Life has been flowing very steadily as of late. A watershed, if you will. I’ve got two new roommates, a bunch of new friends, and have been eating a lot more.
On April 1st, I finished my paperwork at the Bourguiba Institute. That involved some copying, a trip to the bank and about thirty minutes in a film store. There are photocopie shops everywhere in Tunis, it seems. Why the frequency? Do Tunisians have great copying needs?
I needed a current photo of myself, so I headed down to the local Kodak store, another common shop in Tunisia. After sitting through bright flash bulbs, I got six passport-sized photos. I have five still, so if anyone wants an awkward picture of me, just ask. When waiting for the half dozen Tabers to develop, I tried to ask if they had 120 film for my Holga. The man behind the counter, brown jacket and short gray hair, brought out a roll of 110. Not being a professional, I almost took it, but the female employee had come up and snatched the film out of the man’s hands. She shook her head, and pointed to the underside, where in faded letters “1996” revealed dubious quality.
“What do you want, baby?” she asked, in perfect 1960s blaxpoitation. She had mod hair, a golden beehive with brown roots, and what would’ve been considered a “groovy” get up when bell-bottoms rang true. I laughed, hard, and asked “Mai ayshreen feelm?” She shook her head for a second time, black-rimmed eyes deep and noncommittal.
The quarter’s fees for Bourguiba was 600 TD, or $433. My wallet wouldn’t close with all those bills; it was a tense, short jaunt from ATM to Institute. While waiting to invest in my mind, I met a Tunisian student studying English. When I asked if he was winning his laptop chess game, he frowned.
“I am not a professional,” he said, loudly. When I left and said “bisslema” he proudly exclaimed, “Peace.”
At home, watched Dubai TV while relaxing over a bowl of tortellini imported from Italy. Sean Connery, once again, foiled Dr. No’s nefarious plot with good, old-fashioned spywork. Between the photography shop and the Institute, and I had felt lacking with language. I spent all of the next day studying Arabic, and began what is now a pocketbook of utilitarian words.
To stretch my legs and warm up - it’s quite cold inside the house - I took a walk to the neighborhood’s military cemetery. Across a field of green sprouted white stones never more than two feet tall, with blue and black script. After dinner, tried to find a good spot to watch the sunset on top of Parc de Belvedere. Took my first pictures with Holga, from a vantage upon a scoured landscape. Shots out over the sun dying in the western hill of El Omrane, chain link at my back, rubble and trash at my feet, and nothing but the sheltering sky above.
That was my last day alone, or maybe in peace. At noon the following morning, Myriam and I drove to meet Giorgia at the airport. She’s my Italian roommate, a linguist student from Genoa who loves opera and musicals and is a Michael Jackson nut. She’s studied French, Spanish, Arabic, and English. A handy gal to have around, very pretty and very nice. This is her third trip to Tunis, and has already made me feel like an older brother. For her 18th birthday, Giorgia flew all over the US and is fluent in many of our customs, but not perfect.
“Everyone in America eats hamburger, all the time,” Giorgia said, “Breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
Didier arrived from Marseilles an hour after Giorgia became acquainted with Fakroon The Courtyard Turtle. He is a French agronomy student in Tunis for a month to “acclimate” before he starts field work in Cape Bon, the peninsula in Tunisia’s northwest. He’s hyper smart, with a command of English. Reminds me of my good buddy Chad Alan Robertson, in aesthetic. He lived for four months in Morocco, has the same guitar as Django Reinhart, plays it expertly, and is resourceful.
They both think eggs are a strange breakfast food.
After they had relaxed a little, the three of us walked downtown. It was strange to be the guide. “We are following you,” Giorgia said. Very strange indeed. But I do know how to get food, so we went to the supermarket and bought the basics. At the souk, we’d be paying a third of the price, but we will go one hurdle at a time. After unloading the groceries, we talked in three languages for the rest of the afternoon. Didier and I traded off on his guitar, gypsy jazz echoing off the courtyard tiles as the sun sauntered across the sky.
Giorgia spent last summer in Tunis with Bourguiba Institute. She had become great friends with Salim, a polite and rapid-smart Tunisian who picked up Italian in two years. From what I understand, he helps a Tunisian oil company trade with Italy, and is saving all of his money - no taxis, restaurants - to go to Italy.
I followed them along after dark to an old haunt of theirs about five minutes from our house. Myriam nervously advised us to safely get back, and told us to text message her upon returning (sounds familiar). Giorgia forewarned about the restaurant: “It is very kitsch.” It was called Hollywood, and had leopard print where I didn’t know leopard print could go. Giorgia and Salim barraged each other in machine-gun Italian for the entire meal, with occasional asides to their American (trans. “monolingual”) friend. I watched Tunisian handball - quite a different game than our similarly named sport - and ate a tasty kebab with fries.
The night puttered out, and we made it home safely.
Saturday I spent surrounded by English, American-style, with people from Portugal, Sweden, Morocco and Libya. I attended the American Cooperative School football tournament in Tunis, near the US Embassy on the La Marsa Highway. Connected to the State Department, highschool girls and boys from Rabat, Lisbon, Basil, and Tripoli had flown to meet their Tunisian counterparts for sport and exchange. I missed the Libyans because they had left the day before, but apparently they weren’t runner-ups in the sportsmanship award.
I was there on invitation from my uncle Rob Snell’s friend Kemal Driss and his wife Susan. She is a Japanese-American from Fresno, he an Algerian, both living in Tunis since the ‘80s. They have two kids, one named Samy who was forward for the Tunisian team. He played well, but they lost 1-0.
The day was great due entirely to the hospitality and generosity of Kemal and Susan, who spent hours and hours with me talking, drinking coffee, taking pictures, and cheering. I visited their home after the game, for a little Arabic television, a Jack Russel terrier-Beagle mix, and spicy pasta.
I also had my first beer in Tunis - a Heineken. Ah.
They graciously drove me home, a taxi would’ve cost 12 dinars. There I was shocked to find my house aflutter with worries over my whereabouts. It was ten hours after I left, and Myriam and Giorgia were not happy. I felt awful, profusely apologized, and vowed to fix my phone problems soon. However bad it was, though, it was great to see how much support I have in Tunis. I went to sleep with that close to my heart, next to my day with Kemal and Susan.
Myriam let us on the roof today, a spectacle with a rainbow in the light morning mists. Later, walked to the Bardo Museum with Didier and Giorgia. Hard to explain the magnificence of the ancient tiles and statues. Some mosaics were two stories tall, their detailed faces radiating emotion and opulence. A giant, sprawling museum lit by the sun, thick beams warming marble sculpted millennia old. Fish and lions, bears and tombs, kings and queens. Japanese, Germans, French, British, American, Saudi and Tunisian visitors, in a museum evidence to the cooperative cultural development of Mediterranean civilization. Truly worth another, more studied, excursion.
We came back running on fumes, and scoured the neighborhood for bread to compliment Myriam’s welcome lunch-feast of brik and a sausage, egg and tomato soup. Giorgia and Didier have passed out, and I am nearly there too. But duty to you, dear readers, compels me onward, across this ragged page towards a story with vitality, humility, humor and imagery.
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Dispatches Africa North A Genoan, a Frank and Paperwork in Arabic
Dispatches Africa North A Genoan, a Frank and Paperwork in Arabic
A Genoan, a Frank and Paperwork in Arabic
