Night in Tunisia

Strangers and Friends

It's funny how you hear about people exclaiming over how different everything is in other countries and regions of the world. Since coming here I think mostly I was surprised at how much is the same. The people, the fashions, the work environment, the meetings. There are some notable differences, but nothing that's so big that you can't adjust with a little bit of effort. I think I'm learning that the most difficult thing is being alone and different.

We were reading in Jeune Afrique Intelligent (the african political/economic weekly magazine) that Tunisia's foreign population accounts for only 0.3% of the total population. That's small, really small. There are not quite 10 million people in Tunisia and about 3 million in Tunis. Even if you assume that all the foreigners are in Tunis (and I'm sure they are not) that's still not even one percent of the city's population. It is really homogeneous here. And while Loren can be mistaken for Arab/Tunisian, I pretty well can't. That means when we go out to coffee shops or walk through the busy, non-tourist locations, everybody looks. They're fairly polite, but all the same, they're looking, and it gets anoying. You begin to feel very isolated. Je suis l'étranger.

This is exactly what happened when we went to a small Café Saturday night for crepes, panini, coffee, frappes, milkshakes and chocolate hazlenut crepe dessert (thanks for the dinner Bruce!). Everybody was about our age but all glam-ed up for the evening, and we felt pretty foreign. I was enjoying the food, but lamenting the fact that we were pretty alientated there, when this woman comes up to us and starts speaking French. She thought we were French and she was so happy to see someone else there that would be cheering for France in the World Handball Championships (we were cheering for France, Canada got squashed near the beginning, Tunisia creamed us!). We explained that we were from Canada just as her friend joined her, and they started chatting and asking questions. When they found out we were newly arrived they asked for our phone number and said they'd invite us for dinner, which sounded great. Shortly after they left, Loren and I decided we should wish for friends more often!

New friends are good, but still, we're missing all you Canadians (and Venezuelans and Brazillians too!).

posted by tiaraletourneau @ 10:36 a.m.