Fishing trip #2

Six girls, five fishing poles, lots of food and lots of laughter!

 We caught four giant fish (you can see one of them in the picture)!

 
A great lunch finished off with a little tea party!

 
Many more fishing trips to come in the near future!

Lunch Party at my house

As you probably know, the knitting club I’m a part of doesn’t just knit. We also have lots of good discussions, have lunch parties and go fishing. Last week we had a lunch party at my house. We enjoyed a few different pasta dishes, two couscous dishes, quiche, cheesecake and apple pie. We also made cards and played games.

Spring is here!

Leaves on the fig trees are starting to bloom and so are my flowers. It’s almost time to start wearing sandals and shoes without socks. And soon I’ll no longer have to wear a sweater and a down vest inside my house. I love the spring!

         
Look at the difference from one week to the next. In just another week this fig tree will be completely full with leaves.

 
A few of my flowers.

Volunteering

I had a chance to take two Tunisian friends of mine to the the hospital with me this week. Being that volunteering isn’t very common here it’s really fun talk about it with my local friends. Both of my friends loved hanging out with the kids and expressed that they would like to volunteer somewhere. They both also said that it would be good for their society if more people did volunteer work. It was fun hearing their thoughts and ideas.

Where am I going again?

I met a lady at the hospital that invited me to her house. She was extremely friendly and had a unique ability to understand what I was trying to say as I stumbled through broken Arabic. She tried to tell me where she lived but I really didn’t understand because I’d never heard of that small town before, but she told me I could call and ask for directions when I was on my way. So a few week later I decided to go. I called her but I couldn’t understand her very well, her high voice and my cheap phone didn’t seem to like each other. I wasn’t sure if she told me to go to Sidi Boholid, or Sidi Bousalid, or some other place. But I decided to go ask around at the public transportation anyways.I went ahead and got in a car heading to Sidi Bou Ali. I figured that if it wasn’t the right place I could just take another public car home.

Luckily, I did go to the right place and had a great time getting to know her family. She fed me and my friend couscous with homemade sausage, showed us how to make clay pots used for making tea in, and introduced us to a lot of people. It was a fun afternoon.

   

Knitting Day

We didn’t have very many visitors come to our Knitting Day but we had a great time anyways. It was fun seeing how much everyone has made this past year. It was really impressive seeing it all together! It was also great to have a whole day together to chat, relax, eat and knit.

 

Representing America with cookies

I got a Facebook message early Saturday morning from a friend I know from a local language club inviting me to bring some American food to a culture event at a local retirement home in the afternoon. I was intrigued because I didn’t know retirement homes existed in Sousse. Also, I just so happened to have some cookie dough already made, so it seemed like perfect timing. I showed up a little late because baking lots of cookies always seems to take longer than I expect it to. But I was received warmly and so were my cookies. There was singing, dancing, eating, and lots of laughter.