This edition of my blog will live up to its name. It’s a real mix of random stuff and photos I have accumulated over the last several weeks.
Around our neighborhood, there’s a lot of construction. Fortunately, the building isn’t impacting us too much as the noise seems to dissipate. That just leaves the dust blowing on the wind.
The photo above isn’t from the desert. Its just sand for making concrete, piled at a local construction site.
I can’t explain this, really. There seems to be an affection here for this kind of “folly”, for lack of a better term. Everyone has a stairway to the roof. While on our building the roof access is a simple affair, others are more elaborate as in the photo above. Perhaps it harkens back to fabled palaces of yore.
Lest we forget we live in a resort town in the north of Africa, here’s a shot of the beach that borders the downtown area. I shot this on October 19th, so you can compare your mid-October weather with ours.
There are many adjustments one has to make when living the ex-pat life. One of them is that the rest of the world has different ways to cope with things we often take for granted. In your neighborhood, you might separate your recyclables into nifty color-coded tubs and set them out at the curb on the appropriate day for collection. Here in Tunisia, private entrepreneurs undertake the separation and recycling tasks.
This guy and his friend collect plastic. In fact, they often empty the trash that is bagged in plastic into the dumpsters so they can collect them too! This is a boon to the cats in the area who then have a crack at any tasty morsels that might turn up.
Since we’re in another non-Euro country, there’s the matter of money. Just what is all this metal in my pocket?
Well, from the upper right, the big bi-metal coin is five dinars. On its left is the one dinar coin. Completing the top row is the 500 millime coin. Then, left to right, you have 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 millimes. One dinar is equal to 1,000 millimes.
I was on the roof today and couldn’t help noticing the satellite dishes. They seemed to look to the sky like a field of minimalist sunflowers. Each building has sprouted several of them. There are three on our roof as well.
Finally, we have a man on a bike!
Cue the Steely Dan track and fade to black.
