Tunis!

As I said earlier, I just returned from Tunisia. Basically, the Fulbright program, in all of its wisdom, decided that it’d be a great use of money to organize two enrichment seminars for Middle East/North Africa scholars. Since there are a lot of us, they planned one in Jordan and one in Tunisia and somehow decided that it’d be cool to send us (the Fulbrighters in Jordan) all to Tunisia and the scholars in Tunis, to Amman.

Now, I’m not complaining at all. In fact, I’ll just say up front that not only am I happy that I got to go on a paid vacation to Tunisia, but I also feel like it was something that all of us benefited from. It was, indeed, money well spent and I don’t think I could will have another opportunity to be in that kind of environment, surrounded by so many smart and driven people.

The conference was truly amazing and intellectually stimulating. We all challenged each other to think about our experiences in different ways and we found ourselves pushing each other further than we had expected.

But I’m getting carried away. The point is that we got sent to Tunis. And because there is only one flight weekly to and from Tunis and Amman, we got to stay for a week. And because we had no way of getting back and since they were sending us there in the first place, we got to stay for free (e.g. lodgings and airfare were covered). I think you can tell that we were all extremely excited about it, even though we were giggling to ourselves in the beginning about how we had thought it was going to be nothing more than a free vacation.


***

I heard that the Tunisian language was different, but what I didn’t expect was that I’d understand exactly half of it. I mean, it’s supposed to be a mix between French and Arabic, so I assumed that the languages would have assimilated each other and evolved into some fluid Arabic/Tunisian metal alloy-type thing.

Yeah, that didn’t happen. Basically it was a word in Arabic followed by a word in French, followed by more Arabic and more French. As a tourist, trying to find your way around, it’s fine because you can kind of pick one language and insist on it and the locals will try to accommodate. But if I was trying to sit down and participate in a Tunisian conversation, I guess I would have had to have retained something from those high school French classes.

And some people even have trouble speaking Arabic. For example, I went to a restaurant with some friends and decided to inquire about a chicken dish. What was this, I asked in Arabic.

(insert fancy French response). In Arabic, please? He says the first word “chicken” in Arabic, and the rest of the description in French. I gathered that it was in a white sauce, so I asked what the white sauce was?

Confused, he hesitated: “eeehhhh…”
“Is it from milk?” I ask in Arabic.
“Non,” he responds. I look at him, waiting for him to explain. He searches for the word that he can’t think of in Arabic.
“Is it from cheese?” I ask in Arabic.
“Oui,” he says.

***

On our first full day in Tunis, I headed out with a group of Jordanian Fulbrighters and started exploring the old city. The old city was like one of those old snake-in-the-can prank thingies. Basically it was a plethora of old homes and buildings built almost on top of each other and crammed within this ancient wall. And, of course, I can’t forget about the series of extremely narrow, cobble-stoned lanes that zig zag through it in nothing resembling an organized set of roads. I was actually really beautiful. Many of the roads were dominated by souqs, with vendors selling ranges of local-looking items (how do you really know that they’re not really from China?) like these very colorful and intricately designed ceramic bowls, paintings of local landmarks, stuffed camels, daggers, leather bags, earrings, necklaces, blah blah blah. And then there were other roads that were overtaken by the regular souq, which was much more practical and was frequented by locals. It had normal clothes, appliances and house supplies. Basically it was like an outdoor mall/souq.

So we came to the touristy one first and wiggled our way through, me and Unaza (she’s Pakistani) being frequently greeted by the inquisitive words “India?” “Bakistan?” Jafer got hassled as well and then we were all obnoxious about our reactions for a brief time, asking them if they wanted "a point" for guessing where we’re from. Or saying “EXAAACTLY!!! Great job!” Yeah, it was pretty lame and mean, but I guess we got carried away after the constant barrage.

***

Then Unaza decided to break into a mosque. And I decided to follow her.

Bad idea.

We had arrived at this mosque (pretty much the big old mosque in Tunis that you’re supposed to visit) called the Zaitouna Mosque. Not being prayer time and not knowing what their visitation policy was (yes, I know it’s not a hospital) I slyly approached a man who was doing door-duty, without any of the girls nearby. Oh yeah, we were touring around with four non-Muslim girls, who all decided to wear hijabs and act like they were Muslim in order to gain easy mosque entry. I had no problem with this. Anyway, I walk up, quite separately from them and start asking the guy about how I can pray in the mosque. Of course they all followed up right behind me, like my 15 wives, but it didn’t seem to affect the conversation.

The mosque is only open for prayers, he says. You can view it from the outside.

I asked him when the noon prayer was. Four o’clock, he says. Perplexed, I asked what time the afternoon prayer was. 4:15, he says.

That doesn’t really make much sense to me, I said, but he explained that the shopkeepers can only leave their shops once, so they just take a big break that encompasses both prayer times, even though the noon prayer time was actually at about 1 p.m.

I told him that I just wanted to pray inside, but he said that it wasn’t possible and that I’d just have to look from outside. So we go to the courtyard area and snap some photos. Then Unaza decides to be a daredevil. There was a wooden barrier fence that had been awkwardly attached above some stairs and that offered enough room for a person to slide under.

She said that she was going to go in. That she wanted to pray. So she went.

Minutes later, I followed.

Halfway through my prayer, I hear some guy yelling at me. I finish and he asks me if I entered from under a railing. I look at the sheikh of the mosque, who was observing the situation, and told him that I just prayed. The guard guy asked me again if I entered from under. Acting like a dumb foreigner, I simply repeated myself, but eventually I admitted to it and the sheikh got a real kick out of it.

I got escorted out of the mosque and reunited with my friends. I guess some others had tried to follow us and gotten caught. While we were leaving the premises I got confronted by the doorman guy again, who started yelling at me with the tone of someone who had been betrayed. I told him that I was just praying and he was like, no, your prayer will not be valid since you broke in. And that’s when Unaza and I sunk into a guilty depression for the next hour.

On the plus side, the mosque was pretty on the inside and we had no other opportunity of seeing it, since we were supposed to move out of the city later in the day.

We also got yelled at later on after I acquiesced to teaching Jafer some bhangra in this deserted courtyard.

We got in trouble again later for checking out of our hotel and our late.

***

With that great start we headed to our new hotel, the Hotel Sidi Bou Saeed, in a world-famous area outside of the city called Sidi Bou Saeed. It’s known for it’s houses that all have uniform white walls and uniquely decorated blue doors. A beautiful place for… an enrichment seminar?

Well, at least we had beautiful ocean views from the conference room.