tabarka, is near algeria

going to find ...
my mind ...
some breath ...
a seashell ...
sand through toes and sun on nose
a coffee a glass with straw
and shadow surrounded by heat
lapping current on shore
rented umbrellas and
quiet
me
sunhat on a rainy day
toes in sand
paper
pen
mind
breath
seashell

full plate but room for more. planning for next course.

from the cat downstairs

see?

lady bugs, holden! a snail! no, don't run your firetruck over the ants please, they are doing what they need to do. ants. baby cows with budding horns. a rabid black cat downstairs that hardly lets us out our front door. matt wars with it. i feed it tuna to make up.
holden rides a trike on the roof in the wind and the sheets wave and the perfection of being breaks my heart.

baguettes are 20 cents.
whole wheat baguettes are 50 cents.
a latte is 50 cents too.

from the top of the hill yesterday i saw the sea all around. with stationary ships. i saw a cemetary and crooked cobble stones and the lighthouse we can see from our front window. i saw a tree growing out of a house and the vacant house no one will buy because of the spirits.

standing beside the water spring where people still draw water, tunisian man said when holden goes by it is good fortune. it's the fourth time he's seen us walk by that spot and he works in the office just there. just here. what makes living in a place is connection. openness. yes. holden. fortune. thank you, mr. mohammed ali. come see me anytime.

northern tunisia
150-person picnic site

douz, tunisia

douz: the sahara's northern edge

sister in law and bride
at the contract signing

dates on her head.
a gift for the bride's family.

cous cous preparation
6-8 women outside our door in the common space.
straw mat on cement floor.

goat.
they killed one every night for 5 days.
camel meat is top quality evidently, but expensive.
we ate goat each day on cous cous or in tripe soup .

sheesha smoking in douz evening.

old things

delila making tea.
it was her uncle's wedding
and her family's house where we stayed in douz.

henna and turnips.
prep for 100-person cous cous

this woman would sing some crazy old desert lady songs,
i think just for my foreign benefit

français

to begin the day's review activity, the delicate chinese girl recounted an excursion to carthage, during which her comrade fell and broke and had to be sent to china for repair. our french teacher listened seriously to the rest of the account while the greek and ukrainian women beside the chinese student whispered, then began to bob and convulse with laughter. they covered their faces, shaking. the albino ukrainian across the room started in too.
all the while the teacher looked quite concerned while listening to the story:
-an operation? a reparation? how did your comrade break?

they came up for air occasionally, while the chinese girl continued her story of the broken comarade and carthage and finishing the trip with a delicious chinese dinner in the lake district of tunis. the trip wasn't so bad in the end, she said, apart from the fallen camrade. the teacher didn't know what to say, i could tell. but the laughers couldn't stop. they kept coming up composed and diving back into their hands, unstoppable. they were trying to stop, i thought, becasue, after all, they were grown ups and in french class. all this while the chinese finsihed her story and all in all the trip wasn't so bad. prof. still looking somber:
-camrade? how did your camrade break? what do you mean? is it serious? what kind of operation did your he need?
-no, no, not an operation, really. it's just going back to china to get fixed.
-fixed? did he break his leg? (prof. motions with her hands, like breaking a stick in half)
-uh, no, the chinese hesitated. -it just fell and broke. it's okay now.
-camrade?
no one said anything, but chinese nodded. -camrade?
-do you mean comrade? or camera?

turns out, it was her camera.
at that realization the teacher cried. i couldn't tell if it was laughter or relief, or embarassment or something else, but everyone lost it to tears. and when most of us came to again, we went on with the days' french lesson: -so, how did you pass the weekend?

Peek inside, a sunnier day not long ago:

neighbor's door.
it's studded with....studs, as you can see.

traditional Sidi Bou Said windows


working with red pen

the smoke upstairs in the cafe gives me a headache. 15 or 16 cigarettes have been lit in the 2 hours i've been here and the smoke's not going anywhere but to my head. i feel it in my throat and eyes. so much for this work space.
such is the cafe life here, evidently- no linnaea's or gimme coffee or what have you from the motherland on chilly spring saturday mornings, or friday college nights with live music and bottomless iced teas. or mate lattes.
nonetheless it is a cafe life. smoke and groups of men in black and gelled hair. sporadic pairs of women also clad in black, skinny jeans, make up and striaghened hair. they don't smoke as much as the men do. even the 14 year old men learn about the cigarette and the black vestments and faux D&G sweaters and big glasses. just the necessities, like sitting for hours and eying me. and they do.
ss-ss, they say.
am i a cat?

O-day

tunisia now

La maison.
Amilcar neighborhood, a cote de Sidi Bou Said

The medina connects centuries of trade,
food sharing, handicrafts,
well water drawing, community baths and family living
to modern commercial downtown Tunis.

(from note to friend abroad):

context: i just googled you to find your website, then navigated to the barn stormin brothers' blog...
and I am filled with memory
overwhelmed to tears in fact
all the lovely souls in the dance made in a country extravaganza
you
the group
you
you
movement, power, creation, collaboration, hours and days and walks and pizza slices with you
summer, and everything that means
213 john st
ithaca
ithacans

what is nostalgia?
what is missing a place? a person? a season of life made up of all feelings, smells, tastes, people, sounds, its nature and traffic and establishments and nooks and tree branches

1.friday night we met some very interesting tunisian folks during an evening in which matt and I were out all night with them in fascinating mostly french and english conversation while a friend watched H (a first here- 4 months)
2.we were at a new years party today with 20 or so internationals- all ex pats or visitors, speaking a mix of italian, french and english, sharing good food and plenty of wine and limoncello
3.then we came home to two fulbright friends chillin on the couches for hours, computing and talking and laughing...

...one sits here now even, but i don't want to talk anymore about each other and find out more previously unbeknown facts about her...i just want to feel this, that is for the first time, legitimately missing my most recent home and the people who made it what it was/is. i even cry for it/you/them. part of it being that, here are all these interesting people from around the world, and ex-pats like me, making lives of hopping around the globe: 5 years in Peru, 7 in france, 3 in scotland, now here; or from italy to d.c. to tunisia and moving on again in 2 years; or us and the fulbright types, here for a year... and where do all of them find "home", especially those lifers, the 30-somethings we met earlier today (i.e. this spanish/swedish couple; the france-peru-scotland-tunisia story).

What do I want in a home? Where do I want it to be, and with whom? When?

Missing you and saying hi.