light decorative element, it's very well put-together. I'd love to live in the house it's in. My understanding is that the owner is a young woman whose father is one of the most prominent radiologists in Tunis - we met both of them at the restaurant.

On Friday, I headed off to the embassy to see "Impressions of Tunisia," which was put on by the Embassy photo club. There were some genuinely good photos, and it was a good opportunity to knock back a Stella Artois and catch up with some people. After, Lee, Dorra (A Tunisian alumni of the old Plus Program), Clark (a lawyer at the African Development Bank) and I went to Chez Gerry in Salambo. It's located on the main drag connecting Carthage and La Goulette and offers some very good quality Italian food - the Osso Bucco was very tasty and a big portion of meat by Tunisian restaurant standards.

Saturday, I had lunch at La Mamma, which is down on Rue de Marseilles past Chez Nous and Al-Mazra. It's a fun little Italian place and has good quality food for reasonable prices - I had a good piece of veal alla piccata. After that, I went off to see "The Age of Revenge" - a student-produced play entirely in English at Le Centre Culturel de Tunis on Neuf Avril blvd. I was pleasantly surprised - the students, who are from the "Prepa" of the Ecole Normale Superieure put together a fun production about Hephaestus taking over Mt. Olympus from Zeus.

Also, some good news: I will be back in Minneapolis February 4th to the 14th. My organization (AIESEC) is paying for the ticket, so I'm taking them up on their offer. I just found out about the final dates yesterday, so I'm going to plan a few things and then pack up and get out of here for a bit. I'm thinking lots of movies, good food, and family.

Thalatha wa thalatheen

Last night I went out to the headquarters of the Tunisian telecom firm Tunisiana in Les Berges du Lac. My buddy Mehdi, who works for the company (one of two in Tunisia - the other being Tunisie Telecom), invited me out to watch Tunisia play Senegal in the African Cup of Nations. The game turned out to be kind of a bust - Tunisia ended up tying Senegal in a pretty lackluster performance - but I have a good story out of it.

So, Tunisiana had a raffle put on during the halftime. There were 200 numbers given out on small slips of paper. The prizes ranged from blenders to soccer jerseys and soccer balls. I picked up one number when the guy came around. Five minutes later, they came up to the front with the first prize - an Adidas jersey. And, lo and behold, my number was called first among a sea of Tunisians. There was a lot of laughing as I came up to the front for my Tunisian jersey...

After that, I headed over to Kiotori with Mehdi. It's the relatively new Japanese place in Lac. It's honestly not bad - totally average sushi. However, it's pricey - much more than you'd pay for average sushi in the states - and the portions are small. I'd recommend also the brochettes - it was all a lot like the Japanese places that are all over Paris in terms of the menu. You can get fixed menus with soup, salad and little kebabs, or with sushi or tempura. Most of them are between 20 and 30 TND. When you order sushi a la carte it comes as 4 pieces for 6-9 TND, or 8 for 16-20.

I've been trying a fair amount of Asian food lately. On Tuesday I went to "Thai Food" in Ennasr. It's not a bad place. The ambiance is sub-par - lots of plastic chairs (very un-Ennasr), but the food is very reasonably priced and totally OK, if far from spectacular. It's one of the few places you have if you want Asian food in Tunis (or in Tunisia...). The dumplings aren't bad - get them steamed.

Ojja

http://clockendkitchen.fc2web.com/tunis.htm

Ojja is one of my favorite dishes here in Tunisia. I love its simplicity and its ability to fill me up (an occasionally difficult task). I'd liken it to one of the best "bachelor" dishes - up there with scrambled eggs, spaghetti and tomato sauce, or rice and beans (bachelor meaning easy and filling food a guy can make with minimal culinary experience - discounting frozen burritos, of course).

Here's a couple of recipes to try:
Ojja Merguez (in French)
Ojja Merguez (In English)
Also, I should have posted this earlier - Cuisine of Tunisia.

The basic idea is the same - you need some garlic, a can of chopped tomatoes (or freshly chopped), olive oil, and egg. I'd also suggest some harissa, green pepper, spices, and either sausage or chevrettes - mini shrimp (my favorite type of Ojja). There's also Algerian Ojja Cervelle with brains, but I'm not brave enough to try it yet. Ojja's also quite similar to Shakshouka.

Everyone has their favorite Ojja place. I like the Ojja over by Passage - there's a good place on the West side of the park. Look for the long lines.

Be careful about are the undercooked eggs (as in Brik). For example, on Satuday night, Mehdi, Nizar and I went to a pretty rough and tumble part of Bab el Khadra for some very tasty Ojja Chevrettes. The eggs, as always were served less than fully cooked. The two Tunisians left them and I ate them. Luckily I came out OK that time, but you never know.

Also watch out for merguez. It's spiced sausage, and occasionally it can give people trouble. As a general rule, I never eat merguez, but I'll touch pretty much anything else.

Always do a quick survey of the restaurant if you're not sure about its cleanliness. I normally go to places that are recommended by people - I don't do a lot of random culinary exploring. Even nice suburbs such as Manar have restaurants that have problematic cleanliness records. In the States, I always check out the bathrooms of a place, and if they're not clean, it's a pretty good indicator of the restaurant in general. Here, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that...

Travel Mug Envy

Last week, I was sitting in a taxi during my morning commute when the taxi driver, who'd been silent the whole trip took a long look at my travel mug. After about five seconds, he pointed at it and started saying "coffee?" in Arabic... the conversation switched over to French about midway through.

"Yeah, you put coffee in it and close the lid"
"Where did you get this?"
"In America"
"Can you get this in Tunisia?"
"No"
"How much does it cost in Dinars?"
"Um, probably around 20 Dinars"
"Can you give it to me?"
"No, otherwise I'd have to drink bad coffee in the morning"
"When are you leaving Tunisia?"
"Um, June I think"
"OK, then in June I am going to call you and you are going to give me your American coffee cup. Can I have your number?"
"I don't have a cellphone" (blatant lie on my part)

Eventually, he wrote his number down on a piece of paper, with my promise to call him in June.

This is a big market Tunisia! Get on this, lots of Taxi drivers need something for their coffee and mint tea on the go!

On another note, travel mugs are very American. Just the idea of drinking your scalding hot beverage on the go is a very American phenomenon. However, even when my French friend was visiting me stateside, one of the items on her list was a good stainless steel travel mug. And that's the land of pausing for a coffee.

Various Travels

Ain Damous - a gorgeous beach 3km through the hills from Bizerte. Bring a 4wd vehicle or walk to get to this point.

Thuburbo Majus

Here's a photo album of my trip to Zaghouane, along with Thuburbo Majus and Bizerte.

Also, yesterday I made Teriyaki Chicken with my favorite bottled sauce. There was one very impressed Tunisian present. It's been a long time since good Asian food, and honestly, it's one of the biggest culinary things I miss. Back in the States, or even when I was in Paris (and found that amazing little Pho place right by Arts et Metiers that's only open for lunch), I eat Asian food at least twice a week. If you're considering a long jaunt in a foreign country, think about bringing along some sesame oil, curry powder, good teriyaki sauce, and soy sauce, it'll make your night.

Bruges Photos/Recap

I posted my Bruges photos on Facebook - you can find them here.

Also, I still need to post a handful - things have been kind of crazy around here lately. Last Wednesday was the Islamic New Year (aka: vacation day), so Mehdi and I hopped in his car and did some exploring. We went down to Zaghouane, Hammam Zriba and Thuburbo Majus - the last of which was a good Roman site. Zaghouane isn't high on the lists of places to stop, but the Roman Temple of Water is interesting and Mount Zaghouane (that's the name, right?) is impressive.

Otherwise, I've been just running around. Two weekends ago I braved the Boudoir in La Goulette and Odeon and Zinc in Gammarth. This weekend I stayed in Friday and watched basically the entire third season of the NBC version of The Office (which has been a nice break from the Eric Rohmer/Chris Marker kick I've been on lately). This was actually the first time I've seen it, and I liked it a lot - I fell in love with the BBC version back in college (I can say that now, right?) and was kind of worried about how the American version would hold up.

Saturday, I went to arguably the best pizza place in Tunis, Le Matador in Menzah 6. They do great wood-fired pizza and also tasty pasta and specials. After, one of the Serbian girls I know who studies Arabic here had a goodbye party (the first of two, with the next scheduled for the coming weekend...), and I got to see a lot of people I know - the young expat/AIESEC Tunisia community here is pretty small.

Sunday, I went out to Bizerte with some friends. We had a great lunch at Mehdi's place and spent most of the afternoon checking out some different places in the hills above the city. There's some really beautiful beaches, such as Ain Damous, and lots of great vantage points over the city and the water - I'll post some photos on that as well.

NGO Joke of the Day

Today Lee, Ann and I had a meeting with the head of the Tunisian American Association for Management Studies, which is an NGO that's undergone a drastic change over the past two years into a local social action NGO in Borj Louzir - a neighborhood not far from the white mansions of Soukra that is markedly more poor. Hopefully we'll be able to help out the organization.

Anyways, so the director of TAAMS was talking about their work after USAID pulled out of Tunisia in 1995 with the "Executive Service Corps." It's where American executives come over and offer professional insight, etc (I honestly know little about it). Lee gave a chuckle and said, "oh yeah, the 'Paunch Corps.'"

... I laughed.

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.

A Place to Go

The NY Times just released its 53 Places to go in 2008, and coming in at #3...

3 TUNISIA

Tunisia is undergoing a Morocco-like luxury makeover. A new wave of stylish boutique hotels, often in historic town houses, has cropped up alongside this North African country's white-sand beaches and age-old medinas, drawing increasing numbers of well-heeled travelers. The Villa Didon (www.villadidon.com) in Carthage, for one, has a restaurant originally run by Alain Ducasse. Indeed, TripAdvisor ranks Jerba, a resort island off Tunisia's southern coast, as the No. 1 emerging spot in 2008.

I'll be honest, often the NY Times travel section is wayyy to bourgeois and trend-conscious for me. Here, you see what they decide to reference, for example. Villa Didon is the see and be seen of Tunis, even more than the Plaza. I always kidn of shiver a bit when I hear references to Jerba in travel articles. Tourism there is supposedly just killing that place, everything from the water quality to the native coral to the traditional way of life and property prices for locals. I have yet to go because it's quite a haul from Tunis and normally I don't have more than 2-3 day off at a time. I'll make sure to get to there and Tozeur this spring, however.

Poor timing on the Times' part for putting in Algeria at #43, considering today's attacks in Algiers. What a sad event.

#49 Goes to Essaouira. Very cool old town far down on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. I went to the summer music festival there back in 2005 and had quite a good time, besides all of the Euro-hippies and pickpockets.

Not bad, there are four references to North Africa - Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and Essaouira, Morocco. All of the Maghreb gets a shout-out.

edit: in browsing the Villa Didon's English version of their website, I couldn't help noticing that they have something called the "Gold Dido." I choked on my cafe direct.

Zoo No More

Last night, Sarra came over to pick up Ari the puppy. This was the last of the motley group of animals that we somehow accumulated and then miraculously passed on to other people over the last two months or so. Jihad the cat headed out on Saturday to a cousin of a friend of ours (first reports are good), and all that's left are the random turtles in our yard (there has to be two since there are baby turtles slowly scampering around).

This has all been in preparation for the big move. Since our lease is essentially up, we are moving to another place in Ariana that's still quite close to where we were. It's the first floor of a villa - a "S+3" in French. It has a nice kitchen plus three bedrooms and a living room. There's also a front porch and a lot of greenery including a pomegranate and an orange tree. It's unfurnished, so Alison and I are on a mission to scrounge up furniture. We're going downtown this weekend to buy beds and frames, and then out to a used furniture market on Sunday. It's going to be minimal, but I'm not sacrificing on the bed! Plus, rent for the whole place is 380 Dinars a month, or about $300, so what we save in rent we'll put into some decent meubles.

Overall, I'm happy to be staying around Ariana. I know the shopkeepers and local places, and I've made friendships, plus I'm just all-around comfortable with it. People have been telling me to move to Nasr/Menzah, but I'll be honest- the last thing I need here is a super-bourgeois location, it's not very real. Ariana is a good mix of being a very nice neighborhood while still having an authentic local market and a neighborhoody feel.

To the Top of Africa...

I found this old travel article on Bizerte/Tabarka, etc from 1987 in the NY Times. It mentions Le Petit Mousse, along with the change in power in '87. Interesting reading.

Bizerte from the water

The tallest building is the old French officers' housing. In 1956, after the French had left Tunisia, they maintained a military presence in the city because of its strategic deep water port (it was used by the Allies as a crucial launching point for the invasion of Sicily - check out Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn if you want to learn more). This led to armed conflict between France and Tunisia in 1961 that claimed many Tunisian lives.

Utica

On Saturday, I went out to the Roman/Punic site of Utica. It's located on the drive to Bizerte, and is a small site and museum that you can go through in an hour or two. I'd recommend it if you're passing through, but in a country with so many great Roman sites, it's low on the list.
I went there with my new friend Mehdi, who just returned from his masters in LA as part of the Fulbright Scholarship Program (which we administrate for Tunisians at AMIDEAST). He's a very cool guy with impeccable English, and we had a nice early day in Utica before heading up to Bizerte to visit his family. His family has a beautiful house just outside the city along the water - about 5 minutes past Le Petit Mousse. We hung out there, saw the town a bit, and then had some very tasty wood-fired pizza at a restaurant that doubles as a petting zoo during the summer (that monkey sure looked cold).
Tonight, I'm meeting up with Mehdi to go to a local watering hole, Le Baroque, which is one of the classier and most decent places to get a Celtia around here.

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.

Well, we could argue that one...

I just had a researcher here in the American Corner refer to the state of Missouri as "Misery."

Chris and Jill in Sidi Bou Said

On their last day here, Chris and Jill went back to Cafe des Delices where I met up with them. Then we headed off to La Marsa to go to the Lebanese restaurant Fairouz and then ice cream at Au Petit Salem.

Sidi Bou Said on Saturday

Cafe des Delices and then our walk down to get a taxi up to La Marsa. I have a pinched nerve in my left hand, so typing long entries is out of the question for the next few days.

The cafe looking out over the Marina

Along the coast towards central Tunis

"Victory at Tripoli," or how to not write History

Every few weeks, we get some new books for the American Corner. Not too long ago, we received a book called Victory at Tripoli by Joshua E. London. It's a book on the American experience with the Barbary Pirates in the early 1800's.

A glance at the back inside cover gives you a quick biography on the author. Included in his body of work are articles for the National Review Online and Details: Promoting Jewish Conservative Values. The inside of the front cover includes this rather subtle text:

"As a new century dawned, a newly elected U.S. president was forced to confront a grave threat to the nation - an escalating series of unprovoked attacks on Americans by Muslim terrorists sworn to carry out a jihad against all Western powers. Worse still, these fanatics operated under the protection and sponsorship of rogue states ruled by ruthless and cunning dictators. As timely and familiar as these events may seem, they occurred more than two centuries ago. The president was Thomas Jefferson, and the terrorists were the Barbary pirates of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli."

By the first page, I had already read the phrase "piratical Muslim overlords." Doesn't that just roll off the tongue? Talk about nice, non-biased wording as well... not exactly the way I was supposed to write my history thesis on Sierra Leone. Unfortunately, this type of terminology persisted all the way through the introduction. Here's another gem from the last part:

"The ravages of war and the exigencies of survival pushed the Muslim North Africans into permanent battle mode, and the glory of jihad was better known, and more devotedly sought, than the long-term benefits of a stable, liberal, and egalitarian regime."

And of course, this means fertile ground to pump up America:

"The story of America's struggle against the terror of piracy in the Mediterranean stands as testament to the essential American tributes that have given rise to American exceptionalism: the problem-solving mindset of the individual overcoming life's difficulties through brains and talent, faith and strength of purpose, and guts and perseverance."

Anyways, I feel that there's very little point in quoting beyond this so what we can all retain our meals. My biggest problem with this book is that it is a potentially very fascinating story cloaked in dually destructive layers of neoconservative, war-hawk propaganda and absolutely awful prose - this guy is one of the worst writers I've ever read, and I've proof-read some pretty bad English as a third language pieces here.

I don't really know who this writer thinks he's helping. It sure as hell isn't the American people. I don't care if you wear a "Git-R-Done" trucker hat and watch Fox News, this isn't helping your comprehension of the Middle East.

Now people might be asking, "Isaac, why are you picking on this poor guy and his shamefully propagandistic and jingoistic book?"

Well, the reason is quite simple: because it's assholes like this guy that make what I'm trying to do over here just a bit harder. Luckily I got to this book before some Tunisian tried to read it and took offense at the blatantly simple usages of the words terrorism, jihad, and Muslim. I know another guy who uses simple, dumbed-down language for complex geopolitical events - his name is George W. Bush.

People from the Rainy (and Cold) Weekend

I'm having some formatting issues since I have to use IE on this computer. (Works just fine in Firefox). The first batch are from Friday night, and the second are from the rained-out night we spent playing Taboo after dinner in Sidi Bou Said.

I just got my new external flash (I shipped it to Chris and she brought it out with her), and it's a big help with these interior shots. I just tilt it up and bounce the flash off of the ceiling for room-filling light (I used it in pretty much all of the photos - for example the wider shot I took of the whole room). I like the little Nikon SB-400 that I have because it does everything I need - a more powerful flash than the built-in and the ability to angle the flash up to 90 degrees. Also, it's small and portable - compare that to the drool-inducing new Nikon D3 with a big external SB-800 flash and a pro lens - it'd weigh a few pounds too much for most of the stuff I do (not to say I wouldn't like one...). All I need now are some decent rechargeable batteries - the local ones I got for 500 millimes lasted about 80 shots before going kaput.

Chris and Jill in Tunis

Rim, Jill and Chris at La Mer in La Goulette. Notice the Akhoud in the red sauce right next to Chris's hand.

Chris taking in some shisha in La Goulette

You take people out to good restaurants, show them around, and what ends up being the biggest star of the trip is your two dogs.

Jil and Rim playing Taboo on Saturday night.