Back to the Grind

After a lovely weekend in Paris, I am back to work in Sousse.  I had a meeting with my boss the day before I left which was actually very helpful, and provided a lot of direction for what I need to be doing this week.  I was relieved because I have, at various points, felt very much without direction.  I was able to cobble together what I was supposed to be doing, but I felt a bit lost as this is my first real internship abroad.  While I have not had a lot of homesickness or overwhelming culture shock, there are many little things that slowly pile up and end up creating a cluster of thoughts that I could broadly label as culture shock.  I try to read a lot and stay active in work, but as I said sometimes it feels a bit directionless, and so it is tricky.  I found this list of tips for working abroad that are generally helpful.  They are largely more geared to people who have never worked abroad, which I have, but they are good nonetheless.

This week is doubly busy as I am doing a bit of catching up for missing Friday and Monday for my trip to Paris.  So I have lots to do, and a real to do list, and if nothing else I feel like I make forward progress when I cross things off a list.  But I do wonder, is that what I came here to do?  Cross things off a list?  I had definitely romanticized what I would be doing as visions of community meetings and village mapping on dusty village meeting hall floors danced through my head, but I didn't expect to be so connected to the internet, doing so much grant-related writing and research and generally staying in so much.  I guess it is normal for an organization that is trying to get off the ground.  They need help both with their projects and with their development of the organization.  So I am here doing a bit of both.

Needless to say, as much I as am able to get good experience just from being in an internship, it is also highly dependent on how much I put in.  My boss encouraged me to ask more questions to make sure I am targeting the right information when I putting together grant proposals and projects.  She is right.  It is time to step it up, ask more questions, be more forthright and be more of a go-getter.  Just being in Tunisia will not provide experience through osmosis.  I need to be an active learner and employee.  It makes no sense to try and make excuses for what I didn't learn if I know I didn't push to always learn more.  So that is what I am working on starting this week.

Paris was a great little refresher.  It was nice to see a good friend, nice to escape the heat for a weekend and so much fun to go back to a city I love.  We strolled the streets, ate too many delicious pastries, ate baguettes and cheese, walked the city in the evening with daylight until 10:15 pm, ate foie gras and drank white wine.  It was so lovely.  We spent one afternoon in Versailles in the park and gardens and sat outside and had a crepe and shared a pitcher of cider.  It was lush and green in Paris and the city was alive and sparkling.  I was happy be back.  It was nice to have a little adventure, to take the train in Tunisia for the first time and see a bit more of the capital city in my travelling, too.  So I am back this week refreshed and ready to try and bite of a bit more and throw my weight into this internship.

A + (a plus)
AJ

Nationwide Curfew

Last night a nation wide curfew was put in place to quell unrest throughout the country following the demonstrations and uprisings supposedly caused by the art exhibit in La Marsa.  The curfew has been instituted to dispel rioters, and ensure that people cannot be out all night with nothing to do but burn more police stations and loot more shops.

I have never been anywhere with a mandatory curfew before.  It is strange.  People take it very seriously, which I guess is to be expected.  Bilel and I had left the house to go out with a friend of his, when midway through our trip to Kantaoui we learned of the curfew (couvre-feu) that would take effect at 9:00pm.  It was 8:30.  All of the louages (shared taxis) going past were full, and the individual hire taxis were largely unavailable.  So, we decided it was best to just hoof it home.  We walked quickly, our conversation was lighthearted, but it was clear that we should be in before curfew started.

I asked what happens if one is out after curfew.  "I don't know," Bilel said.  "I guess they have the right to shoot."

I assumed they meant the military, and as we walked home we passed a group of four soldiers in fatigues with large guns standing in front of a truck painted in camo paint.  The were lit by a yellow street lamp, their faces mostly in shadow, lighting up only when they took a drag of their cigarettes.  Mostly they just looked bored, casually glancing at us and then returning to the smoky haze of their own conversation.

We made it home with a few minutes to spare, and we spent those few minutes explaining to Kamel and Sheriffa why we hadn't taken a taxi.  They were irritated, but seemed to understand that there just weren't any taxis.  They then spent half an hour convincing me that things are safe, that the curfews are normal, and that after the revolution this happened all the time.  They seemed sincere, and really not too concerned, but I knew that they wouldn't have reprimanded us if there was no cause for concern.  Either way, I felt fine knowing the family wasn't worried.  It was a quiet night in Bouhassina.  No cars passed my window, no music drifted in, no conversations wafted in broken bits.  Just lamp light peeked through the window.

The curfew was lifted this morning at five am, and if nothing else it was calmer when we went down to the beach.  Rioters had cut down a beautiful 70 year old palm tree at the post office and burned 3 police stations over night.  We saw the downed palm tree being dragged away.  On the way back from the beach after exercising we went to find the police stations, but didn't find the first one so we returned home.  We left a bit later to get groceries and on the way back traffic slowed and there was a crowd of people in the middle of the street.  We approached the scene and there was a police van and a military truck.  There were about 15 men with AK-47s standing in front of a house and some around the sides.  People were staring at the roof and we could see officers with billy clubs circling the sides of the house.  And then traffic picked back up and I don't know what became of the house or its residents.  Kamel speculated that it was a house where there were rioters hiding.  Its hard to know either way.

Things are tense here, but not as bad as they seem in the newspapers.  People are carrying on normally, and there is really nothing to be afraid of.  There is a little more activity and people have their hackles up, but it isn't ominous here.  The curfews are precautionary, meant to quiet unrest rather than inspire fear.  They will likely persist through the end of the week, but I am headed to Paris Friday, so I don't have to worry about that.

It continues to be an adventure here.  I can't wait to see what happens next.  Safe and sound in Tunisia, until next time.

Pulled in Many Directions

I find I have the problem that I am pulled in many directions.  On the one hand, I came here to work as an intern for ACEO, and that is my main purpose.  On the other hand there is so much interesting culture and language to learn, and so much incredible food to eat that I cannot help but want to participate fully in immersing myself in that, too.  Third there is the constantly unfolding news of developments pertaining to culture wars, religion, politics and current events that perpetually catch my eye (especially as it potentially pertains to my safety).

So how do I prioritize?  Well I am responsible first to ACEO, and I was funded by SIS to come and work, so I try to maintain focus on that.  Fortunately (or unfortunately) I work from home so I am able to stretch my work out over about 10 hours, during which I actually work about 6 to 7 hours.  This flexibility allows me to maintain a blog, keep up with current affairs fight with Tunisians on facebook about posting news articles from the US that are apparently uninformed (see my facebook wall if you are interested in the reference).  Work also includes site visits to the poorer suburbs, municipal offices and working meetings cafes throughout the city.  There is a lot of collaboration, which is like, but I am frequently left to my own devices which can be challenging.

After work and current affairs I guess I go after culture.  I am usually working in the kitchen at the table in the house I rent a room in.  I live with a delightful family (who are all good cooks to my good fortune) and the kitchen is a hub of activity.  I am surrounded by the smells of roasting vegetables, pastries, garlic, onions, paprika, cumin, peppers, capers, olives.  I get to watch, partially engaged, as meals are prepared.  The pots ring, sing and dance on the stove-top, all four burners going at once.  The oven is full of bread and dishes are being cleaned for reuse.  It is busy, and on the 100 degree days it gets hot.  But the aromas are heady and delightful and the companionship while I work is as welcome as the solitude I sometimes seek.  This way I also get to learn the words for foods in Arabic and many polite expressions (I was just given warm home-made whole wheat bread).

After all of these things I go out with Bilel and his friends, which is always delightful.  Sometimes we go for coffee at a Salon de The, or out to Port El Kantaoui just to stroll and take in the sights, or out to dinner, or my personal favorite, to the beach.  I get to enjoy the tourist sights on the weekend, and Bilel is a great tour guide, host and friend.  So I get to go out too.

But there is a level of politeness that we still haven't broken.  In our ever increasingly in-depth conversations of religion it has never turned bitter.  It approached more of a confrontation on facebook today because my intelligence was called into question, and that I do not tolerate, but religion gets people fired up here.  Just look at what happened in La Marsa, a wealthy suburb of Tunis.  This Blogger's perspective is more balanced and informed as he is on the ground, compared to Reuters quick assessment and reporting.  Or look at the ongoing problems of how the state is dealing with religion in its institutions (This is the article I posted that drew criticism on facebook).  Needless to say religion is the central point of contention as the country moves ahead.  I have a feeling clashes and demonstrations like this will only grow more numerous as elections approach.

There is so much going on and I want experience it all, but I have to remember why I came and that it is important to prioritize my goals, career development and academic achievement as well as the opportunities I have for social enrichment.  Cheers to staying the path, working hard and staying informed.

À bientôt

Patriotic Confusion

It seems that as Tunisia works to figure in which direction their country is headed, there is a lot of confusion that clouds the national psyche.  Accustomed to a strongman dictating the steps of the Tunisian dance, the duality of their newly free country presents a dilemma.  On the one hand, Tunisians are finally free to choose for themselves the future of their country.  On the other hand, they now have to contend with the ramifications of everybody having an equal say in the politic of the country.

Central to this patriotic confusion is the debate over the role of Islam and the centrality it should have in constructing a new, democratic state.  The current ruling party (who won in free and fair elections last year) is a group of moderate Islamists (Ennahda).  They are certainly moving the state in a more conservative direction, but even the term "conservative" requires some qualification.  Given that open displays of religion by Muslims were essentially not tolerated by Ben Ali, the new freedoms of the people of Tunisia allow for freedom of religion, too.  As such, the prevalence of Islamists is noticeable.  Especially since they are in power at the national level, their influence is palpable and their reach is extending.  Some people take refuge in the fact that the state is embracing a more religious stance in both national and global politics.  For example, many young Tunisians without jobs find a haven in the political activism of the Islamist youth, they see their purpose as to serve god first, then country.  Others, however, find it irksome.

"I don't even think that the Islamists are Tunisians," said one woman I spoke with.  "They want to control everything and dictate each thing that we can and cannot do.  They are extremists and that is not truly Islam and not what it means to be a Tunisian."  She was quite adamant that a move towards an Islamist state is a move towards the past rather than the future.  This is a sentiment shared by many Tunisians.  They fear that the Islamists want to censor the media and limit freedoms such as the ability to drink alcohol, a problem that could profoundly affect the tourism industry at the base of Tunisia's economy.  Fortunately the current president is a moderate man who knows the dangers of dictatorship, and does not seem prone to allowing a takeover by the Islamist party.

This divide is one I have consistently run into since arriving to the country three weeks ago.  Thus the problem of democracy.  People want to choose, but after decades of dictatorship and a strongman leading the country, the results of your decisions follow you and plague your conscious.  There is no one to blame but the active citizenship and the people who voted.

The divide between embracing the Islamist party, and rejecting them outright seems to broadly (read: this is a big generalization after 3 weeks) be split between generations.  The younger generation embraces the demonstrations at the state level of the importance of the Muslim faith, where as the older generations who lived under French colonialism, then 3 decades of Bourguiba and 2 decades of Ben Ali are hesitant to see another seemingly militant, and far less progressive party come to power.  But such is the democratic process.  Everyone is free to choose.

The links above are all to interesting NPR stories.  Currently Steve Inskeep is traveling across North Africa to the Arab Spring countries and this week he is in Tunisia.  The articles are poignant, interesting and worth reading, so I have linked them all here.  I am not just giving a plug to the liberal media (though NPR is GREAT).  Thanks for reading.  I will keep on posting.

Asslama, A Bientot
  

A Little Confused English Goes A Long Way (for a chuckle)

This just struck me as funny.  I think that English mistakes are probably one of the things I find funniest when I go abroad.  Today I was looking at some different popular clubs and restaurants in Sousse and the language was just too good to keep to myself.  I think because it aspired to be hip and casual at the same time, and instead comes off as a bit bizarre, it is even funnier.  But, without further ado, here are some of my favorite excerpts.  Enjoy!

"The menu also offers tasty and pancakes." (No, just a side of Tasty for me).

" one of those places where you taste different needs: that of a family breakfast, a pancake-party between friends or a business lunch" (I love pancake parties) (what the hell does 'taste different needs mean?')

"Fleur de thé is a very interesting space. From morning to night, it offers sweet, salty, lunches or dinners." (I will have the sweet, salty lunch please.)

"An environment created for your senses to be constantly alert, whether by the aroma of tea that hugs your papillae, with the music world, or by the beauty of the teapots that surprises you." (My papillae are so alert right now!)

"The restaurant offers fine cuisine with specialties including a map of the country but also other varities." (I'll have the map of the map of Turkmenistan, medium rare.)

and finally

"decor and design, are exceptional with plasma screens for broadcasting football matches. An outdoor terrace where you can dine quietly, and another at the top represented by boxes and design classes. Legends is the best place for young partygoers' meetings." (quick we have to get to the United Party-goers meeting down at Legends!)


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I guess I just don't know how they can't find one English speaker to read through the menus and descriptions before they go live.  There are many expats here who don't really do anything...give them a task!  Instead, we get to benefit from the hilarity of confused translation, which to their credit, probably sounded perfectly normal in Arabic or French, but in English it just comes across as...yummy and famous.

How to Feign Interest in a Meeting Conducted in Arabic

Today I had a meeting that to me seemed something like this:

نحن بحاجة لمناقشة رواتب الذين يعملون في مركز للالتفصيل والخياطة. يجب أن يكون (Vous Comprenez) هناك سلفة من البنك لدفع لهم في الشهر المقبل، وهذه مشكلة. علينا أيضا(les jeunes filles) أن نتحدث عن كيفية استبدال المخرج الذي يتحرك إلى فرنسا في شهر آب.  ينبغي لنا أن نتحدث عن كيف لم يتم استيفاء أعضاء مجلس الإدارة مع عدد من (le remboursement)الزيارات الميدانية ممثلي الدورة وعلق بأن تبذل في(L'emploi et developpement durable) موقع ريفي. وبمجرد أن تغطي كل هذه المواضيع، ويمكننا  (merci) أن نذهب أكل نوع من مبلغ مجنون من لحم الضأن المشوي التي تم ذبحها أمام أعيننا. الحمد لله رب العالمين.

That is pretty confusing, right?  I thought so too.  The majority of the meeting was conducted in Arabic, though at least this time the member of ACEO I was with had the foresight to at least explain that these particular folks do not speak French well enough to take care of business matters.  So I sat for an hour and a half listening to Arabic.  I was able to pick out the french words and phrases that are artfully woven into Tunisian Arabic (it's reminiscent of Spanglish), and I can count to ten, say the words coffee, bread, water, cup, yummy, salad and sugar.  Unfortunately, those are things that do not come up often in a business meeting.  So much to my chagrin, no one asked for 5 cups of coffee, 4 loaves of bread and 6 yummy cups.  Alas I was lost and left to my own devices to figure out how to look engaged when I had about a 6% comprehension rate.  Here is a list I wrote down in my notebook during the meeting:

1. Listen for any clue words (like the 7 Arabic words I know or the French ones)

2. Learn more numbers

3. Nod and make eye contact intermittently

4. Take notes in notebook

5. Write my name backwards, then also write backwards, "Is this how Arabs feel?"

6. Laugh when other people laugh even though you may not have even a little clue what is funny

7. Listen for words that are repeated a lot

That is about as far as I got.  It both got me through the meeting, and made me look successfully engaged.  The language duality is interesting in Tunisia.  Amongst themselves, Tunisians generally speak Arabic unless I or another foreigner is around.  Those who speak French well tend to be either of a higher socio-economic status or well educated or employed in tourism.  This means that in the small towns, rural villages and poor suburbs where I will spend most of my time, the reliability of speaking French decreases drastically.  This is fine, it leads to a lot of gesturing, and trying to string together the vocab words I know into some coherent phrase: "good morning, coffee water bread all yummy, thank you, peace be on you.  500."  followed by a lot more gesturing.  Somehow in my micropolitics of development class, development management class, or really any development class at grad school, we didn't cover meetings in a foreign language that you don't speak.  I guess I should have assumed that this would be a given, but for whatever reason it never crossed my mind.

So after 90 minutes of Arabic, we all got up to leave, it was gestured to me that we would all go to eat together, I was sprayed with  A LOT of cologne by the director of the center without being  asked (they had been smoking inside) and suddenly we were out the door and on our way to dinner.  The director of the center for cutting and sewing and the teacher were taking us out to dinner as a thank you for paying them that month's salary.  I like that tradition.

We went to a restaurant called a "mishoui" which means a grill.  As we were looking for a table out on the patio, a man walked out of the restaurant with a little bitty squirrely lamb jostling around in his arms.  It was so cute with its little back face.  He took it to a concrete slab with a drain, faced it towards mecca, and with a flick of the wrist slit its cute little throat.  Our dinner was now dead.  And I now understood where the other lamb carcasses hanging from hooks had come from.  They proceeded to drain it of blood and skin it while we were served a delicious salad of roasted hot peppers, garlic, onions, tomatoes and olive oil (salad mishouia) with crusty bread.  They brought us a bottle of coke while the lamb was hacked up.  After our salad and about 30 minutes of waiting they brought us two heaping plates of lamb ribs as well as a plate with the kidneys, liver and heart.  It was the. best. lamb. ever.  It was lightly salted and grilled on a giant charcoal grill then served to us with lemon and parsley.  Amazing.  I tried the liver and kidneys but couldn't stomach the heart.  

We ate outside and I tried to communicate in my second language to people who don't speak my second language.  I am now more impressed by Helen Keller.  I did so much awkward gesturing and smiling and making the yummmmm noise.  I got my point across-I enjoyed myself and was grateful for a delicious meal.  

After dinner we drove the hour back to Sousse and I returned to my home.  The family I live with got a big laugh out of my recounting of the death of the lamb and the subsequent meal.  Sometimes I am just not entirely sure what is going on...