Camels, Santa & more camels

We also watched some camel fighting at the previous day's festivities.  Though there was a lot of salivating (on the part of the stallions), out of the 4 pairs of fighting camels, this was the best fight.

Day 2 at the festival was Christmas Day.  The boys and I decided to have a nice lunch at one of the 5 star hotels in the Zone Touristique in Douz.  (We were not staying here!)  

 

 

We planned to have a nice leisurely lunch then head to the festival grounds.  However, once again, Tunisia foiled us.  The previous day's festivities had started much later than advertised, so we adjusted our timetable to head over to the fairgrounds a bit later than the scheduled time.  Much to our chagrin, as we wandered over to the fairgrounds, we found people leaving. 

Day 3 at the festival was the camel marathon.  We made it in plenty of time (especially since it again started late!) to see the camels and their jockeys start off.

Then we occupied ourselves for 2 hours before returning to see the winning camel cross the finish line. 

The camels don't seem too enthused about this race.  I'm not sure exactly how long the trip was (distance-wise), nor how many of the 43 competing camels actually finished the race, but I did see that several of the jockeys were leading (rather than riding) their camels across the finish line.  This race did, however, conclude the major events at the festival, so we headed out to the Ksour, our next destination.

The Sahara Festival

The Sahara Festival in Douz was a wonderful experience.  I travelled with two companions-the first, an irascible Englishman, N, who speaks a bit of French and the other an unknown American who speaks Arabic and lives in Cairo, M.  You'd think, with companions like that, that we would have been able to understand what was going on; however, once again, understanding Tunisia proved elusive.

It started with the train.  We bought first class tickets.  Silly me, I assumed that with a westernized system here a ticket meant you had an assigned seat (especially since there was a seat number ON the ticket!).  What we found instead was a rush to snag seats  and several women who refused to move to their correct location in second class, even with the conductor's intervention.  I used to love riding the train in India, but here, it's something I never hope to repeat!  Maybe the British just did better than the French at introducing regularized, comfortable train travel to their colonies. 

Scenes depicting the activities of the Sahara Festival

But, after a long night, we made it to Gabes, where we switched to a louage (a shared taxi) and continued our journey to Douz. 

In Douz, the festival was in full swing.  In the town souq (marketplace) there were performances by the musicians and a contest to crown the best looking camel and horse. 

Most of the activities, though, took place at the fairgrounds.

There were performers from Tunisia and other Maghreb countries:

Tunisia

Algeria

Egypt

There were camel races:

Another confusing event-the camels didn't really start off together, and some of them dropped out before the first turn.

Snake charmers:

The announcer told us that normally this occupation is only done by men, but this woman has become a much beloved charmer

Camel acrobats:

They were rather underwhelming

Horse acrobats:

But these guys were pretty cool.  They did a lot of tricks with the horses and the horses themselves were trained to dance to the beat of the drums. 

Even some version of what looked like field (sand?) hockey:

It was a short game, so it was difficult to see how similar the rules were.

The event concluded with a Bedouin wedding ceremony:

Again, confusion.  We didn't actually see much of a ceremony, but there was a lot of noise and action and some horse racing. 

Christmas vacation

I'm heading out to spend Christmas at the Sahara Festival in Douz! 

Merry Christmas-I hope to have many pictures to share when I get back!

Can't wait for the sun, sand and, of course, camels!

Tunisian Food #1: Leblebi

Although I've been surviving on sandwiches and pizzas (Tunisian fast food) here, I decided it was time to get out and try some of the traditional cuisine. The first thing I decided to try was leblebhi-a chickpea & garlic "stew" served over bread. It seems to be a winter dish, so I figured now, while there's a chill in the air, would be a good time to have it.

First you are given two large pieces of bread to
crumble up into the bowl

Then, the soupy chick pea mixture is poured over the bread
and topped with harissa (a red pepper paste), cumin and olive oil. 
You can also add meat or soft boiled eggs, but I opted to try it plain first.

You mix it all up so that the bread is nice and soggy.

Bon Appetite!

How was it?  Well, let's just say there's nothing wrong with it...but I'm not sure if I'm going to go looking for it anytime soon.  Towards the end of the bowl, the consistency of the soggy bread kind of got to me and I was unable to finish.

Tunis Science City

When my friends asked me if I wanted to check out the science museum in Tunis, I eagerly accepted the invitation, but secretly wondered what it would be like.  I was expecting something hokey, but was pleasantly surprised by Tunis Science City.  The setting was lovely and the exhibits were interactive and well-maintained.  The only drawback was that most of the signs were only in French and Arabic. 

Chillin' with Einstein

The travelling exhibit was about dinosaurs, focusing on those found in Africa.

Charcharodontosaurus Saharicus-the dinosaur discovered in Tunisia

The displays even moved!  Here Afrovenator abbakensis (the African hunter) is attacking Jobaria tiguidensis:

The regular exhibits included displays on desert agriculture, the prehistoric eras, the human body, mammals, and Darwin:

DNA-which carries information for life
(just like the Yellow Pages)

The walk-through human heart

What science museum is complete without ET??? 

La Marza

Yesterday, I went out to check out the beach with another teacher. Can't wait 'til it gets warm enough to go swimming here!

Tunis is....

Confusing!

I've been trying to figure out what to say about my impressions of Tunis thus far.  Many of you know that I haven't had the easiest transition to life here.  All of my energy over the past month has been divided between planning and delivering my lessons and trying to learn to navigate life in Tunis-and neither has been easy!  After more than a month here, I finally feel like I have a handle on my classes.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still spending a lot of time and effort to figure out lesson plans, but at least my classes seem to run in a somewhat predictable pattern.  But as for navigating life here in Tunis, that is a completely different story!  After more than a month, I still feel as clueless about life here as when I stepped off the plane.  There's a pattern to life here that I just can't seem to see, much less understand and try to fit into.  And it stresses me out-I think, "What's wrong with me, I've lived abroad before, why can't I just adjust to life here?"

I've been talking to some of the other teachers here and most have expressed similar feelings, though there seems to be a wide variety of theories as to why this is.  One teacher suggested that after you've taught in the Far East, Tunis, by comparison, just doesn't really seem that exotic-it's more westernized.  While I think this might be partly true, I find that Tunis doesn't quite fit completely into the westernized mode.  But yet it doesn't quite fit into the eastern mentality either.  It's very confusing. 

Of course this is all on top of the language barrier, which some days can be challenging enough.  I knew I would have difficulty with this from the beginning, knowing no French and very little Arabic (which doesn't matter since Tunisian Arabic is quite different from the little bit of Egyptian Arabic that I learned!)  But my experience with Tunisians so far has generally been that, if you don't speak the languages, they're not so inclined to be helpful.  Not that they're rude, just more...indifferent.  (Though I know a few of the other teachers would beg to differ.)  But that's my experience thus far.  I don't know-maybe my "diva moments" in India have spoiled me too much and I expect too much special treatment as a foreigner.  (Though I must admit that it's nice to have some anonymity and not be constantly stared at when walking down the street!) 

Anyway, those are my mussings after a little over a month.  Who knows?  Maybe (hopefully?) by the end of this contract I'll have figured out the pattern of life here and won't even recall feeling this way!

Dinars and Sense

Learning the money of another country is the one of the first and most obvious difficulties when travelling.  Nothing makes you feel more like a foreigner than standing at a register to pay for something small and having to turn over each and every coin to identify its worth.  If you're like me, you are probably imagining that the clerk wants nothing more than to reach over grab the correct change out of your hand to speed the process along! 

Here in Tunisia, I've found it even more difficult than usual and I think it's because they use 3 decimal places here instead of 2.  The Tunisian unit of money is the dinar.  That is broken up into millimes.  One hundred millemes is expressed in decimals as 00,100 (they use a comma instead of a decimal point) and there is a 100 millime and 500 millime coin.  Then there are 50 millime, 20 millime and 10 millime coins.  (I haven't seen anything smaller, so I'm not sure exactly why there are 3 decimal places; I just know there are.) 

Now 3 decimal places instead of 2 might not seem like a big deal, so let me try to explain this by giving an example.  On my last trip to the grocery store, the total bill was 18090.  (It shows up with no decimal places on the screen.)  My brain automatically supplies the decimal as 180.90, and then has to convert it to 18.090.  Then I have the normal "foreigner" experience of trying to sift through the change in my hand. 

I know by the end of my time here, I'll be handing out change with no problem, but right now it's just  one big thing that constantly makes me feel like I stick out as a foreigner.  Well...that and the inability to speak either Arabic or French, but I'll save that for another post...

Out & About in Menzah

Pictures from my neighborhood:

 

Cite' Emir: My landmark for the taxi drivers

A normal street scene

Normally it's not this cloudy, it's usually blue skies

Overlooking Tunis from Ennasser