Night in Tunisia

Brown Green Monsters

I thought I would relate a moment from the trip that Loren and I took last weekend. We traveled out of the city toward the west of the northern tip of Tunisia, into the foothills and "mountains" that stretch from the centre to the border with Algeria. It was a fabulous trip, and the world became greener and greener as we climbed in altitude.

We saw some amazing things. Forests of olive trees, overhangs and caves where wild cows birth their calves, foot-long green striped lizards scurrying over the red earth and red-purple rocks, two royal eagles, turns, swallows, skinny white water snakes, wild rosemary growing EVERYWHERE (we picked a small shub's worth for cooking), a Muslim Saint's final resting place, natural springs and newly dug earth irigation ditches, and more.

It was a hot four hour hike up the mountain and we had a marvelous time (and I got a little burnt too!). But the real highlight was at the end. When an unplanned meeting began, in Arabic with a visiting Palestinan Microfinance consultant, Loren and I and a few others walked down to a small river, formed from the culmination of small irigation culverts running together. It had a flat bottom made of concrete in a park-like setting and there were children playing and men praying and picknicks here and there.

We heard frogs singing, and Clair, a French volunteer, said first person to catch a frog wins! I've never tried to catch a frog. I wasn't really sure how to go about it. They move very quickly, and they are slipery, right? So I figured I would find one and then circle my hands around it slowly. One had been singing near a family sitting on the edge of the river on the wall that stands about four feet high. I saw it's froggy eyes poking out of the muck so I reached down and slowly circled my hands about it. When it moved it was too late. It managed to get its head out between two fingers and one foot out too. I lifted it up triumphantly and the woman sitting on the ledge, who had been following my activities with her two little boys, let out a scream and lept back onto the grass. Her husband burst out laughing. I guess she hadn't thought the frog would look so much like a little brown-green monster!

I caught two that day, though no body else did. But I was sure to catch them well away from the family on the wall. That, I think was the highlight of the trip!

posted by tiaraletourneau @ 10:53 a.m.