TUNISIA December 23, 2011: Americans in Tunis – (No Carpet)

Hi All –

Happy Hanukkah from the Medina in Tunis:

Began our day leisurely — after checking emails, doing some work, trying to figure out what we would do today, and analyzing the weather (jacket, no jacket, etc.). Weather is actually great for travel..Probably about 50-65 degrees, but it always poses the dilemma of wear/carry a jacket and then when it’s too warm for the jacket you need to find a way to carry it (made difficult when you are lugging large cameras and multiple lenses.

First the practical info.. as you can tell, Internet connection has been fairly good (at least at our hotel); PDAs are another story.. Both my iPhone and my Blackberry work only intermittently; phone seems fine, but email is sporadic (some would say this should make for a more relaxing day; for me it means constantly checking to see if I’m in a zone that is enabling connection or not).

We wound up being the only guests at the hotel breakfast… other than the American we overheard yesterday. So we struck up a conversation; he was leaving for Algeria after breakfast. Turns out he’s (or so he says) a chemist (we suspect he’s a Harvard grad, said he went to school in Cambridge — no details, and we didn’t press the issue). But he left the high tech science world a few years ago (I suspect he’s mid-40s) to join a former classmate who had left McKinsey and moved to London (as he did as well) to start a company that sets up kiosks at colleges and office buildings where they make smoothies.. using up to 50(?) different fruit combinations. From the (successful?) smoothie business they have moved onto molecular gastronomy (a term I heard a lot on a recent trip to Paris, having eaten at Pierre Gagnaire’s restaurant) — an approach to the physical and chemical transformations of ingredients that occur while cooking .  Sounds pretty effete to me. Anyway, his 15-person company is apparently dealing with “flavors.”… OK, so now we are totally convinced that he’s with the CIA, especially because of things he referred to when we started to talk about travel experiences– things that occurred before his time, which we think he would be unlikely to know (related to the Soviet KGB, Gary Powers, etc.). But he’s off to Algeria today, so we won’t learn any more.

We then took off to roam Tunis once again… this time headed away from the Medina and into the Ville Nouveau (really not very new — mostly 19th Century — but newer than the Medina which dates back to the 12th Century. Prior to approaching the gates that lead out of the medina into the new city, we strolled through wonderful and tiny courtyards in an area that was once the center of Jewish life in Tunis which and then became derelict, and is now being rejuvenated (Tunis yuppie.com). We walked through some small manufacturing shops (employing about three people each in very very small spaces). I photographed in a few of them; one trio was making the leather strips that go onto running shoes. They seemed proud of the work and anxious to have me photograph them with some finished shoe models (a la Nike).

I’m convinced that everyone in Tunisia smokes, and they do it constantly. I’m also convinced that most men don’t work. The streets (especially in the new part of the city) are packed with people — mostly men — sitting at cafes and sipping espresso for hours. Women always seem to be coming and going from some place, not sitting around having espresso. And the women, as noted in an earlier email, are dressed in a very wide variety of outfits ranging from totally western (the majority) to western with head scarf, to more traditional with head scarf to those with jihabs, and occasionally a woman with chador. We haven’t seen any burka-clad women. Men all mention that in the 1950s polygamy was outlawed and now men (who used to have multiple wives living under one roof — each having their own bedroom, hence the creation of very large houses and palaces with all those bedrooms for the women) have only one wife; they also tell you that women are equal to men “under Tunisian law.” Anyway, today I spied a young woman with a fairly traditional outfit — long black robe — and she had a shocking pink long sweater on top of the long black robe, and sported shocking pink headgear and a shocking pink purse.

Stopped for some crepes (the largest crepes you’ve ever seen) on Rue de Paris. Two crepes, an extremely large bottle of fizzy water, and two mint teas… about $5… and you can sit as long as you’d like (which we didn’t).

The new section was buzzing.. and we walked to several different neighborhoods getting a sense of what everyday life is like. We stopped in at the “main market” (gran marche) where food seems plentiful, not overly expensive and where there is  huge variety of fresh fish, vegetables, fruits, and meet… as well as the indomitable assortment of sweets- cookies, cakes, candies – all dripping with syrup and sugar. On the street from vendors you can buy a whole bulb of fennel that gets cut in half and squeezed with fresh lemon and topped with a little dill…you eat it as you walk.

We’ve been watching the driving, as we prepare to leave Tunis on Sunday by car which we will pick up at the rental place and then head out of town. Driving… looks pretty chaotic.

As we re-approached the Medina late in the afternoon heading back to the hotel, some guy appeared to know us; said he worked at our hotel. Could be, but we weren’t sure.. Anyway, he told us that there was a Berber craft fair going on in some old palace (yet another one) which would close at 5 pm today. It was about 4. We had heard about this from some other guy on a street, but assumed it might be a come on.. Mike really wanted to go, so we followed the guy through crowds in the medina.. In the end it was a big come-on to buy a carpet (but we resisted). The good news is that the palace (four floors high) had a great roof top and we could get a good overview of the medina — something hard to come by. Proudly we walked away from the “Berber Craft Fair” without any purchases.

Headed back to our special section of the medina, which is famous for these great big wooden doors which are generally painted a Mediterranean blue, or lime green, or yellow-ochre. They all have door knockers. We learned that the door knockers have all kinds of significance.. some are hand-shaped and if there is one hand-shaped knocker on the door it means that one family with a woman in it lives there; two hands means that the mother-in-law lives there as well. Other door knockers are placed at different parts of the door — some very low for children to knock, some higher for men or for women… but the knockers make different sounds – so that those inside the house know if a male or female is visiting.. because they would bang with a different knocker!

Off to dinner — more in a while or tomorrow.

Fern

P.S. for those who have asked: Food is good (except last night’s dinner was bland and only fair). They use the term “tagine” a lot, but it’s not at all like Moroccan tagine. Their “tagine” is more like a frittata or a crepe; light, fluffy, made with eggs and cheese and other things like spinach. They also have a thing for tuna so you can find tuna prepared a million ways (including in their tagines and in the crepes on the street). Kebabs have been really good, as have all the cous cous dishes. We’ve also had a lot of stuffed eggplant which has also been good. Tonight we head to some trendy fish restaurant called Chez Slah; will let you know.