I am a bit hesitant to write this, for fear of tempting the car gods, but as of last Friday our car actually works like, well like a car for the first time since we bought it! A new fuel pump seems to have made all of the difference.
We have another busy few days ahead of us. Yesterday, we played soccer after school (our best showing yet with teams of ten on ten) until 6pm then rushed home to shower before meeting a group for dinner at 7pm. Tonight we are cooking dinner at our house for another couple and their toddler. Tomorrow we are leaving directly from school and driving an hour southeast to Hammamet, where we will be staying for two nights at an all inclusive beach resort. A few different groups from school will be there meaning that we as a large group will basically have the majority of the resort reserved. We should be home sometime in the middle of the day on Sunday so we should be able to post some pictures from the weekend. (We still haven't found our camera cord, but we made a great discovery in the realization that my computer has an SD reader built-in just out of sight under the front edge.)
The elections, from a local perspective, have gone very smoothly. The voter turnout was even better than could have been hoped for and as far as I know there hasn't been any real disturbances as of yet. As far as I know there hasn't been any official outcome reported yet. Originally the officials had said that it would take 12 days to fully count and officiate the ballots, but there were also rumors that it would have happened as early as Monday evening. The only credible leak that I have heard of at this point is that the Moderate Islamic Party has claimed their limit of the allotted seats. This concerns some of the locals because it has been suggested that their desired form of governance would be highly influenced by religion and may equate to a step backwards for individual rights, especially womens' rights. Publicly, from what I can tell, they ran on a platform that intends to create an Islamic democracy modeled after that of Turkey which I think many here would approve of, but only time will tell if they are true to their word.
It has been quite a humbling experience to bear witness to Tunisia's first real elections. On Monday, all those who voted came to work with their fingers still dyed (the method that was used to prevent repeat voters) and wore the ink as a celebratory symbol. Monday morning I said hello to one of the bus drivers (who we also play soccer with) and commented on the nice suit he was wearing. He triumphantly raised his inked finger and said that he had dressed up in honor of voting for the first time.
To be continued...
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Pictures!
Sheep waiting their turn to be slaughtered. Note the fresh blood on their backs from those that went before them. This picture is taken on an average street in front of a typical butcher shop.
Sidewalk maintenence is not currently at the top of the Tunisian to-do list.
Bright, delicate flowers that are found in abundance throughout the residential neighborhoods.
The picture does not begin to do the smell justice. If you can't tell, "water" is flowing up out of the sewer.
Local Tunisian high school, about 4 blocks from our home.
A typical street produce stand. Seasonal produce, currently: zucchini, carrot, pomegranate, grapes, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, nectarine, peppers.
A street near our house.
Tunis summed up in one picture: a mosque with a yellow VW Polo taxi , on a small, busy street.
The beginning of our lettuce.
A typical empty lot, this one is actually rather clean.
Our new clothes dryer.
We have added some new plants in an attempt to cover up one of the Tunisian architectural features on the back of our house. You can barely see the green cement block at the bottom of the downspouts. That cement partially covers our exposed sewer.
One of our two (well hopefully two, we haven't seen one for a few days and we have a very small yard with few places to hide) Tunisian Tortoises.
It might not look like rain but it was raining hard and windy when we reached the end of the road just Southeast of Raf Raf.
Our vegetable garden.
A ruin that we happened to drive past. It is now home to a donkey.
Fresh Calamari in the back and fresh (as in uncooked, just out of the sea) sea urchin.
In port in Bizerte, before heading out on the boat.
Entrance to the Medina in downtown Tunis
Atlas Domaine Winery
Camels on Gammarth Beach
Sunset Gammarth Beach
Simon Gammarth Beach
Small Boat for Octopus Fishing
The little friend that we brought home in a head of lettuce.Thursday, October 20, 2011
Elections
I don't know how it could possibly be 17 days already since our last post. I guess it goes to show how busy we have been. I'll summarize with a short highlight real because there is no way that I have the stamina to detail the last two and a half weeks.
- I got a job! Well, more precisely I have always had a job. Last Wednesday I was told that since I was performing a necessary function that I should be getting paid for it. I couldn't disagree with that. The "internship" had not been quite as enlightening as I had hoped. Since about the third day I have been focusing all of my time assisting with the asset/purchase order matching process, which for a day or two can be interesting, but it quickly becomes a bit monotonous. Getting paid doesn't really make the work any more exciting, but it does make it feel like a more constructive use of my time. They also surprised me by giving me back pay for the previous month, which was an appreciated bonus. It's not great pay by American standards, but at the same it's not the 2 Dinar an hour (about a $1.40) that I could be making at a local wage.
- Kaylee and I joined the Hash group last Saturday. They bill themselves as a drinking group with a running problem. Members take turns each week setting out a running course. Last week's was about 8k in one of the hilliest parts of Tunis. The drinking part comes in after the run, when everyone has a beer or two of Tunisia's finest (which is really more or less water) to rehydrate. In pre-revolution days the group used to alternate weekends between Tunis and more adventurous runs out-side of the city. It should be a good way to see new areas and meet new people since its membership is drawn from the school, bank, embassy, and other local organizations.
- We are still playing soccer every Wednesday and the turn-out is typically good, somewhere between 12 and 18 usually. Yesterday, the campus security crew (plus Kaylee, their ringer) challenged the rest of the staff, myself included. After taking a 4-0 lead the security forces began to lose their way and we were able to come back for 8-6 victory! It is a lot of fun to have a consistent group of competitive players to play with.
- Low Light - Permanent, land-line based internet for our house came within sight at the beginning of this week. We picked up our modem/router from the school so all we have to do is wait for the go-ahead to hook it up... Unfortunately, we also learned to our dismay that the internet infrastructure in our area is at capacity. In other words, we now have to wait indefinitely for Tunisia Telecome to upgrade the capacity in our area. It has been suggested that it could be done as quickly as 1-2 weeks, but in all honesty (do to the general speed at which things move in Tunisia) I will be very excited if we have a connection before we head home for winter break. Tunisia Telecom's generous response to the situation is that we do not have to pay for internet service until the line becomes available. Quite generous when you consider that fact that in order to determine if there was capacity for us we were first required to pay a 100+ dinar initiation fee and sign an irrevocable one year contract. Oh well, at least the school has decided to provide us with another 3g internet key which they will be paying for until our actual service comes online.
-Low Light- Our car is consistently a piece of garbage. We are taking it to the shop, for the second time since its purchase less than a month ago, in less than an hour. After running the Hash this weekend it would barely start and then not run at more than 500 rpm without stalling. We were in the process of calling (more like arranging with help from people at school) a tow truck when after 15 minutes of worthlessness it decided to return to its typical semi-worthless state. When ever it sits for more than a few hours it takes multiple tries to get it running. We took it to a new mechanic Monday (the same one it is going back to today) so they could get an idea of what they would be working on tomorrow. They found a few broken electrical components in the engine as well as "mal compression" in cylinder one, which unmistakable must mean bad/no compression in one of our four cylinders. The mechanic told us this was "big problem." (No kidding, bad compression at home equals blown head gasket equals engine rebuild equals big dollar sign) He thinks it will cost around TND 250, about $175, maybe not such a big problem here after all. I'll believe it when I see it and when the car is still running well a week from now.
-High Light- We planted a garden. Four bags of sheep sh- manure, a few bags of seeds, water, and a week later this morning we saw the first of our lettuce sprouting. We are growing basil, two kinds of lettuce (which is difficult to find in any kind of quality at the stores and markets), a couple kinds of peppers, and some cucumbers. We will take pictures when ever we find our upload cord. We also have grass seed spread on the front and back "yards" which should be fully grown in just in time for the summer heat to kill it.
- Coming Up- Tomorrow we are going to our second poker night which promises to be a good time. Saturday, we are playing ultimate Frisbee in the morning and then pretty much have the rest of the weekend unplanned. I think that Sunday at some point there is also going to be a rugby world cup final party / Tunisian Election party that we may be attending.
- Elections-
On Sunday the 23rd Tunisia is holding elections to select a body of representatives to rewrite their constitution and attempt to create a functioning democracy where a dictatorship has stood for the last 5 decades. There are something like 100 candidates that are on the ballot, which I believe fall mostly into two major political groups: the moderates and the conservative Islamic party. We don't really have much access to political news which makes most of this a guessing game for me. Some of the locals and taxi drivers will mention things occasionally, but there isn't one all-informative source to learn from (at least in English and from an outsider's perspective). What we have heard seems to tend towards the positive. There is a strong push for the elections to be open and credible and to have a strong voter turnout. The military/security forces are also said to be much more prepared to maintain the peace than during the revolution and have greatly increased their numbers recently. The few political gatherings that have taken place recently have remained peaceful which is a good sign as well. The other side of the story is told by the stores and markets. Yesterday was the first time in two weeks that we have been able to find milk at the store and both milk and bottled water have been on a loose ration for most of the month. Clearly many of the locals are preparing for a potential negative outcome. To prepare for Sunday, new security procedures, drills, and communication methods have been implemented and tested on campus this week, but all signs still point to things proceeding smoothly next week. The real fallout (good or bad) from the elections probably won't be seen immediately. More likely it will be in the weeks and months to come as the elected set about recreating this country.
We will try and post again Sunday (assuming that internet is functioning and available). Hope that all is well at home.
- Off to the mechanic, yay. Oh, and it just started pouring rain and lighting, delightful.
- I got a job! Well, more precisely I have always had a job. Last Wednesday I was told that since I was performing a necessary function that I should be getting paid for it. I couldn't disagree with that. The "internship" had not been quite as enlightening as I had hoped. Since about the third day I have been focusing all of my time assisting with the asset/purchase order matching process, which for a day or two can be interesting, but it quickly becomes a bit monotonous. Getting paid doesn't really make the work any more exciting, but it does make it feel like a more constructive use of my time. They also surprised me by giving me back pay for the previous month, which was an appreciated bonus. It's not great pay by American standards, but at the same it's not the 2 Dinar an hour (about a $1.40) that I could be making at a local wage.
- Kaylee and I joined the Hash group last Saturday. They bill themselves as a drinking group with a running problem. Members take turns each week setting out a running course. Last week's was about 8k in one of the hilliest parts of Tunis. The drinking part comes in after the run, when everyone has a beer or two of Tunisia's finest (which is really more or less water) to rehydrate. In pre-revolution days the group used to alternate weekends between Tunis and more adventurous runs out-side of the city. It should be a good way to see new areas and meet new people since its membership is drawn from the school, bank, embassy, and other local organizations.
- We are still playing soccer every Wednesday and the turn-out is typically good, somewhere between 12 and 18 usually. Yesterday, the campus security crew (plus Kaylee, their ringer) challenged the rest of the staff, myself included. After taking a 4-0 lead the security forces began to lose their way and we were able to come back for 8-6 victory! It is a lot of fun to have a consistent group of competitive players to play with.
- Low Light - Permanent, land-line based internet for our house came within sight at the beginning of this week. We picked up our modem/router from the school so all we have to do is wait for the go-ahead to hook it up... Unfortunately, we also learned to our dismay that the internet infrastructure in our area is at capacity. In other words, we now have to wait indefinitely for Tunisia Telecome to upgrade the capacity in our area. It has been suggested that it could be done as quickly as 1-2 weeks, but in all honesty (do to the general speed at which things move in Tunisia) I will be very excited if we have a connection before we head home for winter break. Tunisia Telecom's generous response to the situation is that we do not have to pay for internet service until the line becomes available. Quite generous when you consider that fact that in order to determine if there was capacity for us we were first required to pay a 100+ dinar initiation fee and sign an irrevocable one year contract. Oh well, at least the school has decided to provide us with another 3g internet key which they will be paying for until our actual service comes online.
-Low Light- Our car is consistently a piece of garbage. We are taking it to the shop, for the second time since its purchase less than a month ago, in less than an hour. After running the Hash this weekend it would barely start and then not run at more than 500 rpm without stalling. We were in the process of calling (more like arranging with help from people at school) a tow truck when after 15 minutes of worthlessness it decided to return to its typical semi-worthless state. When ever it sits for more than a few hours it takes multiple tries to get it running. We took it to a new mechanic Monday (the same one it is going back to today) so they could get an idea of what they would be working on tomorrow. They found a few broken electrical components in the engine as well as "mal compression" in cylinder one, which unmistakable must mean bad/no compression in one of our four cylinders. The mechanic told us this was "big problem." (No kidding, bad compression at home equals blown head gasket equals engine rebuild equals big dollar sign) He thinks it will cost around TND 250, about $175, maybe not such a big problem here after all. I'll believe it when I see it and when the car is still running well a week from now.
-High Light- We planted a garden. Four bags of sheep sh- manure, a few bags of seeds, water, and a week later this morning we saw the first of our lettuce sprouting. We are growing basil, two kinds of lettuce (which is difficult to find in any kind of quality at the stores and markets), a couple kinds of peppers, and some cucumbers. We will take pictures when ever we find our upload cord. We also have grass seed spread on the front and back "yards" which should be fully grown in just in time for the summer heat to kill it.
- Coming Up- Tomorrow we are going to our second poker night which promises to be a good time. Saturday, we are playing ultimate Frisbee in the morning and then pretty much have the rest of the weekend unplanned. I think that Sunday at some point there is also going to be a rugby world cup final party / Tunisian Election party that we may be attending.
- Elections-
On Sunday the 23rd Tunisia is holding elections to select a body of representatives to rewrite their constitution and attempt to create a functioning democracy where a dictatorship has stood for the last 5 decades. There are something like 100 candidates that are on the ballot, which I believe fall mostly into two major political groups: the moderates and the conservative Islamic party. We don't really have much access to political news which makes most of this a guessing game for me. Some of the locals and taxi drivers will mention things occasionally, but there isn't one all-informative source to learn from (at least in English and from an outsider's perspective). What we have heard seems to tend towards the positive. There is a strong push for the elections to be open and credible and to have a strong voter turnout. The military/security forces are also said to be much more prepared to maintain the peace than during the revolution and have greatly increased their numbers recently. The few political gatherings that have taken place recently have remained peaceful which is a good sign as well. The other side of the story is told by the stores and markets. Yesterday was the first time in two weeks that we have been able to find milk at the store and both milk and bottled water have been on a loose ration for most of the month. Clearly many of the locals are preparing for a potential negative outcome. To prepare for Sunday, new security procedures, drills, and communication methods have been implemented and tested on campus this week, but all signs still point to things proceeding smoothly next week. The real fallout (good or bad) from the elections probably won't be seen immediately. More likely it will be in the weeks and months to come as the elected set about recreating this country.
We will try and post again Sunday (assuming that internet is functioning and available). Hope that all is well at home.
- Off to the mechanic, yay. Oh, and it just started pouring rain and lighting, delightful.
Monday, October 3, 2011
A Busy Week
It has been a while since I have actually posted so I will try to recap the past week or so. We have rarely had the chance to sit down, which explains the lack of blogging.
Friday the 23th we were invited to one of Kaylee’s co-teacher’s house to join their monthly poker group. It was a great way to meet more people and get to know a few a little better. In general ACST has a great and diverse staff. By most American standards Kaylee and I have done a fair amount of traveling, but when we are thrown in with this group we are armatures. As far as I know, there are only a few others in the entire school that have only lived in one other country. The stories and experiences that the average member of the ACST community has are impressive.
Saturday the 24th the school put on a Staff, Student, and Parent BBQ which drew well over a thousand people. That evening we joined in on an annual wine tasting party at another co-workers house. About thirty people showed up with nearly twenty different kinds of local red wine. The rest of the evening was spent judging each of the Tunisian creations (Tunisa is not known for their wine). To end the event there was a blind vote as to which were the best and worst of the night. Each person got to vote for their first and second favorite as well as their least favorite. We brought two bottles. One of our bottles received six worst votes and the overall worst rating of the night. Or second bottle was the third worst. It would appear the price does have some correlation with taste here. We had bought the cheapest bottles we could find, intending to drink them our selves but we were glad to share them.
Sunday the 25th we had the great opportunity to go to the car market along with a few others and a local “guide/car guru” from the school. The market is like nothing we have seen at home. Every Sunday people who want to sell their car drive to this location and sit in their car or stand by it and wait to sell it to one of the many people looking to buy. It is not an exaggeration to say that there were at least 1,000 cars for sale. The most challenging part of the experience was the total reliance upon our guide/guru. For better or worse, he was running the show. We would find a car that seemed to be in good shape, and have decent mileage and he would glance our way and say keep moving. None of the cars have any posted prices or information, and you can’t drive. Know French numbers helped in trying to at least figure out a ball-park asking price and mileage, after that it was up to our guide to tell us what (as far as we could tell) his gut feeling was about each individual car. There were a few times that he pulled us aside and in all sincerity would say this is a good car do you want it. No matter that the car was nearly identical to the one we had just shown him with 20k less kilometers and was immediately dismissed. After a few hours we settled (and in this case I do mean settled) on 2002 VW Polo. To give you a better understanding of the process this is how we (Our guide, Kaylee, and I) came to make our selection. Walking through we had been checking every VW Polo, so as we approached this black one we walked around, checked mileage (176,000 kilometers, a bit high), checked to make sure all doors worked (the trunk no longer does L), and then began trying to figure out who was actually selling it and not just milling about getting in our way. Continually urging our guide to get to the point and ask for price (the only question that initially matters) we finally learned that the seller wanted 12,500 Dinar. More than we were hoping, especially for the mileage and general condition, but our guide was not deterred. Getting the keys we started it up and our guide went to inspect the engine (did you know that you can accurately judge the health of an engine simply by feeling the vibration and scrunching up your face like you are in deep thought?) Coming back with a positive test result we were told that this engine is good and that we should buy it if we want. The biggest up side to purchasing a VW Polo here is that all of the taxis are VW Polos so parts should be easier to come by. We decided to take it on faith (what choice did we have?) so we agreed to buy it. Did we try to negotiate? Even I don’t know, the seller didn’t speak any English so we weren’t involved with the actual deal making. During a final sweep of the car I pointed out a flashing inspection light on the dash board to our guide. He frowned and asked the seller about it (not having noticed it before). Our guides translated answer from the seller was “it is a good car” to which the guide added “it is not a problem.” So the adventure continues, we bought a Tunisian car.
Monday the 26h we went straight from school to the licensing office to deal with the paper work for the car and hand over our envelope containing 12,500 Dinars in cash. As is the case at home it is a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare that fortunately we had our guide to take care of.
Tuesday the 27th Kaylee and I “coached” 1st grade soccer after school for the first of 8 sessions. It was more than a bit chaotic. This was the first time that any of them had played soccer or any sport for that matter in an organized fashion, add to that the fact that English was the primary language of only a few. Suffice it to say that tomorrow at our second “practice” the soccer balls will remain in the bag unless we get them out for a specific task. Really it isn’t a practice or a team as it is a recreational time for them to “play soccer” so really as long as they are using their feet and not their hands it can be considered a success.
Wednesday the 28th we played in our second staff pickup soccer game after school. There were close to twenty people playing this time. The play is surprisingly competitive, probably as competitive as any of the intramural soccer we played at the UW. The highlight of our Wednesday was getting to drive our car home from school for the first time since the paperwork had finished that day. The best part of the paperwork was selecting and paying for insurance. Insurance is different here…and in French. Going through it with the school business manager he advised that we purchase a plan costing 720ish Dinar a year and offering 4,000 Dinar in coverage. We opted for a level above it costing 770ish Dinar and offering 6,000 Dinar in coverage (We are fairly certain that this coverage in question just related to property damage and remember that we just paid 12.5k for the car.) The manager told us that he didn’t want to see us get ripped off by buying too much insurance. Laughing, we told him that we would pay that much each for just six months and have close to half a million dollars in total coverage at home. A bit surprised he didn’t try to talk us out of it again.
Thursday the 29th I honestly can’t remember what we did at the moment, and Kaylee is no help because she is asleep on the couch. She hasn’t been feeling that good today so I won’t wake her to ask. Instead she can edit this post later and fill in the parts I have missed.
Friday the 30th we went to the embassy bar after work. Provided by (and primarily for) the Marines, it attempts to more of an American bar and offers a greater variety of drinks than can probably be found anywhere else in the country. That being said it also charges nearly American prices. After talking with some of the other teachers there for a while we took our “new” car out to do some exploring. We had heard of a few different hardware/home improvements like store that we wanted to check out so we went out to find them. The first was closed when we did find it, and the second actually turned off the lights on us as we were shopping.
Saturday the 1st we got up early and met up with a group to go boating in Bizerette (about an hour and a half north west of here). The best part was that we knew no one in the group of nearly 20. Our connection wasn’t able to go and our second hand connection backed out the night before, so we had the chance to meet a whole new social group. Nearly everyone on board was related to the ADB (African Development Bank, head quartered here in Tunis and responsible for 60% of the ACST student population). We left the harbor at about 10:15 and motored north-ish for about an hour and a half to a small island, just big enough to house a lighthouse. We anchored there and spent the next 5 hours snorkeling and eating seafood caught by the crew the previous day. The snorkeling was great in terms o clarity and temperature, but the sea life was not quite as “tropical” as I would have guessed for the area, but I am told there are other areas near here that are quite colorful. Some of the other people on board took some decent pictures which I believe have been emailed to Kaylee so we may be able to add some later.
Yesterday, Sunday the 2nd, we ventured back out to the home improvement stores to get some basic gardening supplies. Our house has a front and back yard that would better be described as a front and back dirt at the moment. We spent the rest of the day moving plants (many of which permanently live in pots in the yard) planting grass and setting aside an area for a future garden where we can grow the lettuce that rather difficult to purchase here.
After work today Kaylee had her first Tutoring session with a student from another class who she has agreed to work with twice a week. *Dad pay attention this one is for you!* On our way home I noticed that our front right tire was getting low again, we had already had it pumped up once this weekend, so we stopped at a tire shop that we happened to pass our way. The only employee, a young-ish boy (definitely younger than 18) spoke no English, so what was I to do but point at our car and use the one and only French fraise that we knew prior to coming here “un pneu cleve” (I am sure that is spelled wrong), I am also sure that I pronounced it wrong, because even though he worked at a tire shop and I couldn’t possibly have been trying to convey any other message to him, the employee couldn’t figure out what I was trying to get at. A bunch more pointing and gesturing and twenty minutes later he had found two separate leaks in the tire patched them both and sent us on our way for ten dinar (which I am sure was not the actual price, probably a nice payday for him, but we were just glad that we were able to understand each other well enough to get it fixed.)
Unfortunately, the tire was not our only issue with our “new” car so tomorrow someone (who has been recommended to us) will pick our car up from school and see which items on our list he can take care of.
Things we knew about when we bought it: A/C needs to be recharged.
Things we now know need work: A/C needs a charge, engine badly needs a tune up, windshield cleaner hose is broken and squirts water out of the side of the hood, the two low-beam bulbs either don’t fit or the housings are broken because they move around freely while driving rarely pointing anywhere useful, and as of Friday we can no longer open the hatchback.
Random thoughts:
- We have all of our school provided furniture and appliances now (and still one completely empty room)
- We are getting to know our area a little better which is nice for both finding items that we need and just having a frame of reference when people are talking about different areas
- Cars in general are a headache, but it is obvious even in the few days we have had ours that the freedom and convenience that it imparts should make it worth it
- All of the current ACST teachers have been asked to declare their intent to stay for another term or if they plan to leave at the end of the year. That being said, it is unlikely that we will know if Kaylee has been offered another contract until next spring.
- I have finally finished loading all of the videos we have so far, so hopefully we can come up with some new interesting footage this week to share
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