July 27, 2011
If there’s one regret I have from this summer in Tunisia, it’s that I lacked the time to write about it and share it with you, my dear friends and family who wanted so badly to read regular updates. For my lack of time and blog entries you can thank the incredibly demanding, competent and inspiring people who organize and manage my language program. I couldn’t justify blogging when I’m here learning Arabic on other people’s money and hard work. To give you an idea of what my summer has been like, here’s a typical school day:
Wake up around 5:30am and stick my head out the second story window in hope of feeling a breeze to cool my face; one gets used to living without air-conditioning, yet I’m grateful for a breeze. Sit on my bed and flip through al-Kitaab, the Arabic textbook we beginning Arabic students use and work on conjugating verbs and writing a brief essay in Arabic about what I would like to do in the future. Around 7:30 head down the stairs, greet my host mother as she sits smoking on the sofa and facebooking. I pass through the small kitchen and out to the patio where I eat the Tunisian breakfast of champions: Nescafe (instant coffee), a piece of cake, and the local version of cocoa puffs. By 8am I’m walking to school through the charming, narrow streets of Carthage and Sidi Bou Said, with their white stucco homes, blue doors, and flowering vines.
Out little school building adjoins a bustling, modern (read: expensive) café in Sidi Bou Said. I often get a small coffee there before class starts at 8:30am when we have Tunisian dialect class, where we work on anything from giving directions in a taxi to memorizing part of a politically-charged rap song that was instrumental in the revolution. That is followed by three hours of standard Arabic class, waiting for one o’clock when we can break for lunch and grab a keskroot kefta (a fast food sandwich). Then from 2 to 5, we have speaking practice sessions with Tunisians, sometimes in dialect, sometimes in the standard Arabic. There’s almost a one-to-one ratio of teachers to students in my program, so the personal attention has been phenomenal, truly unsurpassed. Also during this time our teachers are available for office hours, so I’m scurrying from one Tunisian to another, learning how to express opinions about politics after the Tunisian revolution, for example. And all of this is closely monitored and daily reported so that the entire staff is informed about the individual needs and performance of each student.
4:30pm, I’m pillaging the school kitchen for a caffeinated beverage or I’m sprawled out on one of the many mattresses the school keeps so that we can take “power naps” to renew our energy before tackling the average four hours of homework. Homework time.
7:00pm, I’m stepping out the front door of the school and into the bustling café patio where I’m always struck by 1) the late hour and the impending sunset, and 2) the relaxed, sociable nature of Tunisians and their vibrant café culture, and 3) why I’m not partaking in that relaxed café culture and am instead trying to cram one year’s worth of Arabic into eight weeks. The walk home often sets my mind and spirit right, as it is a good time to reflect on the day, to think, to pray, to remind myself of this incredible opportunity to study Arabic in a beautiful country which just experienced a revolution only six months ago. 7:20pm, I change into running clothes and tell my host mom, “Besh nimshi footing.” (I’m going running, or “footing”, rather. Tunisian dialect is fun like that.) My feet pound into the dirt path which winds through Carthage. I’m jogging over unexcavated parts of Carthage – how crazy is that? – and I’m taking in big gulps of fresh, evening air filled with the fragrance of jasmine, the fragrance of Tunisia and budding freedom. At the top of my hill I look towards the shimmering sea where the sun is sinking and the call to prayer sounds from the most beautiful mosque I’ve seen in Tunis. I need this moment. I long for it when I’m sitting in class frustrated and working on the verb “to come”, which I can’t seem to master. Maybe I’ll just never “come” anywhere in Arabic; I’ll just go and go.
9:00pm. I’m back at the host home, finishing dinner on our lovely back patio, tiled in white and blue and green, enjoying the breeze under the lemon tree. Dishes clatter. Maybe we’re joking about Gaddafi or talking about our demanding program. My host mother tells me in Tunisian dialect that she fancies herself an artist in the kitchen (my expanding waistline confirms this). Her speech is peppered with French, thanks to the 20th century French colonization. 11 pm, so tired, so many new words to learn, my attention lags; I wonder what people are doing back home. Maybe I can just put my head down on the pillow and rest a minute… In my dream, I’m jogging with the director of the program. She’s an amazing woman, and she tells me to keep going. I might wake up at 3:30am and hear the call to prayer, and if I can’t go back to sleep, like awake and listen to the gentle rustle of the curtains and the rooster somewhere in the distance.
You know something really amazing? This program has encouraged me and pushed me to work so hard these eight weeks, that I can say (roughly and on a very basic level, mind you) the above entry in Arabic.
This entry says nothing of all the special moments and trips we took around Tunisia, or of the individuals who inspired me and I’ll never forget. Inshallah (Lord-willing), after I return home, I will enjoy writing about some of these experiences. Before then, I have two exams: a written one in standard Arabic and a phone interview in standard Arabic with an external tester. And in a few days, I’ll be on a plane headed home. Then I want to get over my hill and see what I find there.
