Sunday, March 29, 2009

Nabeul, Tunisia

In Which Jason is Sheared

Settling into life in Nabeul

During our first week in Tunis, our trusty guide, Youssef, offered to take us on a driving tour of Northern Tunisia to help us decide where we wanted to live during our three months in the country. We settled on a quaint little city of 50,000 inhabitants called Nabeul, which is on the Mediterranean coast, about an hour south of the capital. Nabeul is a much smaller and more traditional town than modern Tunis and is known for its pottery and oranges. We were instantly smitten by the city’s charm—horse-drawn carriages still clomp through the medina, and there is a lovely outdoor souk.

We also chose Nabeul because Youssef lives in the nearby village of Hammamet. He has been an Allah-send during our first three weeks here in North Africa. He started by finding us a cute little three-bedroom, white-washed traditional stucco with arched doorways and azure tiles. It’s very simple, but the price is right and the location is convenient—just three blocks from the Mediterranean and a fifteen-minute walk from the souk. The house is surrounded by a small grassy yard where little Cruz spends the mornings herding his new pet turtles, Bob and Scratchy Bone Face, while Bella and Cyrus are busy with homeschool. The kids have also adopted nine feral kittens we found behind the dumpster on the other side of our road. (They were so adorable and scrawny that I could hardly say no, could I? I just hope we got all the right vaccinations.)

Though I miss my New Mexican desert, I must admit that I don’t mind being near the sea again. In the afternoons, when homeschooling and work are finished and our feral fur balls have been tended to, we spend hours strolling along the shore. We usually head out with the intention of studying the marine environment, but most often end up gathering trash instead: empty water bottles, cigarette butts, and plastic bags blown by the spring wind into putrid heaps. At first I was hesitant to collect litter since I don’t want anyone to think I’m casting judgment. But there’s just so much of it! Ultimately I caved. Now I never leave the house without bringing a few empty trash bags to fill. And really, thanks to the foul weather, there aren’t all that many other people strolling the beach who might notice our covert trash collecting.

Other than the rubbish, though, I have found precisely zero similarities between the beach scene here and that back in Brazil. First, here in Tunisia women are expected to be covered from head to toe so as not to be a source of temptation for the menfolk. This dress code seems to apply everywhere, even on the shoreline. Second, we have learned that the Mediterranean is downright frigid in March, a fact they don’t highlight in tourist brochures. So even if we did get the urge, heaven forbid, to bare any flesh above the wrists, it would be too cold for us to do so. This, by the way, has been a happy coincidence, which has put off the discussion that I know is coming just as soon as Bella realizes we are wearing long sleeves, not just to ward off the chill, but because there are different rules here for men and women.

There are certain dos and don’ts for men too, of course, and Jason was a bit slow to clue in on one particular fashion faux pas. When we first met Youssef, he teased Jason playfully on a number of occasions about his beard, which had grown bushy in recent weeks. Jason had already noticed that Tunisian men were nearly all clean-shaven. He wasn’t sure, though, whether his beard was just outrageously out of style (which has been the case everywhere else we’ve ever visited, a fact that has never influenced his dubious grooming regimen), or whether the reason for Tunisia’s beardless society might run deeper. Last weekend we learned the answer to that question.

Youssef took us on a tour of northwestern Tunisia to visit Carthage and the archaeological site of Bulla Regia. Bulla Regia is a former Roman city where inhabitants once sought shelter from the fierce North African heat and sun by heading underground. Intricate mosaic floors still lay intact in the ancient subterranean dwellings. After leaving the site, we made our way to the village of Tabarka near the Algerian border. One morning, when we were hiking through a cork forest just outside the village, Jason pressed Youssef about the beard question. Youssef’s answer surprised us. “To wearing a beard in Tunisia is to asking for the trouble. The Tunisian government takes proud to rule the most moderate of all Arab countries, and President Ben Ali goes to big length to make it that way.” Apparently, if a Muslim man were to appear to be fanatical in any way, he could be labeled a terrorist, and this would win him constant harassment by the police. Youssef explained that the full beard is considered a radical statement worn only by devotees who follow too literally the example of the (unshaven) prophet Muhammad. “So, yes, though the beard is common in too fundamental of Islamic societies,” Youssef suggested as he narrowed his gaze toward the Algerian border, “it is not proper in a moderate society like Tunisia.”

The last straw for Youssef came later that afternoon when a shopkeeper struck up a conversation with Jason over a roll of toilet paper, which is apparently an odd request in this neck of the world. Jason pulled out all the Arabic words he could think of and strung them together. Somehow the shopkeeper confused him for a native speaker. He did sense something a little off about Jason’s accent, though, and asked whether maybe he was from Algeria. Youssef snatched the toilet paper, paid the shopkeeper hastily, and marched Jason directly down the street to the nearest barbershop. Moments later Jason was enjoying the closest shave of his life at the hands of an impeccably-groomed, matador-looking barber who took his work very seriously. He skillfully maneuvered Jason’s wide-eyed face this way and that with one hand while working magic with a straight razor in the other. The children and Youssef looked on, snickering. The barber eventually stilled his hands and stood back to admire his work. Satisfied, he ripped off the towel, left Jason to contemplate the shorn beard that now lay beneath his hiking boots, and awaited his next victim. I asked whether maybe, while he was at it, he could do something about Cyrus’s helmet head. But Youssef interjected, suggesting that we might be better off waiting until we were back in the Nabeul if we wanted any actual styling. “Out here,” he whispered, “they are accustoming only to the shearing of the sheep.”

Back in Nabeul spring has sprung, and the delicate orange blossoms for which the town is famous have burst into bloom. The air is as thick and sweet as the Arabic coffee we’ve grown addicted to. There’s even an orange blossom distillery here in town where they make orange blossom water. Each frothy cup of Arabic coffee is topped with a drop or two of the aromatic essence, which lends a floral aroma to balance the bittersweet delicacy. It’s amazing how something you didn’t even know existed just a month ago can suddenly become an indispensable addition to your traveling kitchen kit. I’ve already purchased three bottles of orange blossom water to send home.

I was elated to find an English translation of the Koran the other day in the medina. I must admit that I am totally ignorant when it comes to the particulars of the Islamic religion, so reading the holy book has been an eye-opening experience, to say the least. I was surprised, for example, to find out right near the beginning (which is actually at the end since you read it from back to front), that the Koran suggests a kinship between Muslims, Jews, and Christians given that the followers of all three religions are believers in the One God. It has been a real page-turner thus far, and Youssef has been helping me by explaining the finer points.

He has also hooked us up with our new teachers. Fadoua is a lovely young art student who Youssef coaxed into giving us Arabic language lessons. She comes to our home every other day and spends an hour with the kids and then another with Jason and me. Thanks to Fadoua’s efforts, we’re slowly decoding the Arabic alphabet. It is so different from any language we’ve ever studied, though, that lessons are slow going. Arabic script is written in a cursive style from right to left, to start with, which is why books are read from the back cover to the front. Since there’s only so much we’ll be able to learn in three months, after just a few lessons we all decided it might be best if we focus our efforts on spoken, rather than written, Arabic. Fadoua is now concentrating lessons on essential market terminology—fruits, vegetables, colors, numbers, units of measurement, “where’s the closest toilet,” etcetera. All the phrases we need to survive the souk, where we spend a good deal of time gathering ingredients for Jason’s experiments in Tunisian cuisine.

Lucky for me, many Tunisians also speak French due to their history of French occupation. We’re finding that most Westerners who visit Tunisia these days are from France, now that the two countries are back on speaking terms. As a result, when locals see us coming they generally switch to French, assuming that’s our native tongue. Thus far, I haven’t bothered to correct them, or to suggest that they learn to speak American. I can generally rely on my broken French to get my point across if Arabic isn’t coming to me. Fadoua has begun incorporating French into our lessons as well, so hopefully between the two languages, we’ll be more adept at communicating soon. In the meantime, all five of us are becoming quite skillful in the art of gesticulation.

Youssef also set me up with a talented music teacher named Riadh who is giving me lessons three times each week. Riadh is a stocky, soft-spoken forty-something with a shy, clean-shaven face that’s quick to smile, showing off the gap between his front teeth. He wears a flat wool driver cap and sport jacket, and seems to favor the same scent of aftershave as Pa. A few weeks ago, Youssef invited Riadh to our home to see whether we would be a good match for lessons. Riadh casually pulled out his oude, which is Tunisia’s traditional stringed instrument similar to a lute, and proceeded to play one of Pa’s favorite cover tunes, Smoke on the Water. My jaw dropped. Youssef explained that Riadh is in a local rock and/or roll band that specializes in British and American rock from the 60s and 70s. I didn’t know such a thing existed in Tunisia, and I certainly never thought I’d live to hear Deep Purple being rocked on the oude.

Ever since that evening, I’ve been making daily trip’s to Riadh’s home where he is teaching me traditional North African songs on the oude as well as others that he has adapted for the guitar. His lessons have been soul therapy—almost like jamming with Pa. Except with a North African flare. And in French, out of necessity, since Riadh speaks no English and my Arabic is paltry. Occasionally Riadh’s young wife, Hanen, will throw in some Italian just to make things interesting.

Our favorite day each week is Friday when Nabeul hosts its weekly artisan market. In years gone by, the market was allegedly famous for camel trading. Nowadays, the souk overflows with hand-painted crystal tea sets, chessboards, brightly colored tagines and scads of traditional Tunisian pottery. This ceramic tradition is another reason we chose Nabeul as our home-base. I have been an amateur potter since college when I first discovered the therapeutic benefits of spending hours with my hands in the mud. So I jumped when Youssef recently suggested that he might be able to arrange an apprenticeship for me with one of the local potters. When we were back in Santa Fe preparing for this adventure, and I realized that my kiln was not going to fit into either my back-pack or my carry-on, I understood that a few of my less-portable hobbies would have to be shelved until our return. Teary-eyed, I bid farewell to my kiln and my garden and latched onto my camera instead.

Jason had to say goodbye to many of his hobbies as well, of course, and the one I miss most is his home brewing. He’s been making beer since his first gig in a brewery fourteen years ago in Colorado. Over the past decade, he has made some of the most delicious beers I’ve ever tasted. I could really go for one of his IPAs right now. We’ve been searching for any sign of good beer in each country thus far with no luck whatsoever. Peru and Brazil did each have their own version of light lager swill, akin to Budweiser. But swill is best left for the pigs. Thus far in our search, we have no good craft beer discoveries to report. This has been a downer since craft brewing seems to be experiencing a real renaissance back in the US, and we’re missing out.

In Tunisia, our chances of finding good beer are even slimmer, unfortunately, since alcohol is strictly forbidden by the Koran. Which brings up an interesting point. Tunisia makes some darn good wines. This was a happy, if baffling, surprise since we had assumed we were entering a dry country. Most of the friends we’ve made thus far in Tunisia, come to think of it, don’t seem to have any issues with drinking. In fact, at the gatherings we’ve attended thus far, they have spent a good portion of their time demonstrating the absence of this particular hang-up. Still, I have noticed that they tend to draw the curtains tight before popping open a bottle. Youssef claims that Tunisians are very relaxed when it comes to their interpretation of this particular section of the Koran. He did quickly point out, though, that the same is not true in nearby Algeria, “There, if your neighbors find of alcohol consumption, they will next morning be on your front porch with a big gun.”

Last night we invited all of our new Tunisian friends to our home for an impromptu soiree. Cyrus helped Jason in the kitchen, preparing his famous Buffalo chicken wings, while Hanen taught me how to make the perfect cup of Arabic coffee—with just the right ratio of grounds and froth. Fadoua and Youssef lounged with Cruz and Bella on the living room floor, reluctantly petting our feral fur balls. Later in the evening, after little ones had been tucked into bed, Youssef pulled the shades and uncorked a bottle of the red Tunisian wine he brought for the occasion. Riadh entertained us with traditional melodies on the oude, interspersed occasionally with Eagles tunes. As I reclined in my plastic lawn chair, savoring a warming glass of wine, I realized how incredibly fortunate I was to be in this wonderful circle of new friends, settling into our life in Nabeul.