Night in Tunisia

A Tour of Solidarity Town

Finally, today, we got our housing contract signed by the owner. We were given three copies with official looking stamps on them and were told that we would have to sign and get them approved with the minister of the interior. Very official.

My name is the one on the contract, and a fellow from work offered to get me to and from the place. I almost forgot. Then at 17:30 Khaled showed up to offer me a ride. He's a neat fellow. He has a limp on his right leg where the knee doesn't bend anymore. He injured it several years back when he was playing for the national soccer team. Now he works for ENDA, teaches soccer and plays in a local band. He's dynamic but quiet.

I grabbed my documents and got ready to go, but he hesitated.

"Is it okay? All I have is a moto." Oh, a small Yamaha motorcycle. Normaly that's sort of frowned on for girls, especially if they are not dating or family of the driver. Plus people here don't wear helmets. But there really wasn't any other way. "It's fine."

It was a fabulous ride. Everything happens slowly on a motorbike here. You dodge cracks, piles of bricks, dirt, manhole covers, potholes, children, balls. You move slowly and there is nothing between you and the world.

It's the poor district, Ettadhamen, like a ghetto in the US without the racism or colour divide. Ettadhamen means solidarity and it is the largest poor district in Africa, the Mexico city shanty town of the continent. Poverty is everywhere. You whistle by on the small motor's hum and you see old men on chairs in the street, grandmothers carying newborns, burnt tree stumps, crumbling buildings, pairs of green-uniformed national guardsmen, small vendors, children with patched up soccer balls, refuse and debris in the roads, beat up tin drums, vans with no doors and gutted interiors rusting along the roadside.

Most shocking is the number of young people. Young people in the streets, in the cafes, perched on second story balconies. Young people without jobs, not in school. Young people with children they can't afford to fully clothe. Look around you in the western world, the young people are not in the streets. It's disquieting. That troubled me most.

A few signatures and a few stamps later I have everything I need to ask for a residency card for Loren and I. A whirlwind ride back to ENDA and upstairs to write this note to you.

Missing you all and remembering how good we all have it.

posted by tiaraletourneau @ 5:43 p.m.