Nellie Windmill

Mike and I have been back in Europe for a month since wintering in Tunisia, North Africa. I’m summing up our three months in Tunisia in one blog post so this is going to be mammoth. You have been warned.

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 the City of Rohan 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.

I feel like 2009 has been all packaged up in a neat little cyber parcel ready to be archived on the blog shelf and reminisced over at whim. A big thank you to Gwen Bell for these fun prompts to help us all reflect on the past year. Without further ado, my final musings to wrap it all up…

December 28 Stationary

When you touch the paper, your heart melts. The ink flows from the pen. What was your stationary find of the year?

I really like the thought of writing letters, but alas, my stationary is relegated to the purely utilitarian task of note taking and since I’ve run out of sketch book, sketching. It’s not heart melty or ink flowy. So, the prize for best stationary goes to my practical retractable pencil. I don’t know how I ever made art without it. It’s perfect for illustrating fine details and I think it would be pretty flowy to write with too.

December 29 Laugh

What was the biggest belly laugh of the year?

Mike and I had three friends stay for a couple of weeks with us in our motorhome, “Nettle”. It was dubbed the “Caravan of Comedy” during the time due to the hilarity that ensued. Good times…

December 30 Ad

What advertisement made you think this year?

The Lonely Planet dubs Tunisia a poster-child for successful post-colonial development and a model for how a moderate, secular Arab state can resist fundamentalism. Whilst here we’ve seen many billboards plastered to the sides of buildings and posters on shop walls of president Ben Ali looking smiley and warm. These have given us plenty of pause for thought when we come from a country that makes fun of our prime minister in comics in the major newspapers.

December 31 Resolution you wish you’d stuck with

(You know, there’s always next year…)

I don’t make new year’s resolutions. However, I did start an exercise from “The Four Hour Work Week” a month or so ago, which is in the same spirit as resolutions. The author, Tim Ferriss, calls it “dreamlining”. Basically you write down what you want to have, what you want to be, and what you want to do and then make a short-list of the most important ones. Then you work out how much money you have to earn each day to be able to achieve your top 4 dreams in 6 months. You start doing something towards achieving each dream that same day and every day thereon. It’s been great for me. I came away from it with clear priorities for my life for the next 6 months. I began prioritising time for art, which I hadn’t been doing before then. I started building my online creative business that very day and am at the point now where I’m ready to sell my art on Red Bubble and Image Kind and have designed 57 original collage papers to sell on Etsy. A month ago I didn’t even know how to use photoshop and a month and a bit ago I hadn’t even considered selling my art.

On a side note, whilst writing this and thinking of the dreamline exercise in terms of new years resolutions, I’ve come up with a few theories as to why new year’s resolutions fail:

1. Most people’s new year’s resolutions bore them to tears. They aim to aim to floss their teeth everyday, for example. Who could possibly get excited about that? In the dreamlining exercise the author cautions the would be dreamer to dream big, unrealistic, wild dreams. Nothing less will induce the motivation required to achieve them.
2. People make resolutions based on what they think they should change about themselves or their lives rather than what they want to change. Again, the author cautions us not to be tempted to put down socially desirable dreams like “fight world hunger” when what you really want is a shiny red ferrari. These socially acceptable but completely passionless goals won’t stoke your “I’m gonna change my life” fire either.
3. Finally, when creating the dreamlines we narrow it down to a short-list of four. Not only does this help us focus on what’s important but it also means we can do each of our dreams justice by giving them the time and energy they require to be fully realised. Remember, the dreamline is timelined – you aim to achieve your goals in 6 or 12 months. So, you focus on the most important goals and then once you’ve achieved them you get to do another four! I’m guessing most people’s new year’s resolutions lists will have more than four items on them.

Thank you all for coming to read my Best of 2009 everyone! A very happy 2010 to you all!