It’s election time in Tunisia. That’s a simple statement that doesn’t begin to describe a historic event in this country. It has been many years since there has been anything like a free ballot here and, coming so soon after the revolution, there’s a great deal of uncertainty regarding the outcome. There may even be a spot of trouble. This vote is important, as the delegates who are chosen will be charged with writing the country’s new constitution.
As a precaution, our State Department has asked Americans not to travel to Tunisia. In typical fashion, our school’s administration in Tunis is gathering addresses and other contact information in case the Marines have to come out and find us. While I see none of the kind of anger that would spawn violence among my students or in my neighborhood, that’s no guarantee that it doesn’t exist here. Personally, I don’t expect that any political turmoil will affect us directly.
The general air of uncertainty has affected our enrollment as well. Numbers are down from last year and there’s a sense of breath holding that hopefully will be released after this weekend’s vote.
At this point, we have heavily invested our meager resources into staying here. We’ve had to adjust our expectations. Needless to say, this has all had an impact on our mental state.
So, how do you cope with a situation like this?
Well, for one thing we have begun a gratitude garland.
A gratitude garland is similar to the decorative chains we made in preschool and early primary classes to dress our Christmas trees. It’s constructed from strips of paper, glued end to end to form links.
The purposeful part of the exercise is to add a decorative element on one side of each strip and, on the reverse, add a statement of gratitude or an affirmation. For example, “I am grateful for all my teachers.”, which expresses my thankfulness for everyone who taught me something along the way. Today’s affirmation was “I can discover something new every day.”
In this way, we are focusing on the positive and looking forward. The garland is a visible reminder to shift our thinking.
Another thing we’re doing … well, actually, I’m doing, … is cooking. I find that cooking is both a therapeutic exercise and a constructive money-saver. I am delving into legumes in a big way.
It would be appropriate to give a nod here to our pal John Sparrow and his song “A Day in the Working Class.”
http://www.myspace.com/americanballadeer/music/songs/a-day-in-the-working-class-40990448
I made a lentil and carrot soup yesterday that came out pretty well. I’ll post the recipe later.
A while back, we were exploring Souk Sibt, or the Saturday market. The cognoscenti of Sousse know to hit the Saturday Market on Friday morning for the best selection, so we did. (I promise to blog about the market later. When we have gone, it’s been to shop and I’ve been a little nervous about photographing there.)
While snaking our way through the semi-chaos of the market stalls, throngs of people and hawkers hawking, we came across a spice merchant who had what appeared at first to be nutmeg. Since the stuff was labeled in Arabic, it was hard to tell. We bought six of the black nuts and the seller shook each one to produce a satisfying rattle. The purpose of this ritual is a bit mysterious.
Later, we looked at our purchase and, well, we’d never seen nutmeg that looked like this. It was some sort of nut in a hard shell somewhat like a filbert. Hmmm.
Finally, after looking at the things for a couple weeks, Paula whacked one with the handle of my chef’s knife and cracked the shell open.
Sho’ nuff! It’s nutmeg! Jokes on us.
This was a much better result than the “cheese” I bought while we were in Turkey that turned out to be salty butter.
