If you’re a fan of beauty, the environment and being treated like a person rather than a bank/bottle-shop/floosy then you would probably find Tunisia a bit challenging. There are good things about the country and I am going to highlight them but I’m also going to impart my general impressions and generally speaking, our time in Tunisia was a bit shit. Having said that, if you’re only going to be in the country for a few weeks you probably won’t be as affected by the less salubrious aspects of the place as we were during our three month stay. The negative experiences we had would most likely be mere annoyances during a short visit but proved to be exhausting and kind of soul crushing after a month or two.

Before we begin, just one caveat I want to get out of the way. Each of the negative experiences I’m going to touch on here could easily be the subject of an in-depth sociological/anthropological/political/philosophical essay. After spending five years at university studying exactly those subjects and 3.5 years working with asylum seekers and refugees as a social worker you’d probably think I’d be keen to get my academic on and sink my teeth into these complex social issues. Well, I’m not. I’m just putting them out there. This is what I saw/experienced, this is how I felt about it, the end.

The Entire Country Needs a Woman’s Touch

You can tell that women don’t get much of a say in Tunisia because everything man-made is utilitarian, undecorated, unadorned, un-beautified, bleak, barren… you get my drift. To be in a place so devoid of any charm or beauty weighed on me. I suppose that will sound rather petty and frivolous to some but it’s important to me.

A Sign of Progress

We had a very interesting conversation with a man who was a big fan of Osama Bin Laden. Probably the only thing he said that made any sense to me was his dismay at the Tunisian government’s pro-Western policies and the price he saw his country paying for “development”. Quite simply the more Tunisia “develops”, the more stuff is consumed and discarded and the result is pretty depressing.

Do I look like a bank/bottle-shop/floosy?!

We actually met a lot of really friendly people in Tunisia, but unfortunately we were obviously considered easy targets by the country’s entire population of douche-canoes. Mike and I really stood out in Tunisia and a lot of people would say hi, ask us where we were from and welcome us to their country and a lot of those same people would ask us for money or whisky – which is to be expected as westerners in a developing country but gets draining after a while. On top of that, Tunisian men seem to be under the impression that western women are well up for it (and I suppose some of them are), as a significant amount of the encounters I had with men involved one or more of the following:

1. Asking if I was married (usually the first thing they ask, presumably in order to know where they stand but seem perfectly happy to ignore my marital status as well)
2. Touching me (holding my hand, hugging me, stroking my cheek, putting their arm around me)
3. Asking if Mike is my brother
4. Telling me I am very beautiful, have beautiful eyes, etc
5. Asking me to touch my elbows together behind my back (admittedly this only happened once)
6. Asking me out for “coffee”

In the interest of full-discolure the worst of these encounters did occur when I was inappropriately dressed. A singlet top must be a veritable feast for the eyes in a country where not even men wear short sleeves. My bad.

I Miss Women

You don’t see women very often in Tunisia. Public space is for men. There’s something about an all male presence which imbues a place with a menacing air (just me?).

Having said all of that, Tunisia does have some extraordinary places. If you’re travelling to Tunisia, these are the places that would be criminal to miss:

Sfax Medina

We’d read about bad experiences other people had had with aggressive stall owners at medinas (and then experienced it in Tunis) but consistently read that Sfax medina is an exception. We went and it was. We weren’t hassled at all (look at that guy, he barley even knows we’re there).

A highlight of our entire trip to Tunisia was meeting these two young women at the Sfax medina. They were like a breath of fresh air. It was just wonderful getting a young woman’s perspective on life in Tunisia after having only spoken to men for such a long time.

Ksar Ouled Soltane

This place was just plain cool. We even got an impromptu religion lesson (he called it “history”, Mike called it “mythology”) from a guy who was selling his art out of one of the rooms. Such a shame they don’t build them like this anymore.

Chenini

To be honest, I didn’t actually see much of Chenini given the intense concentration I was devoting to not being blown away or getting fistfuls of sand in my eyes, nose and mouth. Plus I may have had a concussion so who am I to say whether or not you should go there. The photos turned out pretty though.

The Sahara

Indescribable. Just do it. No questions asked.

The Chott El Jerrid Salt Lake

Magical. THE highlight of my time in Tunisia. I just looove the quirky little salt sculptures and decorations too.

Dougga’s Roman Ruins

The most intact Roman ruins we’ve visited. They were so startling complete I could easily imagine what this town would have looked like. It put me in mind of Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings with its tiered streets built into the side of the hill.

Miscellaneous Pretties

Wow, you’re still here?! Thank you for coming with me on this epic journey. If you’ve somehow still got more in you and are craving details of our Tunisian adventure head over to my partner’s blog for all the juicy bits.

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I’m very excited to be a part of Andrea Schroeder’s new online group “Creating Dreams Come True“. Turns out, our first assignment is to start a list of 100 things we want to do, be, or have! Her theory (in direct opposition to mine) is that to come up with 100, stretches you to dream bigger and really expands your ideas of what is possible. So, in the interest of being open to new ideas and having a bit of fun, I’m going with it. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

1. Go on a hot air balloon ride somewhere spectacularly beautiful
2. Successfully sell my collage papers on Etsy
3. Successfully sell my paintings and digitally altered photography on Red Bubble and Image Kind
4. Find my community and make true friendships with other creative, kindred spirits
5. Build a wardrobe full of flattering, quirky, beautiful clothes with lots of skirts, gorgeous footwear, and accessories
6. Have several side projects that earn an income from our travelling – photography, e-books, blog, etc
7. Learn bookbinding
8. Be an accomplished artist
9. Be an excellent conversationalist
10. Own an original Heather Haynes painting
11. Learn how to make pottery
12. Learn to sew
13. Create a children’s book
14. See the aurora borealis
15. Travel Canada in our motorhome
16. Travel New Zealand in our motorhome
17. Make friends in every country we travel to
18. Accept, forgive, and let go
19. Learn the story of my adoption
20. Go paragliding somewhere spectacularly beautiful
21. Practise yoga
22. Join a lively, fun, and friendly book club
23. Patronise contemporary and jazz dance productions
24. Patronise the theatre
25. Own a cozy, rustic cottage in the hills with a studio and an open fireplace
26. Continue to travel Europe in our motorhome
27. Hike the Alps
28. Patronise classical music concerts
29. Attend the Venice Carnival
30. Experience the midnight sun
31. Live in Ireland
32. Live in Paris
33. Live in London
34. For Mike and I to meet our target monthly income from our creative endeavours alone
35. Get to know my brother’s fiance and be a part of my niece’s life
36. Practise meditation
37. Travel Tasmania, Australia, in our motorhome
38. Feel strong and powerful in my body (I totally plagiarised that from Andrea but her wording was just so perfect!)

Wow, over a third of the way there and there’s still such a long way to go! I can see what Andrea means, I really am going to have to get a bit outrageous to make it to 100!

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December 19 Car Ride

What did you see? How did it smell? Did you eat anything as you drove there? Who were you with?

Oh wow, the last 6 months have been one big car ride. Since we picked up our motorhome, “Nettle”, in the Cotswolds, England we’ve driven her through a bit of English countryside, across Wales, all around Ireland and Northern Ireland, back across the UK, from the top of France to the bottom, from the top of Italy to the bottom and then a little bit of Tunisia in Northern Africa. That’s a lot of driving. Of course, some legs have been better than others. I really can’t narrow it down to just one car ride so I’m gonna go ahead and say Ireland and Northern Ireland was one big awesome road trip. I could write a very lengthy blog article just on this one prompt! I’m going to be very restrained and just dot point a few highlights with 1 photo each. If you feel an uncontrollable desire to read about our journeys in elaborate detail check out my very diligent partner’s blog.

Highlights:

• Brightly coloured flowers growing wild along the sides of the roads and clinging to steep hill sides

• The in-between bits – they were just as beautiful as the destinations we were driving to

• A spontaneous detour that took us through the Wicklow Mountains and the first place that made me go “this is why I’ve been dying to travel all my life”

• The Giant’s Causeway Coastal Tour – A driving tour described in “The European Driver’s Handbook”

• Connemara national park – stark, breathtaking, rugged

• Dingle Peninsula -You could believe in faeries and magik and elves in this enchanting place.

• The Ring of Kerry (which was actually pretty disappointing to be honest, but the second half of the drive redeemed itself)

December 20 New Person

She came into your life and turned it upside down. He went out of his way to provide incredible customer service. Who is your unsung hero of 2009.

My partner Mike, and I were befriended by a local Sicilian whilst hiking in the Mt Etna national park one day. He was on his way to a celebration of Sicily’s patron saint with his Alpine club and invited us to come along. There was much eating and singing and dancing. Our new friend and a friend of his then invited us to go see a few of the local natural sights with them another day. Of course, we couldn’t believe our luck and were more than happy to accept the generous invitation. As they showed us the sights they would point out which plants were poisonous, which were good for haemorrhoids, and which ones can crack lava with their roots. They picked various exotic fruits and berries for us to eat along the way. We were then invited to a road rally and then another road rally, dinner at a very special seafood restaurant, a trip to a food expo at Italy’s largest shopping centre with our friend’s mother and partner, and a road trip to a wetland park where flamingos were pitch stopped on their way to Africa for the winter. We’ve been invited back in the spring and summer for some special annual events and have been offered a house to stay in rent-free.

I’ve never met someone so friendly and open and generous. He has almost 700 friends in facebook and I’m not surprised. I’m so unused to such genuine kindness from strangers I frequently found myself entertaining uncharitable thoughts about what could possibly be in it for him and how this could all be a scam, an intricate long-con. I have trust issues. He certainly did come into my life and turn it upside down, as did all the other Sicilians we met who went out of their way to help us. My entire perception of human kind will be forever altered for the better for having met these uncommonly kind Sicilians.

December 21 Project

What did you start this year that you’re proud of?

I have big [for me, not world domination big] plans. I’m so excited. I’m working on them everyday and I’m loving every day. I’ve plunged myself into creating an online creative business. I’m learning how to use photoshop so I can create collage papers to sell as pdf’s on etsy. I love them so much that I look at them every now and then throughout the day. I’m painting every other day and I hope to sell my paintings on Red Bubble. When I decided I’d like to sell prints of my art work on Red Bubble I thought maybe I’d have something good enough in a couple of months. Two days later I had something I was super proud of and am more than happy to put out there in the ether to be looked at and judged and maybe rejected. I’m also learning how to digitally alter photos and am hoping to sell these on Red Bubble also. Just a month ago I hadn’t even entertained the notion of selling my art and now I have an action plan, baby! I feel so energised and things feel so right. I feel like for the first time in my life I’m doing something that I can excel at if I just give it my time and hard work.

December 22 Start-up

What’s a business that you found this year that you love? Who thought it up? What makes it special?

This is very biased of me and it’s also something that I’ve already blogged about so I’m sort of cheating.

December 23 Web Tool

It came into your work flow this year and now you couldn’t live without it. It has simplified or improved your online experience.

Since starting out on this crazy new slow travel lifestyle of ours, Mike and I have been keeping tabs on our expenses so we know how much we need to earn to feasibly do this indefinitely. We’ve been religiously using an iphone app called “iExpenseIt” – terrible name, I know, but it’s a good app. Thanks to this nifty app we know that slow travelling in expensive Italy cost us on average $48 (AUD) a day and since we’ve been in Thrifty Tunisia we’ve been making do on $27 a day. That’s cheaper than living and paying rent in Melbourne, Australia. Add a 30% buffer to cover savings and unforeseen expenses and we need to earn $62 a day (based on expenses in Italy) to continue living our dream. It feels so liberating to know how much we need to be earning and aim for that instead of aimlessly earning as much as we can. If you’re interested in this kind of lifestyle and philosophy, check out The Four Hour Work Week.

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December 13

What’s the best change you made to the place you live?

Anyone who even vaguely knows myself or my partner knows the answer to this one but for those of you who are friends we have yet to meet, in July this year we bought a motorhome in the UK. Her name is Nettle. I wish she looked like this:

but alas, she’s the sturdier more beefy breed of German gal:

… although she does come with a chimney.

December 14 Rush

When did you get your best rush of the year?

I might just ramble a bit here and see if I’ve answered the question by the end of it. I’m a big wuss. Always have been. I don’t like scary rides at theme parks. They make me feel queasy. In primary school I dreaded the end of school break up when we would all go to our tiny town’s amusement park. When all the other kids were giddy with excitement I was dreading the water slide, especially the one that was an enclosed tube that all the big kids liked. I wasn’t too keen on the toboggan either. And then there were the geese that would chase after me. I don’t push myself to do the things that scare me I simply avoid them. It’s a character flaw, I know. I’m okay with that. So, needless to say I haven’t done anything too rush inducing this year. Whilst writing this I’ve sorted through the meagre, somewhat vivifying activities that have made the short list and this is all I’ve got. There’s really no way I can’t make this sound lame. A severe change in weather on a hike in the Central Sperrin’s Way in Ireland is what did it for me. I’m not sure I can describe it exactly but I’ll give it a go. There was nothing particularly hairy about the hike; no vertigo inducing precipices to be skirted or swaying rope bridges to be braved. Just a lovely, hilly, oftentimes boggy terrain to be leisurely trundled. It was a beautiful day and after walking steadily uphill for quite some time we were fairly hot and sweaty. When we finally crested the summit we found ourselves in the turbulent cloud layer. It was awesome. We were buffeted by a fiercely strong wind, pounded by icy cold rain and a dark layer of swiftly moving clouds surrounded us. I was elated. That’s all. The pure joy of being out in the elements and the intense surprise of the extreme weather exhilarated me. Quite a rush.   

December 15 Best Packaging

Did your headphones come in a sweet case? See a bottle of tea in another country that stood off the shelves?

Self righteous hippy outrage isn’t usually my style but I feel a rant coming on. You have been warned! Throughout our travels in Europe we’ve noticed a distressing trend towards over packaging. Things come in boxes which come in plastic then the things in the boxes are divided into smaller portions that are covered in more plastic. It’s out of control. I’m boycotting Twinnings after discovering that they’re tea bags are individually wrapped! How ridiculous, how pretentious, how irresponsible! Which brings me to the best packaging. We’ve been in Tunisia for a month now. We do grocery shopping here and of course there are many differences such as the deafeningly loud Islamic singing playing in one supermarket but by far the biggest difference I’ve noticed is in the packaging, or lack thereof. In the small grocery stores that dot the streets, everything from olives to beans to sugar can be found in vats or bins or buckets to be scooped into a bag. The focus is truly on providing the produce in the most economical way possible with none of the branding or marketing that has led to boutique individually wrapped products in more developed countries. Even olive oil can be bought in re-used water bottles. It’s not always pretty and I have no idea how hygienic it is but it’s refreshing.

December 16 Tea of the Year

I can taste my favourite tea right now. What’s yours?

Mike and I were befriended by a local Tunisian the other week. He took us out for coffee the day we met then that night we went out for dinner and tea afterwards. I’ve yet to see a woman in a cafe here. They definitely seem to be solely a masculine domain. Walking past one always gives me a vague feeling of unease. Maybe it’s because I grew up in machismo-drenched rural Australia but I find there’s something inherently menacing about a group of men. Is that just me, ladies? Am I in need of therapy? So, when our new friend took us to one of these establishments I kind of felt like a curiosity, an honorary male as a foreign woman, if you will. No matter how much it’s something I don’t want to do or wouldn’t usually want to do, if it involves going out with a local in a foreign country it’s always worthwhile. In this case I experienced the taste sensation that is mint tea. Of course, I’ve had mint tea before but never one that’s made me exclaim with delight. And I did exclaim boys and girls, oh yes. I’ve never been one for flavoured teas. I like the exotic romance of them (plus those little arabic tea glasses) but have never been able to actually summon up much of a taste for them. A whole new world of tea drinking possibilities has opened up before me.

December 17 Word or Phrase

A word that encapsulates your year. “2009 was ___.”

“The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred”.

- JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

Truly the universe seemed to conspire in our favour to make this vagabonding life choice of ours a success. I discovered art just when I was to be granted the time to pursue it. Almost a year’s worth of housesitting opportunities presented themselves so that we could save money on rent and put it towards our new home, “Nettle”. Distant relatives who also happen to be full time motorhomers took us under their wing and found the perfect motorhome for us the first time we visited a dealer. Honestly, it was just all too easy. If we had of done this at any other time maybe none of these things would have transpired. As it is it’s all worked out beautifully, like jigsaw puzzle pieces snapping into place.

December 18 Shop

Online or offline, where did you spend most of your mad money this year?

I brought very few clothes with me on our move to Europe. I packed as much as I would if we were only coming over for a few weeks. This leaves me in the dubiously enviable position of being able to reinvent my wardrobe. Something that, given my pickiness and frugal ways is long overdue. I’ve determined I will only buy clothes that I am absolutely in love with and have been drawing much inspiration from Some Girls Wander to give some focus to my personal makeover. Since my last clothes shopping trip I’ve also added an addendum that that which I love must also be flattering or at the very least not unflattering – a stipulation you would think should go without saying but one look at some of the items that have found their way into my wardrobe disproves that theory rather conclusively. I found a little hand made clothes boutique in Positano, Italy by the name of “Nadir”. I could have purchased about 80% of the clothes in that store and stayed true to my “must love it” commandment. I spent hours in there whilst my friends were at the beach. It was a very emotional experience given that the skirts were going for €200 – €250 and therefore completely out of reach of my frugal little fingers. I wish I had of taken photos of the skirts because they were the real show stoppers but a few shots of the more affordable bits and pieces I did buy and a screen shot of their website that hasn’t been updated since 2007 will have to suffice.

I came away with a passionate desire to buy a sewing machine and learn how to make skirts. It’s definitely still on the to do list.

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