Enough chilies for the whole year!

September seems to be the month when a lot of Tunisian families make enough chili powder for the whole year. They buy somewhere between fifty and one hundred fifty pounds of red hot peppers, depending on their family size.

Then they take the stems off, cut them in half, put them in a sunny place to dry. This process takes an average of 4 days if it’s sunny out but can take longer if the weather changes.
 

Next they take the peppers to a grinding mill shop and return home with very large bags of chili powder. Lastly a lot of people add a little bit of olive oil to the powder to give it a darker color and then start using it.

I got to help my friends family by taking the stems off a large amount of peppers. I was careful not to touch my eyes or face that following afternoon, but it didn’t occur to me that I needed to be careful when pushing my hair back behind my ears. The backs of my ears burned for hours!

Another Lovely Wedding

One of my Level 1 students invited me to her wedding, so I took my roommate along for the cultural experience. We were picked up at 8pm by the bride’s brother who told us all about party life in Dubai as he drove us twenty minutes to the town called Kalaa Kebira. Once there we were escorted into a very large courtyard full of chairs and lovely decorations. The bride sat with us for a little bit and introduced us to her friends and family. They gave us some of the best seats in the place with a great view of the band and the stage where the bride was going to be. Shortly after, we watched the bride sign the marriage contract, then we watched her come out in three different dresses and dance in them, after than she came out in one last dress with the groom, and lastly the groom gave her some very beautiful gold jewelry. After a lot of photos were taken the bride came and chatted with us. She shared how it was the first time the groom had seen her without a head covering and how she was a little scared to be moving to Dubai in just a week. She also expressed how happy she was to marry the man she loved. After a little bit of food and dancing we were taken home by the brother, arriving home at 2:30am!

The bride and her best friend, two of my former students.

The bride signed the wedding contract in front of all the female guests inside the courtyard, while the groom signed the papers in front of the male guests in front of the house.

  
The first dress of the night.

  
Dress number two!

  
Her family escorted her in while wearing the third dress of the night and presented her to the groom.

 
The bride and the groom came into the courtyard together as she wore the fourth and final dress of the night.

  
Then the groom presented the bride with gold jewelry and did his best to put it on her.

 
They had a few pictures taken.

Then we took a few pictures together and said our farewells. The bride has kept in touch with me and is enjoying her new life in Dubai but she says the pace of life is very fast there.

First Time in Italy

I had some time off from work and school the first week of September so it worked out perfectly for me to meet my friends in Italy while they were there for international dragon boat races.

  

Julie wasn’t an official team member (though she did race a few times when a team member was ill of injured) so she was free to explore the local area with me. We went on some bike riding adventures, explored the local salt mines and salt museum, tried gelato at a few different places and relaxed on the beach.

  

On the teams day off from racing we all went into the local town on our bikes, ate some great food, and took a walking tour of the area. Another night the whole team went to a local restaurant for a special four course meal. The food and ambience was amazing!

   

After the races ended my friends and I went to Florence for one night. We ended up walking for about ten hours straight the first day and another six hours the next day. We saw a very large palace garden, some old bridges, some very elaborate churches, statues, cool street art and more. We also had some very good food and tried three different gelato shops. It was so good!

       

I realize now that I didn’t take any pictures of my food or gelato. I usually do take food pictures. I guess that shows how excited I was about every thing I ate. I really was delicious!