My last post on international air travel reminded me of the very first time I ever got on a plane to Tunisia. I know this is now ancient history...not the typical day-to-day blogging...but I thought it was a story worth telling.
Throughout college there seemed to be a continual whisper in my ear that I would end up in the Arab world. It was an interest and a hunch that I couldn't shake. I wrote both my freshman year research and my senior year research on building understanding between East and West, but the day that I actually had to get on a plane and journey to an Arab country was completely overwhelming. I had a Fulbright grant that I was completely unqualified for yet somehow received. I had a plane ticket, and I had an address for a fellow Fulbrighter who was already living in Tunisia and said I could stay with her, I had my book-knowledge of Arab culture...and that is all. Oh, and I had the info from lonely planet that Tunisia had western-style toilets which really calmed me down way more than is reasonable. I said goodbye to my parents at Portland International Airport; I knew they thought I was crazy but they were trying to be strong because when you get a Fulbright grant you don't say no to it. I turned and walked towards security and had a rising wave of fear that I'd never felt before. What was I doing? Well...it is only a year...and you can survive anything for a year, right?
I passed through Rome on my way and in the Rome airport they decided not to let me on the plane to Tunis. This was because I didn't have a visa to stay the year. I had letters stating I was studying that year and we had been told we couldn't get a visa until we were actually in-country. That didn't seem to matter...they were not letting me on the plane. I began to pannick and yes, I did cry in the airport. My Fulbright friend had only my arrival details and I realized I didn't have a phone number for her; so if I missed this flight into Tunis and missed her picking me up I would have absolutely no one; no one to call...no where to stay...no idea what to do. The gruff Italian airline employee boarded the entire plane and then called a supervisor. I don't speak Italian but I could tell she was saying something like this, "I have this idiotic American girl crying at my gate. She wants to go to Tunis but she's too stupid to have the right visa to go....I don't know what to do with her." They decided last minute to let me on the plane...2 hours later I set foot in my new home.
The Tunis airport is over-whelmingly teal. Teal walls, teal desks, teal, teal teal. It's also smokey...and there are no-smoking signs everywhere. And gosh....this place is an inferno, I may never look presentable again at the rate I'm sweating. First impressions. Fulbright girl's boyfriend picked me up and decided to take me directly to his parent's house. His parents were upper-class Tunisians who seemed to be very influential in their community. They welcomed me and decided that to entertain me they would put on a video of their daughter's high school graduation party. Tunisia follows the French school system and inorder to graduate students have to pass a very rigorous exam called the BAC. The BAC basically determines their entire future course of study. Families wait on pins and needles to see the results and then throw spontaneous parties to celebrate. This one was....special. And shocking. Eighteen-year-old girls strutting their stuff in tiny bikinis and boys chasing them. Alcohol everywhere. The video turned to the pool where couples were....being couples and then someone in the room laughed, "yeah, her dad is the one shooting the video." And suddenly this became kind of funny and kind of shocking as he started zooming in on all the bikini girls' boobs. I'm in the Arab world? Suddenly I realized I was going to have to set my preconceived ideas down and start observing from zero. I had spent the last 6 months of my senior year of college researching pretty generalized Arab "cultural rules" and how not to offend. What I was experiencing in that living room was something else....Tunisia was its own creature and I would have to meet it on its own terms. My head spinning from exhaustion and a bit of shock..I was whisked away to a cafe in the little town of Sidi Bou Said, a cliff-top overlooking the Mediterranean. We sipped mint tea with pine nuts....I somehow remembered the Arabic word for the tea and I have ordered it ever since. My Fulbright sister told me, "There's one phrase you should learn right away in case you need it....you can say F-off in Arabic by saying this..." I locked that one in too...not that I really intended to use it. It just was emblazoned in my head after that along with the mint tea and the gorgeous turquoise of the Med. Welcome to my new life.
