How I Ended Up in My Underwear Wearing a Wig and Makeup Last Night

Last night after wearing a dress and slow dancing with a very drunk Polish boy of about my same age who insisted on thrusting into me while dancing, I then proceeded to do a striptease down to my underwear.  The undies and the wig and make up were the only thing between me and my birthday suit, and the crowd of about 150 onlookers from all over Europe and Tunisia.  But let me back up.

After dinner we decided to take a stroll as a family unit along the corniche, the beachside pathway that runs the length of Boujaafar Beach, the principle beach of Sousse.  Bilel, Kamel, Cherifa and I all strolled together, and then Bilel and I continued on to the more touristy area of the downtown center of Sousse.  When we turned back, we passed a hotel that was having "animations et spectacles" the cheesy sort of shows for guests at all inclusive hotels that typically involve hula dancing and roast pigs despite not having any sort of relation to pacific islander culture.  Needless to say we decided (Bilel decided) that we should go up and check it out.  So we did.

The show was in full swing, and it seemed to be geared at children, there was dancing with hand motions and German lyrics that everyone seemed to know.  They were dancing in circles and doing a samba line and all those silly sorts of things.  Just watching it made me embarrassed.  Bilel was trying his best to get me to dance too, but that sort of embarrassment is the sort of thing I loathe, so I declined and said I was happy enough watching.

After the show ended there was an awards ceremony for the previous night's "Miss Hotel" show where three women competed against each other to be the queen of the hotel.  They all got prizes and were publicly embarrassed by kissing the MC who was running the whole show.  After they stepped down, the music died down and the MC said for tonight he needed 3 boys to participate in the Mr. Hotel show.  I chuckled thinking, I would rather die that do that sort of shit in public.  Next thing I know, Bilel, much to my chagrin and ignorant of my protests, shot his hand up and said "This American wants to do it."  Ant that was all there was too it.  An American is far more exciting than another wasted Eastern European.  And for the next hour I proceeded to descend down a shame spiral, witnessed by 150 of my closest strangers.

There were several parts to the show, each progressively more embarrassing than the last I would say.  It started with introductions.  I said I was Andrew from Los Angeles, and as the night progressed I became Andre from California.  Whatever.  I then had to sing a song for the audience, as did my competitors.  Sensing that I wasn't that nervous, just slightly annoyed the MC told me I had to sing a song in Arabic of his choice.  So after mumbling along with him for a while he said, "Now you sing own song from American."  So I burst into Bohemian Rhapsody.  Not the easiest a capella song to sing, but I belted it and the crowd was cool with it.

The next round, me and my opponents (a Czeck guy and an Italian guy, both around 19) and I had to repeat our songs with 3 large pieces of ice in our mouths.  This was cold, and I sounded roughly like a beagle baying in the backyard along with  Queen album.  From the video footage, Bilel found this hilarious.  The crowd again was pleased with my efforts.  At this point after joking and yammering it was time for the intermission.

We three contestants for Mr. Hotel were shooed into a tiny backstage area and told to strip down to our underwear.  I started taking off my clothes but the Italian and the Czech guy just looked at me blankly.  They didn't really speak French or English very well.  So I said in Spanish take your clothes off.  I have never told another man to take his clothes off before.  So there I was standing with two 19 year old Europeans in my underwear, when out of nowhere dresses, wigs and make up appeard.  FUCK.  We were now entering the drag show portion of the competition.  In practical terms I was thinking the crowd must get bored at some point.

So after having greasy make up smeared on my face, a wig slapped on my head (god knows who else has worn that sweaty polyester wig) and a tight black dress thrown over me in my boxer briefs, I looked like a whore who had seen better days and too many buffets.  "Don't worry" they told us back stage. 'this is all clean.  professional."  Right.

I was not a cute girl.  But nevertheless we were paraded out in front of the crowd to cheers and shrieks of laughter from drunk men.  We were instructed to make a lap and then come back.  So we came back to the stage and sat back down on our contestant's stools.  It was then explained to us that we each had to go 'seduce a man' to be our dance partner.  One at a time the Italian got up, then the Czech, and then I stood up and this Polish rugby player came sprinting at me and hugged me, was caressing my wig/hair, holding my hand, and saying 'we gonna be win! we gonna be win! i love you! this is gonna be winning!"  I got the idea hew as excited.

So in couples, one couple at a time we had to first slow dance.  Here we are back where we started.  So we slowdanced to turn around bright eyes and he insisted on being very intimate and 'real' and thrusting into my thigh.  It was very uncomfortable and far too much Polish for me.  After that we each had to take a turn fast dancing to 50s swing music.  He spun me around, I spun him around then he charged at me with all his might (he was about 5'6 and stocky and muscular, but still) and picked me up oer his shoulder and then was too drunk and fell down, me on top of him, dress and all, crotch in his face.  The crowd went wild for that.  Then I the dainty lady picked him up and spun him around.  If you aren't grimacing reading this, imagine watching it.  It will make you wince. Then imagine doing it.  I was getting more and more furious at Bilel for tricking me into doing this.

I thought the embarrassment would end there, but no.  It was time for, as the DJ said in his mockery of good English, "time for each lovely lady make for teasing sexy dance boom boom  striptease!!!"  Again the crowd loved this.  The speakers thumped heavily and Lady Marmalade came on.  I insisted in French that I would not undress, and that the DJ could politely go f*** himself but he just laughed and made me do it.  I think this is what prostitutes must feel like.  But in any case I was in short order standing in my boxer briefs swinging a dress around in circles over my head.  It was horrifying.

Then I had to beat my chest and yell like Tarzan, which thanks to my dad I can do well.  After that I had to do beach body muscle poses.  Then I had to go form conga lines in the crowd and I finished up, along with the other dudes, with a solo belly dance.  In nothing but underwear, a wig and make up.  At this point I wasn't really embarrassed anymore as they had all been staring at me in my undies for over 20 minutes.  I was still mad at Bilel, and starting to laugh hysterically in my head at the utter insanity of the situation.  Here I was in Tunisia at an all inclusive resort hotel at which I was not a guest, competing in the mr. hotel competition, in my underwear/dressed in drag, belly dancing, supposedly here for an internship for my masters, pissed off, embarrassed, and yet still wanting to win a little bit.  It was all too much.  Finally sexy belly dance music ended and I got to sit.

Then it was decision time.  The judges conferred among themselves (two lovely Belgian women) and they came back with an answer.  The MC said, thank you to you all, thanks to our contestants, and the winner is.......ANDREW FROM AMERICA!!!!  There was anemic applause and some whoops from the drunk Tunisians and Polish kids, but the crowd was bored now.  We had been doing this for over an hour.  People wanted more drinks.  I wanted about 10 drinks.  I bowed and blew a kiss.  Then finally we were dismissed. Supposedly, now, if I return tonight I will win very nice prize.  Well I say fuck that.  They can take their prize and stick it....somewhere else.

What a night, and all on a Wednesday and all totally sober.  What a night.

Tunisia on the Run

Literally, tonight my brief reflection comes from observations made while I was running this evening.  As such, perhaps take them with a grain of salt, as they are certainly cursory.  Some things are the culmination of patterns I have noticed over the course of what has now been two months here, some things are just from this evening.

First, I ran a new route tonight that took me out of my neighborhood, which I would place as solidly middle class, and through an interesting maze like cluster of streets in a presumably much poorer neighborhood.  The sun had reached its golden hour and the light was amazing, rendering everything in richer shades of their true colors.  Shadows were blue and white walls were thick and creamy.  I ran down a solitary paved road in a neighborhood, from which branched many rocky unpaved dirt roads.  This was in the middle of Sousse, mind you, and I was struck how even within the city the income disparities are drastic.  Down the unpaved rows were lines of houses in various stages of construction from bare cinder block with no windows and only cloth curtains and broken glass cemented into the tops of walls for security, to fully stuccoed homes with tiled roofs. Vacant lots were prevalent, and seemingly where there was open space there were clusters of olive trees and groups of goats lazily munching on weeds.  Where there were no trees there were children of all ages playing pickup games of soccer in the streets or empty lots.  My run through their neighborhood garnered a lot of attention as I am sure most tourists would never see a neighborhood like this in Tunisia.

The street gradually narrowed and the number of dirt lanes branching from it grew scarce.  Houses packed close together crowded the street and though many were of scant construction, everything seemed at once haphazard and newly thrown down, but time worn with faded signs for shops and old cars further cramping the street.  Children sat with their parents on front steps and their heads turned as a ran by, following my progress as I passed.  Some kids splashed each other with water bottles trying to escape the heat that radiated from the concrete street and walls.  I know many children were present because school is out of session for the summer, but I also know that many children will not be returning in the fall.  There is a very high rate of drop out among youths following primary school.  They leave to find more lucrative pursuits in order to help their families make ends meet.  Unfortunately unemployment is high and dropping out of school leads not to an opportunity but to delinquency.  There seems to be a lack of after school programming.  Many kids get involved with sports at school, but while school is closed its unclear to me what they all do.  Some are fortunate enough to go to the equivalent of 10 days of summer camp, while others pass the summer doing just what I saw, playing soccer, splashing water and wandering down to the beach from time to time.

Largely it is soccer that draws people in.  It can be played anywhere with just a ball.  Teams can grow as big as necessary, and it is all inclusive.  It can move from the street to a lot to a field to the beach and it all works.  I know, from seeing this at the market, that many kids must divide their time between playing soccer and having fun, and selling fruits, vegetables and other consumables in the various markets.  It is an interesting divide.

Eventually I wound my way down and out of the neighborhood as the sky was turning blue and orange.  I ran along Boulevard du 14 Janvier (date of the revolution) and stepped into a hotel to use the restroom.  I inquired at the front desk how much it would be to use the pool for a day.  65 Dinar.  The price seemed to echo around the marble lobby.  It was an odd juxtaposition to what I had just seen.  Knowing that some people make as little as 6 Dinar per day(or about $3.70) the price seemed absurd.  I left and sprinted out the rest of my run to the beach and took off my shoes and shirt and dove in.  I was much happier there than at the pool.  In the sea I was surrounded by families having fun and enjoying what was free.  It was a nice run and a good reminder of why I am here to work.

Le Bain Maure (Moorish Bathhouse)

I am clean and scrubbed pink like a baby.  Today was a pretty magical day.  I woke up and had breakfast and got ready to go to the beach.  It was 97 degrees when we left at 10:30 in the morning.  The wind was hot, the street radiated heat and the white houses and apartments were shimmering.  We went down to the train station and climbed in the old commuter train.  It was not air conditioned and it was packed.  The windows were open, but sitting in the station it was stifling.  Out exposed flesh stuck to the old pleather seats and peeled away with a sound similar to wet velcro.  Just sitting sweat was dripping down my chest and condensing on my brow.  It was hot.  Finally the train pulled away and began lumbering on towards Monastir.  The feeble breeze blowing through the windows was enough to stop the excessive perspiration.  It was pleasant enough to drift to sleep.

Once in Monastir we headed to our two favorite spots.  The first is an old Roman port where you can enter the water where ships used to be landed.  Ruins surround the jagged rocks and are carved into them.  The place is rowdy with Tunisian teenage boys, each trying to do more impressive tricks than their buddies as the run and dive into the water.  After swimming at the port, we continued out the length of the rocky point that juts into the Mediterranean.  We circled to the end where there is a natural cove with cliffs where there were older boys jumping.  The cliffs range from 22-35 feet, with different places to jump.  The water was clear and turquoise blue, and so transparent we could see to the bottom.  We spent about an hour hurling ourselves of cliffs into the cool seawater and scrambling back up the cliffs to do it again.  Eventually the police chased us all away because it was 'too dangerous' so we moved around the point to lower rocks where we could just hop in the water and swim.  We swam out about 100 yards from the rocky shore where the water turned midnight blue.  We floated on our backs talking about everything and nothing and soaking in the sunny day, the hot air, cold water and blue sky.  Then we spotted a jellyfish and decided it was time to get closer to shore.    We met a young man on a boat who let us aboard, then offered to let us dive off the bow of the boat.  Tunisians are so welcoming and generous, it never ceases to amaze me.  After swimming back to shore we decided to get out.  We had a snack back in the town center and then headed back to the train to come to Sousse.  Fortunately the newer, air-conditioned train came to take us back, saving us from the now 105 degree weather. 


Once back in Sousse we lounged and then had a light dinner and decided to go to the Bain Maure, or the traditional Moorish bathhouse.  We walked into an old adobe building.  On the inside it was richly carpeted, decorated with comfortable lounge chairs for after the baths and a series of carpeted rooms for resting.  We changed our clothes and put on swimsuits (nakedness is a no go here).  We entered the steamy bath through a heavy metal door and I had no idea what to expect.


The floor was tiled and the roof was a series of low domes with arched entryways.  It was hot and steamy and there was a huge slab of hot marble in the middle of the biggest room.  The larger room was lined with private stalls for bathing after getting a scrub down.  Bilel and I made our way to the smallest, hottest steam chamber where we sat and sweat with our feet in hot water for about 30 minutes.  We talked and I marveled at the network of steam pipes and faucets and heating units and tiled benches that lined the walls of the rooms.  It was echoey and dripping and flowing water rang off the walls.  The walls were all white and bare lightbulbs hung down from the ceilngs.  We got progressively sweatier and eventually Bilel went and called for the scrubber to come.  Bilel was first, and I left him o be scrubbed while I sat in the back room, sweating out every toxin that ever entered my body.  Then it was my turn.


The man who scrubbed me down was about 5'6" and very squat.  He was wearing a swimsuit and nothing else and didn't speak any French.  He indicated that I should sit on the marble slab.  I did.  He then, with a booming SLAP hit the marble slab, indicating I should lay down.  I complied.  He began beating on my chest and massaging my pecs and my abs.  He then proceed to yank my leg across my body, throw himself on top of me and CRRAAACKKK my back popped in about 40 places.  This was then repeated with the other leg and both arms.  At first I felt a bit shocked by this squat, sweaty tunisian man climbing on my like a slippery jungle gym, but I decided to go with the flow.  He continued to massage my chest then SLAP! Hit my sternum.  Time to turn over.  He climbed on my back to pop it, yanked my now warm and compliant shoulder in odd directions and his sweaty knee might have slid across my neck.  I am not sure but I was certainly relaxed, and much more comfortable than I would have expected given the amount of sweaty man flesh on me.  SLAP on my lower back and it was time to sit up.


He put on an exfoliating glove and began to scrub my lower back, mid back then neck and shoulders with the force of a belt sander.  SLAP on the marble and I laid down and he scrubbed my shoulders and arms and hands.  Then my chest and my stomach.  He jabbed at my stomach fat and said.  Birra (beer).  I nodded because it was easier.  He then leaned into my face and shouted BOITE (night club).  I again nodded because it was easier.  RUSSKY (this was a statement shouted at me, not a question).  AMERICA I shouted back.  The shouting came as a consequence of the echoing water.  He then scooted behind me like we might spoon slapped the marble and shoved my head.  I ended up with my head on his calf as he scrubbed my neck and sunburned shoulders.  Then moved to the other side.  THWACK he hit the back of my head and I sat up.  He then moved the belt sander hand cloth and scrubbed down my legs.  I was thoroughly sweaty and gazing longingly at the shower head in front of me, away from the hot marble.  After my legs he scrubbed my feet (heaven).  SLAP he hit my back and yelled DOUCHE!  It was time to shower off.  The whole scrub down and massage must have lasted 15 minutes.  The water in the shower was blessedly cool, and after the scrubbing my skin was baby soft.  I then transferred to the private stall next to Bilel's stall and I was able to shower in blessedly cool water with soap, shampoo and conditioner.  I toweled off and headed back out to the relax rooms.  After the steam room the still 93 degree air felt cool and dry.


We laid on the chaises longues in our towels and cooled off and they brought us bottled water.  Eventually we got dressed and paid (a total of 5 Dinar or about $3.50) and headed out into the steamy night.  I felt refreshed, exhausted and scrubbed clean.  I will definitely have to go back to the Bain Maure.  Plus, if you need to get over body image issues, have a squat sweaty man scrub you down and repeatedly slap various parts of your body in front of a bunch of other dudes. Clears it right up.

A Well Informed Outsider?

On Friday evening I had a long meeting with the principle actors in the organization I am working with for the summer.  It was the first time that so many of the team were gathered together at the same time.  Interestingly enough, the active board for the organization is comprised of a majority of women.  At Friday's meeting there were four women and myself.  The women are all well established, intelligent and outspoken.  Two are retired and two are working full time as well as helping direct ACEO.

The meeting lasted about two and a half hours at a pleasant Cafe in the zone touristique of Sousse.  We sat gathered around two tables and discussed many topics pertaining to the advancement of the organization.  Cigarette and hookah smoke swirled around us.  We sipped coffee and moved through agenda items.  However, as the meeting progressed and the ratio of French to Arabic being spoken gradually drifted out of my favor to an Arabic-dominated meeting, several things occurred to me.

First, I need to continue to work to learn more Arabic words.  Not only is it polite, but it is helpful to be able to have a grasp of what dynamics (social, political, financial) are actually going on.  In any language there are nuances that add meaning that can only be understood in that language.  Knowing more Arabic would help me suss out some of those nuances and know the Tunisian mindset better.

Second, without Arabic, and with a grasp of French that has now returned to proficient rather than functional, but is still a far cry from fluent, I will constantly be an outsider.  Granted, I may be a more informed outsider with a wider range of cultural sensitivities than your average tourist or business person, but nonetheless I am an outsider.  I can't really be surprised, I have now been in Tunisia 6 weeks.  I was in Costa Rica for 6 months and even after 6 months I was still aware of being an outsider.  So, I cannot realistically expect to be in the know and entirely culturally competent and fluent in such a short time.  I struggle to make it and accommodate in order to do my job, but it still comes and goes and ebbs and flows effecting my efficiency and efficacy from time to time (read weekly)


Third, in my career field, this will always be the case.  I will be a more informed outsider.  When I travel to new countries to work with people I will be given a briefing, a series of documents containing data, background, history, facts and figures.  I cannot possibly expect to know many of the languages of places I may travel and I certainly can't expect to fit in.  I guess I never really processed that in any sort of serious way.  I took it for granted that in Costa Rica I feel at home and assumed I could make that work anywhere.  But at this point I have spend over a year there and have established friends and relationships.  My work will not always be that way.  It is an interesting thought and requires a paradigm shift in my own thinking, a.k.a suck it up and continue to work hard.  Of course, maybe this is just my own cynicism.  Maybe entree into a culture just depends on the place and the people.  More likely it is a dynamic that depends on me and them.  I guess I am just still finding that here.  It is doable, but I am still learning so much that I feel like I am learning more than I am contributing (arguably a reasonable outcome of an unpaid internship)....Anyways now I am rambling.


But all that is not to say that it is all work and no play here.  Living with a host family affords many benefits, and among those is having a good friend with whom I can go on adventures, so I leave you with a picture from our trip to the beach at Salakta this weekend.  Until next time!