This week

This week has been an a-typical one, but then again, the typical has yet to be established here thanks to excursions, and day visits to Tunis to the CEMAT office.

Mou'led Mabrouk! (Happy holidays!) Monday was the Prophet's birthday (the Mou'led) so we had school off to spend with our families. There wasn't all that much going on in La Marsa (or in Tunis, I heard later), but the popular things to do are make music (as I heard around my neighborhood), visit with extended family, and eat a particular sweet dessert called Assida Zagougou which comes in several variations and is a type of pudding with a creamy topping and ground-up nuts as a garnish. Making assida in my family was quite an ordeal and took over 10 hours. My mom was exhausted from sitting next to the stove (gas) and stirring it every ten minutes or so. In the afternoon my mother burned two types of loose incense in an ornate goblet-shaped incense holder with a coal. She put it on the marble steps and opened the door and the whole house still smells beautiful. My brother, sister in law and neice came over and then later we all went to visit my grandmother, great aunt, and two other aunts. I got to try 5 or 6 different types of assida that each of the guests had brought to share. This is a mou'led tradition for sure. The stuff is so sweet, a real treat.

I am not sure if there has been a wedding or just continued mu'led celebration down the street, but there has been music (zurna, darbuka, and singing, and wonderful ululations) down the street in the evenings until midnight every night. Awesome.

On friday I am going to a Tunisian hip hop / rap concert. The artist is called Balti and has gotten mixed reviews from the people I've asked around here. One of the SIT students is thinking about studying Tunisian hip hop for her individual project so this is a must.

The arabic today was a lot; six hours again. Tonight I rest and practice my ma'luf for my lesson on Saturday. The stuff is super hard. It's so hard to get my hands to produce the sounds that my brain wants. my ear just says WRONG no matter how much I try to make b 1/3rds flats and b 2/3rds flat. More on Ma'luf once I really get started on it.















Me and my nefew, Skander. My mom told me the other day that he wants to marry me when he grows up.















He likes to kiss and hug me a lot which is great. I need more hugging in my life here. I miss greeting people by hugging like we do without knowing it at Oberlin or even at home.