Night in Tunisia

squeegee kids do it differently in Tunis

Many things are done a little differently in Tunisia. Squeegee kids, for example. In north American cities they can be seen lurking on street corners ready to pounce on the next victim/dirty windshield - and have been a source of frustration for city lawmakers who decry them as over-agressive and scruffy image-despoilers.

Here, there are no squeegee kids. There are no punk-styled spikey-haired scary kids in army fatigues ready to launch themselves at innocent vehicles. There are, in fact, very few punky kids anywhere. There are, however, street-corner vendors - usually young boys - who sell what appears to be a rotating inventory of stuff. And stuff is the only word that fits.

I have seen them outright begging, I've seen them selling photocopies of pages from the Q'ran, I've seen them selling coffee-cup holders and sun-screens (the fold-out aluminum ones for car windshields - saw one with cute little puppies on it today), and kites.

The latter is the one that particularly cracked me up. They came out about two weeks ago, and I saw the last kite-seller yesterday (remember - rotating inventory. Wherever they get their stuff, they seem to all be selling the same thing at any given time). What really got me about the kites, though, was the pattern: huge rainbow triangles.

For someone with a modicum of exposure to the GLBTQ (gay / lesbian / bisexual / transsexual / queer) community back in Canada, the rainbow triangle is a bit of a loaded symbol. The symbol of GLBTQ solidarity and support throughout North America. The symbol of a fight against injustice, injury and otherwise inequitable treatment. Here it's just a pretty picture.

The contrast, the disconnect, the clash of cultures is often hilarious. Like seeing an older very conservative arabic man wearing a shirt with "Wannabe Spice Girl" as a coworker related to me yesterday.

Old world meets new world. Almost. More like new world collides with old world and the resuting chaos has its little moments of absurdist humour.

posted by Loren @ 11:44 a.m.