Bizerte for Kaylee's Birthday

We spent last weekend in Bizerte to celebrate Kaylee's birthday and explore somewhere new.  Bizerte is only about an hour north west of Tunis, but we had done little more than drive through it in the past. We found a cheap hotel on the beach and spent the weekend exploring the beaches, viewpoints, old port, and markets.  The town seems to have been well set up to welcome tourists ... a few years ago, now everything is empty and not well kept.  If things progress well here in Tunisia for the next few years I think Bizerte will begin to attract many more European tourists.

 Coastline north of the city.

 The Harrisons joined us.

 Our hotel, note the nice green pool.  It doesn't get any clearer when you get closer.

 Old Bizerte port.

 Old Bizerte Port

 Narrow "street" in the Kasba

 Tourist restaurant that we ate at in the old port.  The food was good when we ate it, but not great for me a few hours later.

 Coastline north of the city.  This small peninsula is actually the second most northern point of all of Africa.  The farthest north point is actually a few kilometers north west (it may be visible in the distance in the next picture), it is supposedly 30 meters farther north.

 Looking northwest from the top of the rocky peninsula.

 On top of the rock.

 Birthday girl

Looking towards Bizerte from south east of town.

 One of the many trails that we followed trying to find the ship wrecks.

 Ship wreck 1.  Haven't been able to find any solid history on it yet.  If you are interested the wrecks are located in Rimel beach just south east of Bizerte.

Ship wreck 2, appears to be in the process of reclamation.  Many of its former parts are strewn about on the beach and the parts that remain seem to have been cut rather than rusted through.  Once source claimed that this ship ran aground here sometime in the 70's after experiencing an engine fire.  Another source said that it was an Italian vessel that has been there since the 40's.  No idea for sure, but it does appear to be a commercial vessel rather than a military vessel.

The beauty of Tunisia!

The weekend before the big event everything seemed so beautiful. There is a beautiful little town right on the water on Cap Bon called Kelibia. There is an amazing sand beach just the right size to enjoy a game of frisbee. Just down the beach there are some great rocks that are amazing for kids to jump off of when their families enjoy a nice lunch at the restaurant built into the rocks. We enjoyed some great seafood and wine. While waiting for dessert many of us joined the kids and dove of the rocks ourselves. The water was so warm and clear. This is one of the things that makes Tunisia so wonderful. After a good swim we got to enjoy lemon sorbet back at our tables. This is a great day in Tunisia. We are excited for more days like this to come!

Ipad!

You have all seen pictures of my classroom by now. Most everything in the classroom was burned, smoked damaged, or soaked when the fire was put out. The ipad survived it all! This ipad was located in my desk. On Sunday when I went looking for it the drawer to my desk had been removed so I assumed that it was stolen. Later when cleaning up I spotted something slightly blue, in the corner of my room, buried underneath layers of wet ash. It was my ipad, with little hope that it would still work I pulled it out and brushed it off. I open the blue cover and guess what it worked. I still can't believe it. It was damp and still stinks of smoke but it lives on just as functional as before! The small things that continue to put a smile on your face.  

Videos & Pics

I promised videos, so I am going to try to put them up, but after this I think I am going to try to focus on the rebuilding rather than what happened last Friday.  It's a bit depressing to continue to see pictures and scenes of the destruction.  A lot of progress has been made in the last two days and the continued offering of support both locally and internationally has been impressive.  So, hopefully in the next few days I will have a chance to take some pictures that are a bit more positive; like the scene today outside of the small gym (or should I say second grade wing as it will now be housing the entirety of second grade).  There were at least 20 people assisting Kaylee and her teaching partners, Craig and Stephanie, cleaning and moving every piece of salvageable teaching material into their new home.

The distribution of this blog was originally intended to share a glimpse of life in Tunis with our family and friends at home.  I can tell from our recent page view spike that it has clearly become more than that.  Although widespread distribution is not really our intent, I understand the need for people, here and at home, to have access to as much information as possible.  I can appreciate that need better now after spending Friday night jumping between four email accounts, facebook, satellite TV, online news sources, and the phone.  That being said, I am a bit hesitant to share some of these videos.  I don't know if ACST parents are following this blog (or students for that matter), and I am not sure if the students that previously attended class in the burnt building should really see them now in as much detail as these videos offer.  In the end, I am a supporter of the sharing of information, especially now, so you have been warned.  Like I said in the beginning, starting with our next post I am going to aim a little more positive.

Thanks again for all of the support.

Finance Office

Kaylee's Furniture

Kaylee's Classroom

A Building Hallway 1

A Building Hallway 2

Elementary Library 1

Elementary Library 2

Ironic?

Cleanup Begins

First Time Back on Campus

Not much new to write today.  We spent over six hours on campus today wadding through the destruction taking pictures and videos.  We meet as a full staff tomorrow morning, where I believe we will all be brought up to speed on the plan for the coming days and weeks.  The videos take a long time to load so I will postpone writing until I have more information and try to get a few clips up before heading to bed and starting over.

... sorry to get your hopes up.  The video upload is not working particularly well at the moment.

I forgot to give credit to our photographers yesterday.  I collected all of the pictures for the last post from a variety of colleagues on Facebook.  Tomorrow (if I have time, a commodity running thin at the moment) I will try to get a few of the twenty or so videos I recorded today and a few of the hundred or so pictures. 

Thanks for all of the support we have been receiving, it helps to have evidence from home that this was an event that did not go unnoticed.

To be continued...

A Sad Day in Tunisia

I am not going to say much ... there isn't much that can be said.  Everyone in our community has avoided harm and for the most part things are quit and uneventful today.  I wish I could say the same for our school.  The pictures speak for themselves.  Probably the worst thing to come out of this (and the continuing demonstrations in other Arab countries) is the strengthening of the misconception that Muslims and Arabs are violent.  From our experience that couldn't be farther from the truth, 98% of the Tunisians we have met here are kind, life loving people.  I share their sadness and frustration regarding the actions of a select few yesterday that has further tarnished their cultural image.

We were asked not to attend campus today, as it is being treated as a crime scene and is being photographed for insurance purposes.  The admin team has been meeting with our board of directors throughout the day and are continuing over dinner this evening.  The next steps are a bit unclear at the moment.  We were operating at max capacity (having just added a few classrooms to handle enrollment increases), now with the complete loss of a few rooms and basically all valuable equipment, the year will be different to say the least.

This link should take you to a online Tunisian news source.  I can't tell you what is being said, but there is no need, the images are enough.  At one point in the video you will see a yellow spiral kids slide on the right of the screen, behind it rooms will be on fire, to the left you will see an open door.  That door opens to Kaylee's classroom ... former classroom :(.  Her room was also torched as you will see below.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=343974622364129

Pictures

 Two of our school buses in the front parking lot.

 

The media lab, see any computers? There should be about 7 in this view.

 

 The Music Room, the empty shelves in the back should be full of instruments.

 The Elementary Library, possibly the worst hit by the fire.

 Kaylee's Classroom

Kaylee's Classroom

 Kaylee's Classroom

 Kaylee's Classroom

Kaylee's Classroom

 Kaylee's Classroom

 Achraf (local PE department assistant, we play soccer with him) surveying the damage in the PE office.

Elementary Reading Support Room

Science Lab, might be hard to see but the glass cabinets in the back have been broken and the projector appears to have been a failed theft target.

The Security Office

One of Kaylee's teaching partner's desk, the looters went through every drawer they found looking for valuables.

The design tech shop, it took over three years to amass the tool collection that no longer exists.

The High School Library, notice the empty book shelves (I think that the books were just thrown to the floor) and the 12 empty computer stations.

Entrance to the HS Library

Morning at the Central Market (downtown Tunis)

 Pretty sure they were not selling Tampons

 Olives, peppers, cabbage salad, and many other goodies

 They go together like peas and pepper

 Snails!

 Buying fresh cherries!

 Almonds!

 Central Market

 Liam with a cherry all the locals gave him food (it was like Costco for Liam- free samples)

Fish market inside the central market

Sunday Afternoon Walk Around the Neighborhood!

 Been asked to take our garbage to a different location, not sure why but we will do as we have been told

 Small little market sells all the necessities.

 Neighborhood hardware shop, everything is stored behind the counter you just need to ask for what you want. Easy for most challenging for some (like the ones that don't know the language).

 Neighborhood meat market. Fresh sheep!

 Soccer on the sidewalk usually it is played in the street with a few more boys.

 Women going on a walk to collect what other people no longer want. Whatever she can find left on the street.

 Construction work, safety is oh so important.

Torched car, not sure why.

It is amazing what you can see on a Sunday walk around your neighborhood. On Sunday most of the shops are closed but there are still people out and about doing their thing.