From One Feast to Another

I had a great Thanksgiving meal on Thursday afternoon; I ate way to too much, played board games, and enjoyed time with friends. Afterwards, I rushed home and packed up to spend the night at my friends house. I was given another big meal that night, but the real feasting started the following day at 10:30 am after the Eid sheep had been slaughtered and the barbequing began.

By 1pm I’d eaten three different lamb meals (barbequed, fried, and stewed) and then headed off to another friends house outside of Sousse. 

There, in Sidi el Heni, I was again given more lamb meat (stewed in a spicy sauce) in celebration of the feast. I pretty much passed out at 8pm that night from eating so much!

The next day I was too full to eat breakfast or lunch, but in the evening I went to my friends mom’s house again where we had even more lamb meat  (barbequed lamb and a sausage type thing) all in the spirit of the holiday!

Happy Thanksgiving

I read once that Tunisia was the world’s largest turkey consuming country, but that was about ten years ago. From what I can tell, it looks like Israel is presently the country that consumes the most turkey per capita. But either way, turkey meat is very accessible here. All the fast food restaurants use turkey meat for their infamous Chawarma sandwiches, you can get any amount of turkey meat at super markets, as well as at little poultry shops that are all over the place. So if you like turkey, as much as I do, this is a good place to be!

Well all this talk about turkey just to say I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving and ate lots of turkey!

Time to Buy a Sheep!

Have you ever heard of Eid al-Adha (Eid Kebir in Tunisia)? Well, I never had until now or maybe I just never paid attention. But it’s a really, really big holiday for Muslims. 
Eid al-Adha (عيد الأضحى‎) "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Eid" is a holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate Abraham’s obedience to God when he was willing to sacrifice his son. The three day long holiday will begin with a special prayer (I’ve heard people put on their best clothes for this), then every family will sacrifice an animal (usually sheep, but also camel, cows, and goats) as a symbol of Abraham’s sacrifice. (The animals must meet a certain standard to be considered acceptable sacrifices). Charity and giving are strongly encouraged and there is great effort made to make sure that impoverished Muslims have meat during this holiday. It officially begins this Friday and lasts till Sunday. I’ll be heading back to Ibtisem’s house in Sidi el Heni for a night or two which should be fun. The holiday feeling is already in the air and there’s also tons of sheep everywhere you go!

Tunisian BBQ

If you’re in Zaghouan and would like some Tunisian BBQ, the first thing you need to do is go to the closest butcher shop and buy the meat you want to eat.

Then you take it to the BBQ restaurant of your choosing and the master barbequer will season the meat, roast some vegetables, and put your meat on the grill.

 

The barbequed tomatoes and peppers will be diced up and turned into a great spicy salad (which you eat with bread).

  Then after a short wait you’ll be enjoying some amazing Tunisian BBQ! Between Mariem and I we ate half a kilo of barbequed beef, french fries, salad, lots of bread, and some cookies the area is known for…. I don’t think I’ll need to eat for a day or two!

(Sorry for all the blog entries on food for those of you who are fasting or dieting).

Road Trip

My Arabic teacher, Mariem, took me and my housemate on a little road trip today!!!

We headed north and after about an hour drive came to a very cute town surrounded by mountains. We checked out the hammams the area is well known for (a hammam is the Middle East variant of a steam bath, which can be categorized as a wet relative of the sauna) and then headed on our way.

At our main destination, Zaghouan, we went higher in the mountains and checked out some old Roman ruins.

Then we headed to the town center, where we did our best to find our way around on all the narrow one way streets. At one point Mariem had to get a man to help us turn the car around after we turned the wrong way, towards the oncoming traffic.

We walked around the un-touristic town a little bit and ended up getting some very good Tunisian barbeque. I ate way too much!

From there we went to another cute little town known for it’s natural hot water hammams. We checked them out and bought some clothes from the used clothes market.

As the sun started to set we visited with one of Mariems’ friends who owns land with olive trees and chili peppers. We walked around the fields a little bit, ate cookies and mini cakes, and then headed home.

  A very full and very good day!!!

Fimo Time!

I had a chance to teach a Fimo bead class at my friends art gallery last Sunday. We were only expecting five kids but nine showed up, all of which were well behaved and very creative. 

Class went a little bit longer than scheduled, but we managed to make two different fimo deigns and make a number of beads with help from their parents.

There was one lady visiting the gallery who after observing our class for a few minutes got extremely interested in making fimo jewelry too. She ended up staying  over an hour after class helping me use up all the little pieces the kids left behind.

 

If all goes as planned the gallery owner is going to buy more clay abroad and I’ll do one more class before I go with that woman (I’ve totally forgotten her name) and a few of her friends!

A Day in Monastir

I got the opportunity to teach a Fimo bead class on Sunday morning in Monastir, of which I’ll be putting up pictures very soon. But for now I wanted to share a few of the pics I took while walking around the town with after the class.

Some kind of holy building right by the sea.

These men were probably wondering why on earth I was taking their picture…. guess I’m just a typical tourist…. I find everything Tunisian interesting.

I think this rooster thing if even tackier than the mice/ kangaroo type statues I’ve seen by the sea in other towns.

What did I say yes to?

There I was, sitting on the floor in the middle of twenty-five veiled women bundled up in blankets. For the first hour I was the center of attention, which was a bit challenging considering none of them spoke more than ten words in English. I think I might have agreed to be married to a few of the older ladies sons, but hopefully they didn’t take me too seriously.

How did I end up there?
When I agreed to go to Ibtissem’s house for lunch (the girl I met at the spice store) I had no idea I would end up spending the night in the small town about an hour from Sousse. It wasn’t until we were sitting in the second shared taxi on the way to her house, waiting for it to fill up, that I realized there would be no way for me to return home before dark. Though I was a little unprepared to spend the night (I wish I would have brought a toothbrush), I’m thankful for the opportunity to meet so many lovely people and get an inside look into the culture.

After three shared taxis, one private taxi, and a short walk I was greeted by Ibtissem’s mom who did everything she could to show she was honored to have me in her home. They gave me a spicy pasta dish (made me cry it was so spicy), took me around the community, gave me a very nice turkey dinner, took me to a ladies family gathering in the evening, and gave me a nice place to sleep. Their hospitality was so amazing!

What I loved most was the ladies gathering in the evening. It was so beautiful to see four generations of women (from ages 1 to 80+) trying to keeping warm, enjoying each others company, and drinking tea for nearly three hours. I think the men were in another room  drinking coffee, smoking shisha, and watching soccer on TV. What great family traditions!

The second louage, on the way to Sidi el Heni.

A quick stop at the market to get some fresh fruit, turkey meat, and eggs.

Almost there!

Just a little bit further.

A short rest with other nice people heading to Sidi El Heni.

Spicy Tunisian Macaroni. They told me the green peppers weren’t spicy, but a little piece made me cry.

One of the family members preparing food for the sheep. She was cutting the spines off the cactus leaves and then cutting them into smaller pieces.

Just chatting with the girls and watching the sun set.

 A very nice dinner; fried turkey, fried cauliflower, bread, eggs, grapes, spicy macaroni, and of course Coca Cola.

Nice sun set!