Questions about Tunisia?
I wanted to discuss my perception of the pace of things in Tunisia. I am concerned that my few encounters with the system and a few people in the last ten years are not representative of the general way of doing things in the country where I am from and where I grew up. I would love to think that my few experiences are not representative of the 21st Century Tunisia. These are my questions:
-why does tomorrow means next week? And why does 8:00 AM means 10:00 AM?
-why are there white lies?
-why do people say they can when they can't?
-why does everybody have an opinion on everything?
-why does everybody understands (in fact they think they understand) geopolitics and world affairs?
-why are business and success suspicious?
-why do people say the same things several times in the same sentences?
-why what region you come from matters that much (sfaxi vs. sahli vs. Djerbi vs Beldi etc)?
-why is the weather important?
-why does every sentence has to have a proverb in it?
-why is it cool, hip, sophisticated to use French sentences?
-why do we say we are Arabs when the Arabs are one of the people that colonized us? why don't we say we are Turkish (they ruled us for three centuries), or French, or Romains or phonenicans?
Clearly these are some funny observations and are not intended to offend the sensitivity of my fellow country men and women...
Summer Vacations in Tunisia
I am going home this summer for vacations and I am having some apprehensions!!!
Can I learn to chill and enjoy "nothingness"? I have invented this word to describe one of the best past time in Tunisia. Here they call it hanging out or chilling out. I guess all cultures/ countries have some nothingness built into their social make up. I am eluding to the preponderance of nothingness in Tunisia. Whether it's sitting at a coffee shop (shooting the breeze), waiting for somebody to show up for a late appointment or a show to start, embarking in silly impassioned debates over soccer, it seems to me that in Tunisia we do a lot of nothingness.
Don't get me wrong there is ample situations and time for nothingness here (for example watching stupid reality TV shows), however the major difference is nothingness is a choice, not a way of life, you can avoid it.
I guess I am diverging. I am literally stressed out for not having an exact plan for everyday of my vacation. My family in Tunisia is championing the play it by ear approach...
I will have to wait and see....
I keep telling myself the secret of life is to be nimble and adopt to your environment (as the famous saying goes, when in Rome...) . I have to adjust back to Tunisia way of life at least for two weeks...
Sense of Sufficiency!!!!
I am disgusted by reading the Tunisian press after the Spain game. Reading our impartial and professional papers you get the feeling that Tunisia played very well and deserved better (heroic, best game since Argentina 78, deserved better, lions of Tunisia etc). Did they watch the same game that I have seen? Tunisia was at best average, non creative, too scared to lose, players lacking the fundamentals of soccer, and clearly unentertaining.
I am puzzled and outraged by the culture of "sufficiency" and lack of ambition that they cultivate in us. What would have been the reactions if we have won?
