First few days

Where to start...?

I know that i cannot adequately describe how beautiful this place is, but i will attempt. For the past few days we have been staying in a hotel in a northern suburb of Tunis called Sidi Bou Said. The hotel itself is beautiful, consisting of about twelve rooms centered around a courtyard where we ate breakfast every morning. All of the rooms are covered in vibrant blue and yellow tiles. The place where we take classes, a large apartment-type-thing rented out by SIT, is also in Sidi Bou Said, right near the train station that connects all of the suburbs to Tunis.

The first day we were here we did a bus tour through the different suburbs just to get a general sense of the layout. The next day, we visited Carthage and saw some Pheonician tombs, Roman baths, and the Roman forum. We also met a large group of Tunisian middle school students who were eager to show off their english skills, which mostly consisted of "hello" and "nice". We ate at an tiny, incredible restaurant for lunch that specializes solely in fish. I had a whole, local seabass which came with a side of french fries and a sort of vegetable stew with an egg on top. The starter for almost every Tunisian meal is bread served with olive oil, sometimes creme fraiche, and always "harissa" which is a local spice (it's amazing!!).

The third day, we visited the actual city of Tunis which is about a twenty minute train ride. We met with a tour guide who is a friend of our director's and he led us around the original medina quarter of the city. This is the historical arab city which consists of a mosque at the center and several rings of souks, or markets, surrounding it. These markets are traditionally separated by trade, which include jewelry, nuts and spices, chechia (hat making), and various others including the rather newer areas which sell what our director warmly calls "Libyan junk." This junk ranges from knock off shoes, to little plastic trinkets, to a whole array of Valentine's day paraphernalia. Then we went to a small restaurant in the medina where I ate "poulet farsi" which was chicken stuffed with rice and spices. Other options were couscous with pumpkin and fish or a half sheeps head.

Yesterday we did a "drop off" exercise where we were split up into two groups and were sent to Tunis with specific instructions, the idea being that we need to learn to navigate the transportation system and city on our own. My group had to go to the municipal market which was huge and filled with everything you can imagine. There was tons of fish, meat, cheese, bread, vegetables (a lot of squash, zucchini, etc), and fruits (mostly citrus and dates).

In between all of these excursions, we have been taking survival arabic courses in the Tunisian dialect, which is almost another language from the modern standard arabic that i have taken in school. For the most part I have been using my French much more than Arabic. When classes start tomorrow we will be split up into groups for those who want take modern standard and those who want to take dialect. I am planning on taking dialect. Our other class consists of lectures and discussions on various topics related to the effects of globalization on popular culture in Tunisia. Our final "class" is the field study seminar which is essentially just a bunch of cultural activities, including traditional dance and percussion classes as well as cooking classes.

Tonight we are moving in with our host families who we met a couple of nights ago. My family lives in a suburb called La Marsa which is a ten minute bus or train ride from Sidi Bou Said. Many other students will also be staying in the same suburb. The parents are incredibly sweet and the mother greeted me with a rose, carrying with her the letter and pictures I had sent a couple months ago. They both speak French and Arabic, and the father speaks a small amount of English. They have a twenty year old daughter who is incredibly friendly and outgoing, and she speaks English very well. I spoke to her mostly in French just to get the practice, but I told her I want her to force me to speak Arabic once I am a little farther in my classes. I am still a little nervous, but I think i will really enjoy myself in their home.

I feel like I'm writing a novel, but i decided I'd rather keep a blog than an actual journal and i don't want to leave out anything!

Just a few more things: all of the people in my group (there are 16 of us) are really awesome and we all get along very well. The director, Mounir Khalefa, is incredible and i think we are all going to become very close to him over the next few months. The Tunisian people are so hospitable and everyone we have met so far has been really friendly. The country itself is absolutely fascinating to me because it is such a mix of old Arabic traditions and modern European trends, which gives the whole metropolitan area a very unique vibe.

Well that's all I can think of to say. Now that we will have regular internet access, i promise i will not write such long posts!!