Night in Tunisia

Like It, Hate It

Today makes five and a half weeks in Tunisia. I'm starting to wonder at what point I should consider myself settled. Our house is still incomplete and we haven't got a bank account here or our residence permits. We're not registered with the local Social Security and Loren's contracts are still not signed. A feeling of impermanence hangs over the whole motion and mechanic of our existence here. And yet... Now we can get anywere in a cab without much difficulty, we know how to shop in the markets and what's a fair price. We can understand enough arabic to know what the general topic was (mostly by association and gestures, mind) and the little appartment in Nasr 1 is the only place we think of as home.

But still, there's this war of like it, hate it. These opposing sensations flick through my mind like buildings outside the taxi window in the moring. How long am I supposed to be here before I don't think of it in likes and dislikes? Does that ever happen? Will I ever really get to a point where it's all just "the way things are"?

There's enough stress from cultural surprises, structural differences and local managerial practices here for me to question if I shouldn't just have stayed in Edmonton and kept my mouth shut. On the other hand, stressful as it is, I work in microfinance in a developing nation and that kind of experience goes a long way. On the difficult days I only am able to think of lasting a year. On the good days, time doesn't matter. I wonder for any of you who have lived abroad if you felt the same things as I am now. Is all this introspection and waffling a result of some deeply imprinted human behavioural characteristic? That, at least, would be good to know.

And today?

Today is a medium day, as I wrestle with a cold and an intimidating project at work (newly responsible for drafting the organization's strategic plan for 2005, imagine!). I wish for slightly warmer weather and happy co-directors, whose moods forever mirror each other because they are married. At lunch today, after his first lesson of the day, Loren will read to me from The Time Traveler's Wife in the courtyard. That's often the very best part of the day.

posted by tiaraletourneau @ 9:00 a.m.