Hamdullah!
Which means my family and I are now celebrating Aid El-Fitr.
This celebration lasts for three days (Sunday through Tuesday).
There is a morning prayer (which I slept through) followed by gift giving (in the form of food) to the poor and disadvantaged.
I celebrated by dancing to the radio in the the kitchen.
Families visit one another, distant family telephone one another.
The phone here has been ringing continuously.
Next thing I hear is my mom answer and say “y-ayshek, y-ayshek, y-ayshek”
Aid El-Fitr also marks my third week being here.
I am happy to say that my days now flow by and have a comfortable structure, I have settled in.
…
Language is another thing that has settled into my brain.
My neurons are now programmed to hear and lightly speak Tunisie as my external stimulus has changed and forced me to adjust in this foreign environment.
That’s one way to look at it.
In other words, it is becoming second nature to hear a language I barely understand and day by day, recognize words heard over and over.
As for Arabic:
What I have come to realize is that learning Arabic is like taking a calculus class in kindergarten.
For every new letter we learn, we also learn a word.
We write it over and over in the book.
It all seems like one long algorithm.
Then we write it on our notebooks and show our professor.
She checks it and if we do it well, she praises us.
Satisfaction!
We then say it over and over and over and over.
We animate it with our hands.
Just Max and I.
We look at one another and laugh.
He just yodeled while attempting to pronounce that last word.
It’s just too hard to take this class seriously.
….
Monday marks lecture day and we were given one by Dr. Largueche, who talked to us about minorities throughout Tunisia.
She spoke English with a heavy accent, but as beautiful as it was, it was incredibly difficult to understand and follow.
My notes were messy and scrambled.
What I did manage to read from my notes was who immigrated here back in the 19th and 20th century.
Tunis was a desired seaport to immigrate to for people who lived in Sicily/Italy, France, Malta, Greece, Turkey and even Russia (during the Bolshevik Revolution).
There were also the Jewish, who had their own spot in the medina.
The Jewish were grouped by their religion as compared to which country they came from.
Although Tunisia was a French protectorate in the 1920’s, there were more Italians than any other minority group.
Those Italians, how could they?!
But miraculously by 1931, the French exceeded the Italian population.
Only by several hundred more, though.
I can only image how they did that.
Dr. Largueche further discussed how the minorities (excluding the French) were often given lower salaries and only a choice of certain professions.
Inequality.
But now everyone is equal and happy.
That’s about all I can recall before my notes get sloppy.
…
Tuesday marks our field-study seminar day, where we had a reading and discussion with our academic director about the difference between culture and civilization.
Our conclusion as to the difference between culture and civilization was that you could have “less civilized” or “more civilized” civilizations.
But with culture, you either have it or you do not.
Somehow poetry was tied into this.
Professor will always find a way to tie Wordsworth into any conversation.
He discussed the difference between the soul and the spirit and how one can change the spirit but not the soul.
The soul is the innermost center of us that houses everything that defines us, no matter how our life situation changes. It is our nature.
Our spirit is our second nature, one that is learned based off our surrounding.
Professor discussed how a flower is not beautiful but that we bestow beauty on it from our spirits.
That’s why we find it beautiful, because we believe it is based off our surroundings (learning by witnessing people admire a flower).
Somehow that is tied into our initial discussion on civilization and culture.
Somehow.
…
On Wednesday I encountered something worth describing gently.
With my own two eyes I witnessed two circumcisions.
(long and dramatic pause)
I feel like a changed woman.
The procedure took place on the dinner table.
The same table where we eat dinner every single night.
That’s so incredibly appetizing.
The two boys were sons of the woman who cleans the house on the weekends.
It was a family event and relatives came from everywhere.
As I rush to put something on worth labeling “circumcision festivities attire,” I race down the stairs in time to catch the two doctors enter the house.
One man, one woman.
They neatly place sheets over the table, lay out their tools and gracefully put their official white jackets on.
The boys sit like princes in their seats, watching.
My mom wants a picture with the seated boys and I, standing awkwardly behind them.
She gives the camera to my old grandfather who’s slouching over his cane.
He struggles to get the right angle, momentarily pauses, squints a little and poof the flash goes off.
(I NEED to see this photo – just to feel this classic moment in history)
My grandma closes the doors and window shutters.
This was serious business, too much for me.
I walk outside.
Mimi and I sat on the swings with the kids running around.
She says, “Its okay, it’s much better outside.”
There’s plenty of kids here for this event.
Why?
Because someone has to entertain them, duh.
The kids jump up and down. Run left and right. Do some headstands. Play with my hair. They talk to me and I nod with hesitation. They concentrate for five second and are briefly distracted by a slug.
Distraction, distraction, distraction.
The dog barks from behind the house.
The two brave boys get to see the dog right before their special time, in their gold and white royal getup.
I hear my name in the window and peer in.
My grandmother is ushering me inside to partake in this ordeal.
I felt squeamish but a little adventurous.
The same incense I recognized from Catholic mass was fuming outside the window.
Walking inside, there was a gathered apprehension that could be felt with the twenty relatives in the room.
Women wailed and I watched.
Silence.
The door opens and the first boy was up to bat.
As he was six, he had to be brave for his four-year old brother, who impatiently waits outside.
His bravery lasts for less than a minute.
As his screams get louder, so does the music.
There is mere terror in the four-year-old cries from outside.
The boys are communicating from inside, out.
Meanwhile I had the front seat.
Not by choice.
The male doctor is giving me step-by-step instructions on how to properly give a good circumcision.
Now I know everything!
My mother zooms around the room with a Kodax disposable camera taking up-close shots to make the moment last forever.
She’s quite the photographer.
After twenty minutes of injections, snips, stitches and finally bandages, boy number one is done.
Next is the little one.
He clutches to his father.
The female doctor has to tickle him to get him off his father.
Once on the table, his body is spread with his father grabbing his arms and his uncle clutching his legs.
His father buries his face onto the little boy’s to reassure him that everything will be okay.
The same steps are followed and the rest is history.
Well not to the disposable camera, anyway.
…
On Thursday it was Geri’s 21st birthday.
We celebrated by getting small cakes.
We were eventually disappointed with all them.
Now we know which bakery to avoid
…
Some observations I have made over the past weeks:
Tunisian radio plays club music daily and I find it odd where they play this music.
Such as in the grocery store.
Breezing through the store we come across rows of juice and soda.
We hear remixed songs of MGMT.
I didn’t know that was possible.
But one thing I can say: it really does make food shopping more exciting.
I wish the US would catch on to this.
…
Apparently there is some relation between the term “internet” and “toilet”.
Whenever I say the internet isn’t working, my sister always goes to flush the toilet.
She then comes back into the room to tell me that it is now working.
I’ve given up on the wireless internet and say, “Perfect, thank you.”
…
I should have mentioned this observation earlier, as it is an immediate observation one makes when they enter a country, but there is a lack of US, British and Canadian travelers/tourists here.
I have come across one and I think he was Australian now that I think about it.
Although they play old, bad music from the US, most influence is from Western Europe.
No fast-food globalization, just Coke.
I can live with that.
You have got to pick a better background color - my eyes are burning! Nice writing, interesting style.
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