After the Strike

The general strike was quite peaceful. There were a number of protests in various cities— some rocks were thrown from the crowds and tears gas thrown by the police—but no major outbursts of violence. The future of the country is still uncertain. The government officials are meeting regularly, aiming to come to some agreements and move forward with plans of finishing the new constitution. 

General Strike Tomorrow

There’s going to be a nationwide strike tomorrow. There’s been some political unrest the past few days following the assassination of the governing party’s opposition leader. Check out this link to find out more. Or watch this PBS report on You Tube.

A Typical Saturday

Today was a full day. In the morning I went to the post office because someone had told me that it’s open till noon on Saturday’s but it wasn’t. There was a girl outside the post office that asked me a question and when she realized I didn’t speak Arabic well we got into a long conversation in English about life and about what each of us are doing here in Sousse. She’s from another city but is studying to become a doctor. We ended up walking around the town together for nearly an hour before we each went our own ways. For lunch I went to one of my expat’s friend’s homes for a birthday party/ BBQ. The weather was perfect for a barbeque today, nearly 80 degrees, a nice change to how cold it’s been lately. After the BBQ I went to my friends ceramic shop in the Medina. Last week I taught her how to make polymer clay designs and today she taught me how to make designs in clay. Just before I was about to go home some girls I met about a month ago called me to see if I could meet them in town. Once I found them we went to a restaurant and then got ice-cream. We talked for nearly two hours about politics and religion; two things that I typically try to avoid talking about back home but for some reason here I find these kind of conversations quite enjoyable.

I’m home now, reflecting on all the people I’ve met since I moved here. I love how easy it can be to meet new people and how hospitable they are. I definitely feel fortunate to be in a country like this.

Tunisian Pasta

I made Tunisian pasta on Thursday with my language teacher. We cooked large chunks of beef in a tomato based stew for nearly two hours. While that was cooking we boiled the pasta for nearly 40 minutes. (This kind of pasta is usually cooked for 12 minutes back home but here people like the pasta to be really soft. After 30 minutes my teacher tasted the pasta and said it was still hard like plastic). When the sauce was almost done we added in two green chilly peppers for the last 5 minutes. After that we mixed it all together and ate a ton. It was so good!

The Joys of Language Learning

-The other day when I was standing in line at the grocery store the older lady in front of me turned around and asked me something about the meat I was holding. I politely told her that I don’t know very much Arabic because I didn’t understand what she’d asked. She apparently didn’t understand me either because her daughter had to explain what I’d attempted to say. Then the lady again started talking to me; she asked me where I was from and what I was doing here. I was explaining my life story to her in what I thought was decent Arabic when she turned away from me while I was still speaking and told the cashier that it was a shame that she couldn’t understand anything I said.