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June 29, 2004
One Last Night in Hammamet
Following the final plenary, we left the meeting hall and spent some time hanging out in the medina plaza amongst a group of several hundred delegates who were enjoying the marvelous evening weather. Ralf Bendrath and Karen Banks had invited me to join a bunch of people heading to Hammamet for dinner. Though at first I was up for the idea, I became somewhat wishy-washy as I felt a severe headache and dehydration begin to overtake me. But thanks to some successful guilt-ridden peer pressure, namely from the likes of Ralf and Christine Wenzel of the Heinrich Boll Foundation and Marouen Mraihi of TakingITGlobal Tunisia, I soon caved and agreed to join them.
A large group of us headed out of Yasmine Medina one last time and hailed a group of taxis to take us the 19 kilometers into town. Traffic was rather heavy as people from all over the Hammamet region came into the city for a night on the town. Eventually, the taxi dropped us off several blocks from the Medina, where we met up with some of the others, while Ralf and his colleagues went back to their hotel to change clothes. The rest of us walked over to Sidi Bou Hdid, the oceanside café where I'd enjoyed mint tea and a shisha when I first arrived in Hammamet.
We grabbed a couple of tables and settled in for a while. Eventually, we grew to a posse of around 20 people, spread out over three or four tables, drinking our various fruit juices, teas and sodas as we finally began to wind down from the summit. As our hunger pangs advanced to hunger pains, we decided to go to Les Trois Moutons, a well-known seafood and couscous restaurant a few blocks from the Medina. As some of the group still hadn't arrived at the café, we staggered ourselves, heading over to the restaurant in groups of 10 or so people.
Les Trois Moutons was a cozy, classy place, with impeccably dressed waiters showing off the fresh catch of the day. We gorged ourselves on classic Tunisian mezze plates, including tuna, harissa, olives and French bread. I ordered the couscous special, which featured a combination of chicken and lamb; it was a two-person order, so I split it with Norbert Klein. Some of the group, including colleagues from the Philippines and Mozambique, had never had couscous before, so they decided to give it a whirl, while others went for steaks or fish. Bertrand de la Chapelle managed to pick out an excellent Tunisian Muscat wine, which we ended up polishing off and requiring another bottle in short order.
We hung out at the restaurant until midnight, taking advantage of the short time we had left to spend with each other. Ralf, Christine and Christoph had to leave for the airport by 1am for a pre-dawn flight, while others were being recruited by Marouenfor a late-night shisha. As tempted as I was to enjoy one last puff before returning to my usual non-smoking self, I needed to get up in less than six hours to catch my shuttle bus to the airport. It was so difficult to say goodbye, given the rollercoaster of events we'd all gone through over the last 96 hours, particularly since yesterday afternoon. Most likely, I wouldn't see any of them again until February in Geneva; until then, we'd just have to continue our work and our friendships online.
By the time I returned to the hotel, it was nearly 1am; our taxi had gotten stuck in a traffic jam in Hammamet's night club neighborhood. The strip felt more like Miami Beach than Tunisia, with hundreds of young people in tight, skimpy clothes cruising the road and queuing at the clubs. I felt as if we were cruising as well, as the taxi driver turned on his radio and started blasting a Black Eyed Peas song. So very, very un-Tunisian. Or perhaps not.
Posted by acarvin at June 29, 2004 8:50 AM
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