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June 21, 2004
Lost in the Medina
I really, really intended to get up early this morning, but once again my jetlag got the better of me. Despite the fact I set my alarm for 6:30am, I had to drag myself out of bed just before 9am - not a good start. My plan had been to get up and catch a shared taxi to Kairouan, three hours to the self. According to genealogy research I've done, the name Carvin, originally spelled Karawan, descends from a family of rabbis who taught at Kairouan's Talmudic college in the 11th century.
Of course, I don't have any family tree written down to prove any of this, but I'd always wanted to visit Kairouan just to check out the place, in case my ancestors once called it home. But as I had breakfast and though about it, the whole idea of traveling three hours each way just to visit for only a couple of hours didn't seem worth it. Of course, I may end up regretting this decision, but I know I'll be back to Tunisia at least once or twice in the next couple of years because of the World Summit on the Information Society, So next time I'm here, I'll plan to go there at least on an overnight excursion rather than making a grueling day trip from Tunis.
With that decision settled, I decided I'd spend the day getting to know the Tunis medina a little better. There was a lot to see hidden in the souks and alleyways - I just needed the better part of a day to do it. Leaving the hotel around 10am, I walked west down Avenue Bourguiba and paid a brief visit to the Catholic cathedral of Tunis. The cathedral was constructed by the French in the late 1800s on the previous location of a much smaller church. Because the land was rather swampy at the time, they had to sink nearly 2400 Norwegian fir tree trunks to build a stable foundation. The interior of the church is rather modest by cathedral standards, but its use of Moorish arches in the vaulting gives it an exotic touch. High above the altar there's a mosaic of Abraham blessing representatives of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, appropriate given Tunisia's relatively good history of religious tolerance.
Continuing west through the French Gate, I entered the medina and visited several shops on my way to the Great Mosque. Almost every shop owner called out to me, trying to get me to come inside. Oddly enough, almost of none of them thought I spoke English - instead they called out to me in Italian. On several occasions I played along, saying I was either Mexican, Norwegian and Scottish, depending on my mood. Only when I said I was Scottish did I seem to get a reaction - "Ah, whisky!" they all seemed to reply with a huge grin on their faces.
Of all the shops, I particularly liked Hanout Arab, which specialized in traditional Berber crafts. Compared to most of the shops along the main drag, Hanout Arab offered fair fixed prices with no pressure from the owners, so I was free to browse at my leisure. Perhaps I'd come back later in the afternoon and do some shopping; better do it later rather than drag around a bag of souvenirs all day.
Soon I arrived at the eastern entrance of the Great Mosque. It's open for tourists a few hours each morning, so I wanted to visit before it closed for noon prayers. Coming upstairs to pay the entrance fee, a guide immediately latched on to me and offered to give me a tour of the place. I politely declined, but then he offered to take me on a quick visit to Koranic school and a terrace with a view of the Mosque. Since good views of the mosque were hard to come by, I decided to play along, even though it might cost a few dinars.
"Okay, but no shopping," I said to him.
"Okay, not shopping," he replied.
First, though, I spent a few minutes in the courtyard of the mosque, watching a group of men renovating the inner perimeter. Most of the courtyard was blocked off by the construction, which was disappointing, but I still had a nice view of the mosque's beautiful 19th century minaret. Since I wasn't able to explore any further, there wasn't much point staying any longer, so I told the guide I was ready to go to visit the terrace. We walked south along the edge of the mosque; I had to walk briskly to keep up with the guy. Eventually he arrived at a carpet shop and went inside. I stood outside.
"Wait," I said. "No shopping, remember?"
"Yes, yes, no shopping," he replied. "Up." He immediately bolted inside and up a staircase; I begrudgingly followed. Indeed, given the pace he was going, there was little chance I'd get to see any of the carpets inside, so I breathed a sigh of relief and went up several flights of stairs.
Soon I found myself looking at the Tunis medina from above, a forest of white buildings, sparse patches of green, with minarets in every direction. Immediately to my north, I could see the Great Mosque, making out its courtyard and interior prayer rooms based on the position of the minaret. Immediately I was glad I'd gone with this guy, since the view of the minaret from inside the courtyard simply hadn't done it justice. I wandered the terrace, split on three different levels with tiled arches in between, appreciating the 360-degree view. It's too bad the call to prayer was at least a couple of hours away; I couldn't imagine a better spot for appreciating it.
As we left the terrace, I made sure I led the way downstairs, in case the guide wanted to come up with an excuse to stop and see the carpets.
"You see carpets, yes?" he asked just as my foot reached the door.
"I would like to see the medressa now," I replied.
"Okay, okay, we go to medressa," he said, looking resigned to the fact he wouldn't be getting a commission this morning.
Soon he overtook my pace, and once again I had to struggle to keep up with him. Since he knew I didn't have the patience for carpet shopping, he probably wanted to get this gig over with as quickly as possible. Weaving through the souk, we soon reached the entrance to the Slimania medressa, constructed by the Ottoman governor Ali Pasha in the mid-1700s. Because the Koranic school was now owned by a local medical college, some of the rooms were open to the public.
"I like this medressa because it is named Slimania, and my name is Suleiman," he said as we entered.
Inside the courtyard, I had a flashback to the great mosque of Cordoba, with its series of bi-colored arches simulating a palm grove. The medressa was much smaller, much more sublime, but the courtyard arches were just as effective. We then visited the main room of the medressa, where Koranic scholars taught young students for over two centuries. Its interior was much more reminiscent of an Ottoman mosque, quite appropriate given its Turkish origins. The walls were covered with intricate Iznik tiles, while several small windows with colored glass created an illusion of a spectrum bouncing off the ceiling. A group of French tourists were inside, contemplating the room, while in the corner, an attendant sat reading the newspaper classifieds, smoking a tall shisha water pipe. Suleiman stood to the side while I explored the interior, attempting to take a few photos of the relatively dark room with my digital camera. I even managed to take a picture of the attendant, lost in his newspaper and water pipe; Suleiman gave me a devious smirk.
Back in the main courtyard, a cat had appeared, and was drinking from a puddle of water. Suleiman and I both made clicking noises with our tongues simultaneously, attempting to get the cat's attention. Briefly it looked up at me and gave me a look as if to say, "Can't you see I'm busy?"
Leaving the medressa, I made a pre-emptive strike and began thanking Suleiman for the brief tour. If I paused much longer, undoubtedly he would have asked me to go to a carpet shop. But my attempt didn't seem to make a difference.
"But my father, my old father, he has a very nice bizz-ee-ness," he said with a heartbroken expression, stretching out the word "business" for what felt like an eternity.
"I am sure it is a very nice business, but I am not interested," I replied.
"Then you pay me trente dinar" he said sternly.
"Thirty dinars? No way," I replied swiftly, struggling to suppress my laughter. "I'm not going to pay you 25 bucks for a 30-minute tour. In Sousse or Kairouan I could hire a guide all day for half that price."
"Vignt dinar," he replied tersely, lowering his offer by a third, but still within the realm of the absurd.
"Harem alek!" I replied to him in Arabic - shame on you! -- using one of the few phrases I knew by heart. I reached into my pocked and pulled out all the small change I had, amounting to around four or five dinars. He shook his head, clicked his tongue knowing the bargaining was over, and walked away. I guess I'd known it would have ended that way, but it could have been a lot worse. At least the carpet shop with the nice terrace wasn't the shop owned by his father - that would have certainly been a hell of a lot harder to escape with my wallet intact.
Now that Suleiman and I had gone our separate ways, I weaved through the souk until I found, Café Chaoechin, where I'd stopped for a mint tea, shisha and Whitey Bulger a couple of days ago. It wasn't too busy, so I had a better selection of seats this time, so I settled into a comfortable corner and took out my stack of postcards, ordering an espresso from the waiter. The coffee arrived as I started my second postcard; it was no more than a tablespoon of espresso, but it had enough coffee in it to power at least three cups of American coffee. It was a peaceful place to spend an hour, huddled over my postcards and feeling the caffeine coursing its way through my veins.
Soon it was the middle of lunchtime, and I decided to get a quick bite at el Madhaoui, an alleyway diner next to the Great Mosque. Even though it's located at what has to be primo real estate for a restaurant, the diner offered some of the best prices in the neighborhood. For four dinars, I had a rotisserie chicken platter with olives, salad, fries, French bread, most of it swimming in fiery red harissa sauce, and a large bottle of water. The chicken was nice and moist, though the fries were pretty much what you'd expect at any greasy spoon along a US interstate.
Following lunch, I set out on a long walking tour of the medina. Even though I'd hiked around the walled city numerous times in the last three days, I'd only managed to see a fraction of it, so I wanted to go off the beaten track and see some sights that most tourists miss. I started by heading south on Rue Tourbet el-Bey, the Street of the Governor's Tomb, in search of the mausoleum where the Ottoman rulers of Tunis were buried. The first several blocks of the street were typically touristy like much of the central medina, but the further I walked from the central area, the more residential it became. Soon there were no souvenir shops - only whitewashed homes, carpentry shops, kids on bicycles, and cats wandering around with their young kittens.
Cats seemed to be everywhere; look under a car and you were bound to find two or three of them napping in the shade. At one point I saw a cat cleaning itself near a door, so I crouched down and put out my hand to say hello. Suddenly three other cats came out of nowhere and started to mark a perimeter around me. They were scruffy little fellows, but they were very friendly. (In fact, as I write this, I'm sitting at a café near the center of the medina, and three kittens are playing in a shoe rack across the way in a souvenir shop. They sure look like they're having a good time.)
Eventually, I reached the entrance to the Tourbet el-Bay, the Ottoman mausoleum. It was very similar to the turbe in Istanbul, where many sultans and viziers are buried. This one, though, was dedicated to a dynasty of rulers and their advisors rather than just a single ruler and his family, so the mausoleum was quite large, spread out over four or five rooms. Each room was filled with a couple dozen marble sarcophagi, each marked by a tombstone and a marble post, topped with a rendition of the deceased's official hat. Some of them had turbans, others fezzes, and on many of them you could count off the tassels hanging from the fez to guess how important they were.
Leaving the tomb, I backtracked a couple of blocks and turned left on Rue de la Juges, following it towards the southwestern gate of the medina. This area was dedicated to the local blacksmiths, who were busy at work using arc welders to fuse metal rods together. When the medina was constructed, the mosque was put at its center, then various souks were laid out, each dedicated to a particular trade. The closer you were to the mosque, the more honorable your profession was. Given the fact that the blacksmiths were as far away from the mosque without being outside the gate, they must have not been held in the highest regard.
I now headed back to the center of the medina, following Rue de la Juges until it met Rue Tourbet el-Bey. Walking north, I soon reached house #33, where the famous historian Ibn Khaldun was born in 1332. Unfortunately the house wasn't open to the public, so I continued following the street until I reached the mosque, then kept heading north to a part of the medina I hadn't visited yet. Again, I reached a very residential neighborhood just blocks from where all the tourist action was. It was a quiet neighborhood, with mostly houses and a few shops. I tried stopping at a couple small museums along the route, but unfortunately they were all closed in the early afternoon. Near the Tunis City Museum, I heard some squeaky meows coming from a courtyard. In the center of the courtyard, two little kittens, probably no more than a couple of weeks old, were frolicking around, crawling over each other, matting their coat with the mud from their paws. I went over to say hello; at first they didn't know what to make of me, but eventually they started crawling over each other to get to my hand, meowing and squeaking contently.
I returned to the Great Mosque and headed east towards the French Gate. I stopped for a few minutes at Hanout Arab, the Berber crafts shop, and bought a wrought-iron kebab skewer rack to hang in my kitchen. I continued east until reaching the gate, where a mass of 50 or 60 elderly French tourists were being given a history lesson by their guide. I paused and shuttered for a moment, then maneuvered around them until reaching a shady café in Nouvelle Ville. Ordering a fresh lemonade and a bottle of water, I settled in to write some more postcards. The situation worked out quite well until 20 minutes later, a PA system near the French Gate started blasting The Macarena in Arabic. A little French toddler at the table next to me got up and started dancing, falling on his rear end a few times. I'm not absolutely positive, but I'm pretty sure I've heard The Macarena in the local language of almost every country I've visited since 1996, when I distinctly remember hearing it in Hindi at a restaurant in New Delhi's Connaught Place. Perhaps I didn't catch it on trips to Iceland or Cambodia, but otherwise The Macarena seems to be the glue that binds the universe of world music together.
"Pour le festival ce soir," the waiter said to me as I paid my bill.
"Comment?" I replied, not knowing what he was referring to.
"La musique, là-bas," he replied, pointing to the PA system across the plaza. Apparently there was going to be some kind of block party later this evening.
"Ah, un festival," I said. "Heyyyyyy, Macarena."
Venturing towards the hotel, I paused for a while at a crafts cooperative that supposedly had a good collection of Tunisian wares at reasonable prices. Indeed, they had a marvelous collection of ceramics and glass, but none of it seemed particularly easy to bring home without taking a bit of a gamble. So I returned to the hotel, where I took a quick shower, left behind my newly acquired skewer display, and grabbed my laptop, in search of a café. For the last couple of nights I'd found myself staying up later that I would have liked due to all the journaling I was doing, so I thought I'd get a head start rather than saving it all for after dinner.
Initially I planned to stop at a café along Avenue Bourguiba in Nouvelle Ville so I wouldn't have to venture to far with my laptop, but the sun was now low enough in the sky to render most of the café umbrellas useless, making it next to impossible to see my laptop's screen. Eventually, I found myself in the heart of the medina, just a few meters east of the Great Mosque, pounding away at my keyboard while drinking mint tea, occasionally puffing a shisha, and watching a gaggle of kittens playing in a shoe rack. Apart from a couple of locals who came over to find out if I was somehow connecting to the Internet (I wasn't - no Wi-Fi in the medina as far as I could tell), I managed to spent a few hours sipping my tea and getting a lot of writing done.
At one point, someone tapped me on my shoulder; I turned around to find a middle-aged man smoking a shisha with his friend. He started to speak to me in French, but he could see the blank look on my face, so he switched to broken English.
"Your machine… Your ordinateur… Is it connected by satellite?" he asked.
"To the Internet?" I replied. "No, I wish it were connected. Right now I am just writing."
"But if you wanted, it could connect by satellite?"
"Not by satellite," I said. "But it can be wireless - just not very far, about 50 meters."
"That is still very good," he continued, "but here in the souk, you cannot get your mobile to work because of the ceiling. Are you a journalist?"
"No, I am just writing for myself," I explained. "I do it as a souvenir, you could say, then I put the stories on the Internet."
"Oh, that is very nice," he replied. "Can you take photos with your machine?"
"No, I have to use a camera, but then I can put the photos on my computer, then on the Internet. " I then opened up a Web browser and showed him the photo gallery of Stockholm that I was designing.
"Very beautiful!" he said. "Are you Swedish?"
"No, I am from Boston, in the USA, but I was in Sweden recently."
"And you will put Tunisia photos on the Internet , yes?"
"I hope so, when I go back to America."
"Well you are most welcome," he said with a big smile on his face.
I chatted with him and his friend for another 10 minutes until they were joined by a third friend. Meanwhile, one of the waiters at the café became curious and wanted to see pictures of Tunis on my camera. I turned on the camera and started to browse through the pictures. The most recent batch were of those kittens I met while hiking around the north of the medina, and he seemed to think it was very funny that I came all the way to Tunisia and spent my time taking pictures of cats.
By 7pm my computer's battery was nearly dead, and the three kittens playing in the shoe rack had fallen asleep cuddled around their mother. I packed up my things and said goodbye to my neighbors at the café, then decided to walk over to Dar el-Jeld, one of the best restaurants in Tunis, to treat myself to a nice meal. I walked through the souk as many of the shops were shutting down for the evening. In one shop, the owner and his friends were putting on an impromptu concert, banging on doumbeks and tambourines.
I arrived a few minutes later at Dar el-Jeld and discovered a group of rather large men wearing suits and ear pieces standing in front of the front door. They did not seem interested in moving when I showed interest in going inside. It appeared that a Tunisian VIP must be eating inside, so I was tourista non grata for the time being. Not sure how long I'd have to wait to get inside, I decided it would be a lot easier if I just visited one of the many restaurants in Nouvelle Ville.
I backtracked through the souks until reaching the French Gate. I could hear fast-paced drumming emanating from the plaza, and a large crowd of several hundred people had formed. I remembered that there was going to be some kind of festival this evening, so I decided to check it out. The music was incredibly loud; it sounded like a dozen drummers were playing. I weaved through the crowd to take a look at the musicians, who were hidden by the crowd due to the fact the stage was at street level. When I got to the front, I saw a barricaded space with a lone DJ spinning his turntables. So much for experiencing traditional Tunisian drumming.
I walked along the avenue through enormous crowds that had assembled along its many cafes. Tunis had one of the most intense café cultures I've experienced. Mediterranean weather combined with an Arab love of coffee, tea and sweets made for a perfect combination for outdoor café life. Hundreds upon hundreds of chairs were set out front of the cafes, with barely a free seat available. The locals had found a comfortable spot and were settled in for the night.
Not far past the cathedral I took a left off the avenue to compare two restaurants, Le Carthage and L'Orient Tunis. The first restaurant was a well-known couscous place, while the other served a range of Tunisian dishes with an Andalusian twist. L'Orient appeared to have better atmosphere, so I decided to go there, even though I was leaning towards getting more couscous. The restaurant was decorated rather intensely, with ceramic plates and swords covering every inch of available wall space. As I sat down I discovered they had a TV on, which for a moment took away from the atmosphere, but then I realized they were getting ready to watch England play Croatia in the Euro 2004 football tournament.
Soon a small crowd formed, including most of the restaurant staff, staring upward at the TV, commenting on every kick and every penalty. I watched the first half of the game enjoying a bowl of lamb couscous; it was very tasty but not as good as the couscous I'd had the night before. I also got to try my first Tunisian beer - very cheap and very good.
After dinner, I walked back to the hotel, past many cafes in which the entire clientele were staring upward at a 45 degree angle, straining to watch the football match on TVs suspended from the ceiling. Meanwhile, the outdoor café crowds had gotten even thicker, with large groups of people lounging around waiting for a table to open. I stopped at a dessert shop to get a scoop of hazelnut ice cream and stroll along the avenue. It was a nice way to wrap up my stay in Tunis; I'll certainly look forward to returning here, hopefully soon….
Posted by acarvin at June 21, 2004 9:30 PM
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