Revolution-one year later

Yesterday was the first anniversary of the Tunisian revolution-the revolution that led to the ousting of then-President Ben Ali in Tunisia and sparked off more than a year of change and upheaval throughout the whole Middle East region.  No one was really sure what the day would bring-the Tunisians I talk to (mostly my students) are by turns hopeful about the future of the country and despairing about how little the government seems to be accomplishing.  With this in mind, I headed down to Avenue Habib Bourguiba to check out the festivities.  As expected, Tunisian flags and nationalistic sentiments were everywhere:

The Ennahda, the majority-holding, moderate Islamist party from October's elections, presented a program from the steps of the theater:

Meanwhile, other political groups, such as the Communist and Salafist Islamic parties, paraded up and down the avenue to win adherents to their respective ideologies:

You can read Tunisia Live's coverage of the events here.

I was also happy to check out the events with my friend Nev, who used the occasion to kick off his new project: Music and Memory.  He'll be travelling around the country interviewing all kinds of people about what music they remember listening to during the revolution.  If the work he has done before is any indication, I'm sure it will be a fascinating project-be sure to check it out!

More about camels than you ever wanted to know....

Remember the camel fighting (or camel wrestling, as I found it can more accurately be called) video I posted?  Well, the reason they're salivating and ready to fight is that they're ready to mate.  And, please realize, when I say salivating, I literally mean foaming at the mouth.

And that pink thing coming out of the side of his mouth?  Yeah, that's his soft palate.  Here's a closer shot, since I know you want to see that more clearly. 

So, not only does he drip foam from the mouth and expose the skin from the roof of his mouth, but he also makes guttural, garbage-disposal like sounds to go along with it.  Now, doesn't that sound attractive???


(Many thanks to N for the pictures!!!)

Djerba

Let me tell you, if you plan to visit the Ksour region, don't plan on visiting more than 4 ksour in day.  Each one is spectacular in its own way, but several hours riding in a car and trudging around looking at rooms built into the rocks can get a bit tedious.  Thus, after spending the day visiting four ksour, we wearily headed to our next destination-the Isle of Djerba.

According to Lonely Planet, "Jerba claims to be the Land of the Lotus Eaters described in Homer’s Odyssey, where people lived ‘drugged by the legendary honeyed fruit’ – Ulysses had a lot of trouble prising his crew away."  Even on this trip-in modern times, we felt our spirits lift as we crossed the causeway to the island.

Our hotel was a converted funduq-an inn for merchants who travelled with a camel caravan. 

The merchants would stay on the top floor, with their animals below

The fort-Borj Ghazi Mustapha

More desert pictures

We visited two other villages with ksour.  The first, Chenini, only has a few villagers still living in the historical part.

Our last stop was Douiret, a more isolated village. 

Star Wars in the Sahara

Do you think there's a pot o' gold at the end of rainbows in the desert?

The drive from Douz deeper into the Sahara to the Ksour region was beautiful.  We were all excited to begin the next stage of our journey...

...and then we arrived in Tataouine.  Nope, not a misspelling.  But, yes, the source of George Lucas' inspiration for Star Wars.  I don't know what it was like 35 years ago when he was there, but today?  Tataouine is a pretty uninspiring place.  It's small, depressing, and there were hardly any women about, even though it wasn't that late.  I don't know how it could inspire ANYONE.  Even M, the optimist out of the 3 of us, remarked that after seeing the place, it's no wonder that Luke wanted to get off of Tatooine.

We spent the night in a similarly uninspiring hostel, whose most remarkable features (aside from the smell in the bathroom!) were the leopard print blankets on the beds.

But, it's amazing how much better things can seem in the morning. 

After a nice breakfast, we headed out to visit a few of the most popular ksour (the plural form of ksar).  Ksour are fortified granaries built by the local Berber tribes.  Our first stop was Ksar Ouled Soltane.  Star Wars buffs might recognize a few of these places...

Next, we headed to Ksar Haddada-another Star Wars pilgrimage site. 

This is what the unrestored part looks like:

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.