Tunisia, week ithneen

This week is more of a blur than last week, mainly because I was busier, and also since I was busier I didn't stop at night to blog because I was so tired and spent less time at the house. I had two lovely lunch dates with Ahlem and Emira, two of the students I met at the meeting last week with Madame Halila. I also tried to go to the US embassy to use their library, but was thoroughly rejected even though I did argue for a good ten minutes to several men with large machine guns and body armor. That was kind of neat. Since the attacks by salifists in 2012, the US embassy is under heavy guard, and the doors are all super heavy duty and nearly impossible to open (for me, at least). I went through no fewer than three metal detectors, had to turn my cell phone off, and hand over my bag at the very beginning.

Awkward photo courtesy of my friend Ahlem

The weather turned hotter this week too, so there was a lot of sweaty, crowded bus riding. Kind of ready to be back on Madison's overly-ACed buses. No great pics of the week, sorry loyal readers.

I am very hot in this picture, and tired

Eating breakfast with mom

One benefit of looking wealthy... you can walk into any fancy hotel to use the bathroom

More skyping! I miss these faces

The most uncrowded bus I've been on!

Here are some general observations about Tunisia:

1. As a general rule, it seems like religion is a non-issue (outside of the political realm). You see women wearing hijabs and abayas sitting walking and chatting with women in tank tops and skinny jeans. The clothing is surprising actually, it's weird to see women in see-through tank tops and men in shorts. Though I don't think I've seen ANY short skirt or shorts on anyone. It's still more conservative than the US, but not as conservative as Egypt. You rarely see women in niqab... I think I've seen one or two but not any more. For the most part, people wear western-style clothes and some women wear hijabs.

2. There are feral cats and dogs, but far fewer than in Egypt. It's cleaner than Egypt or Morocco, but according to Tunisians it's MUCH dirtier than before the revolution.

3. Street food is abundant, cheap, and filling. Better than Morocco, but worse than Egypt. I miss koshari, tammayia and fuul. It can't even compete with that.

4. Their is still poverty, obviously, but I see far fewer homeless people here than in Egypt. Also, no one asks me for baksheesh, like, ever! Even when I ask for directions, or when they help me find a place I'm going, or get this! I even used a guy's phone the other day to call my friend, offered to give him money for minutes, and he turned me down and said he was happy to help! WHAT!?

5. Men here rarely look at me creepily, and for the most part are really respectful. Besides that one incident of the 15-yr-old boy, on the metro, they will actually go out of their way to stand clear of me. Maybe it's because I haven't showered in a while though...

Overall, I've enjoyed being here. The weather has been beautiful, my host family has been gracious and easy to live with, I've made some great contacts and visited some neat places. If Tim and the kids had been around with me, and we lived closer to the ocean, it might've been the perfect trip! Tunisia is by far my favorite Arab country to date.

 

 

Schooling and Madison

I really hated school last semester. It took me a long time to get into a groove, I missed my baby, and it felt very disconnected from reality/ivory towerish and that bothered me. I contemplated ways I could drop out of grad school... but we didn't really have any other great options so I kept going. This semester has been so. much. better. I think it may have to do with the confidence from a very successful first semester, or maybe that Lulah is not so dependent on me, or that my classes are more interesting (Global Feminisms, anyone?) I'm buoyed up even more because I scored a fellowship for next year (FLAS, yay!) and so I will get paid more than if I was TAing and I don't have to work, just go to school, like this year. I'm getting to know my advisor better, and she has been really understanding about my family situation and encouraging me to figure out what will work best for us (she also had a daughter in grad school). It doesn't hurt that we get to spend 6 weeks in Morocco, mostly paid for.

Besides the two very long final papers looming in my immediate future (as I write this, one has been turned in and one is almost finished), this semester has been so manageable as far as workload, once I reduced my class count to three. Arabic has been ridiculously easy (our teacher is kind of a slacker) which kind of bothers me because I'm not learning as much but has allowed me to focus on my seminars. I am actually thinking grad school student life is not so bad as it seemed last semester, if you can live on the stipend check (we can) and you do the bare minimum (which I say is what I'm doing, but actually I'm probably doing a bit more, though  not as much as my classmates certainly). My cohort has a really cool friendly vibe and now that I know everyone a bit more I do not feel quite as weird and freakish as I did when I first started. We live in the magical kingdom of Eagle Heights and I think we'd be hard-pressed to find another community as diverse and nifty as this (our newest Swedish friends are a radical leftist professor/psychologist couple who dig communal living and Judith Butler). Atticus  and Tallulah play on the playground with kids from Bangladesh, Taiwan, Japan, Libya, Chile, Spain, Turkey, Ghana, Jordan, Sweden, Germany, China... and those are just the people we've talked to! I regularly get to speak Arabic on the bus with some random person who initiates a conversation while I am deeply immersed in Al-Kitaab -- "why on earth are you learning Arabic?" is usually how it begins. We hear multiple languages on a daily basis and are trying our best to be good neighbors to the two Pakistani computer science students who I am sure are kept up at night with our (sometimes) shrieking children but are super gracious and say they are heavy sleepers and can't hear them at all.

And you really can't beat the location of living in a nature preserve on a gorgeous lake with well-kept paths but only a 15 minute bike ride along the lakeshore to a vibrant city center with a multitude of delicious restaurants and one of the biggest farmers' markets in the US. Everything we need is walking distance... we are a mile from Whole Foods and Target, 3/4 mile from FUS and the pediatrician, and preschool is up the hill. We knew Madison would be a great place to live, but did not realize just how much we would find our place here.