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!

My Neighbor’s Wedding Celebrations!

My landlord’s youngest son, my downstairs neighbor, got married this summer and they made sure I went to all the events as though I was one of the family.

The first event was weeks before the wedding when the bride and her family moved all her wedding gifts into the new house. (It’s normal to receive wedding gifts at any point after the engagement party). A little after 11pm a caravan of about thirty people arrived with a great number of baskets and boxes full of gifts. The bride’s family greeted the groom’s family, drinking tea and chatting for a couple of hours.

On August 3rd the grooms family got together early in the morning, and after a few hours when everyone had arrived they took gifts to the brides family. They had prepared three large baskets of cookies, a basket with many bottles of a special Tunisian juice, a basket full of gifts for guests, a lamb, and a giant fish. Then they went to the Bride’s family’s house and they ate couscous together. Then later that evening the brides family hosted about two hundred guests at their house for the signing of the wedding papers.

    

On August 8th there was a small gathering at the groom’s house in which the family blessed the new couple’s home and then ate couscous together.
On August 9th the bride’s family hosted the Hena Party, a party mostly for women. As is tradition, the bride wore three traditional dresses and danced in circles to the music while wearing the first two. The bride’s are supposed to slowly turn around in circles numerous times while wearing very heavy dresses and high-heels with their eyes closed. The Hena Party planner stood on the stage with the bride making sure she kept proper form and didn’t fall over. During the second dance the bride asked the helper to tell the musicians to sing a different song so she didn’t have to turn in circles anymore. She looked exhausted! It’s definitely not an easy task.
For the presentation of her last dress she walked in with the groom and his family, followed by people holding candles. This time she wore a crown instead of a golden veil. The bride and groom sat together on a fancy couch, then they danced a little and then posed for pictures.

   
 

Then on August 12th they had the last wedding celebration. For this event over four hundred guests gathered at a very nice reception hall outside of Sousse at about 10pm. After about an hour the bride and groom arrived escorted by their families. They sat on the stage in front of all the guests while the guests talked, ate appetizers, and danced. At the end of the night the bride and groom danced with the guests and then had their last photo session with the guests.

 

Check out the following article to read a journalists view on Tunisian Weddings.  Huffington Post: My Big Fat Tunisian Wedding