Throw back to Northern Excursion

Here are some miscellaneous pictures from our northern excursion several weeks ago.















It is becoming spring. This is somewhere along the road where we stopped to eat...















...mishweey, wonderful grilled lamb along-side freshly baked bread thrown on the grill for a bit accompanied by olive oil and slata mishweya (grilled pepper salad)















You place your order (ours was for 16 or 17 people) and you can stand and watch them carve up the entire lamb carcass in a few well-exacted strokes of a very sharp knife. Not something for the faint vegetarians or feint-of-heart meat eaters.















mmm...the end product. Greasy, smokey, and delicious.















Ghar el Melh, an absolutely spectacular coast line walk we took at the very tip of Tunisia quite close to the northern-most point of Africa. The main goal of the walk along the cliffs was to reach...




















This shrine to the patron saint of the region. There are two care-takers now, a couple, one of whom (the wife) is said to be a direct descendant. They were extremely generous and friendly and invited us in to look around, sit and rest for a while and drink, of course, a cup of mint tea with them. It is common practice to bring a small gift so we came bearing a box of sugar cubes. The woman told us, in an extremely poetic explanation about the place and the saint who never performed any miracles, by who never did a single thing of evil in his life.
















Some of the decorations and tributes inside the shrine which is also a home. This is Toney who is listening to a story attentively and cooling off from the trek there which took over an hour.




















I know this photo is over-exposed in parts, but boy does it capture the essence of this place and these people who welcomed us into their home and into their lives. Risking sounding a little hoaky, the place really did have a calm restfulness to it. It was hard to leave.















Beautiful hills of the north. This was across the road from a huge field of fava beans.
















Karen petting a five-day-old goat at a pottery workshop / home in Sejnen. Again, we were welcomed in and invited to watch an expert make a perfectly symmetrical put by hand in about two minutes. I was fascinated and fixated on her dexterity which was utterly fascinating to watch. Years of repetition.




















The "fingers" at Tabarka in the 6:00 light.
















The cork forests between Tabarka and Le Kef (near the Algerian border). A lot of honey in this region as well sold in jars along the road in tiny stands.
















An un-identified building at the ancient Roman marble quarries of Chemtou (I don't think this building dates back nearly that far). Some of the best marble in the country for many of the Roman monuments still standing came from this region.






















They had some very picturesque donkeys as well and nice views from the top of the cliff.




















The almost sleepy town of Le Kef were the tea is strong and people really want to chat you up in the street. We happened to arrive just before the beginning of a 24 hr. theater, dance, and music festival which was a lucky coincidence—I heard a fabulous Oud and Qanuun concert.















The Ottoman Kasba in Le Kef.















Top of the Kasba with a great view of the medina and newer part of town below.




















Le Kef and Djerba are historically the the two main Jewish centers in Tunisia, at least until 1967 when most Jews left the country. There is still a some-what sizable community in Djerba still, but I was told that the last Jew left Le Kef a few decades ago.




















I just love this picture and the light. There was more graffiti (some great stuff) in Le Kef than anywhere else we've been in Tunisia so far.
















Jupiter's temple at Douga, one of the best preserved Roman towns in Tunisia and in the world. The name "Douga" came from the Berber/numid word "Thouga." The town is not laid out like a typical Roman town (with the two main cross streets) because the Romans took what was left by the Indigenous people and made the most of it. Also, the topography (it's along a big a hill) really dictated how it was set up in the first place.















These were once latrines...now a good place for a sit-down.

Ok, enough procrastinating. Onward and forward to work on my project and English tutoring this afternoon. A friend and I have been teaching English at a little non-profit organization in a low-income neighborhood about 20 minutes away.

Research time...getting hectic

Thank goodness my internet is still working correctly (insh'Allah nothing ever fouls it up again!).

This week I have really started throwing myself into my independent research here which got off to a bit of a slow start last week due to a combination of circumstances (particularly our academic director not speaking with us about our proposals until last Friday...). Anyway, the past two days have been exhilarating, exhausting, exciting, and...well...I'll admit it, more than a little intimidating. The people I've worked with so far have been extremely helpful, open about their opinions, and generous with their time, but just the idea of calling people (some of whom speak more English than others) to make appointments or looking at a list of names of musicians, government-affiliated officials, and music-enthusiast friends of my adviser to be interviewed in the future can be utterly daunting. I am doing my best to just tackle everything head-on (I am two days into that plan and things seem to be going well).

Yesterday I finally got to meet with my personal adviser for my Independent project, Hatem, who is a good friend of Mounir's (our academic director at SIT) and whom I'd met at the very beginning of our stay here for an in-depth tour of the medina (old arab city) of Tunis. he is a writer, playwrite, and poet (among a seemingly endless list of other things). He is an artist.

I met him yesterday at Hotel Africa in the European quarter and went back with him to his "office." He pulled up on his bike, dismounted, and introducted himself. I can't possible describe this man, but he's got to be one of the coolest guys I've met. It been windy and raining that morning and he had a green winter hat (complete with yellow pompom on the top) and a real bounce in his step. Back at his "office," which was a single paint-spattered black table in the open space between rows of seats in a movie theater in the center for culture, we talked over my project. He was really excited that I was interested in what I suppose I will call "fusion music" and simply laid out the broad sweeps of the history of fusion in Tunisia and listed the most influential and interesting artists. Then...he took out his phone and wrote down phone numbers for the majority of the musicians. I am completely blown away by how connected this man is! I'd been fretting that I hadn't been able to talk to Anouar Brahem after the concert a few weeks ago, but now I have his number along with about ten other musicians and directors of various institutions.

This morning I walked just up the hill to the Center for Arab and Mediterranean Music, an institution established in 1992 by the current president both the preservation of Tunisian music and the propotion of new Tunisian music and musicians. The center is located at the historic palace of Baron d'Erlanger (called "Ennejma Ezzahra" or the "Star of Venus"), one of the most prominant musicologists and promotor of the arts from the early 20th century. I was lucky enough to have an hour-long interview with the assistant director who was a great contact. I commented on a really cool instrument hanging on his wall (a chordiphone with a sea turtle shell as its body) and he got really excited and walked me down to the instrument workshop where I met the master craftsman and got to see several Ouds and rebabs under construction. They (the musicologists and crafts men) also aim to re-create instruments that are no longer used today (some of them sub-saharan) from old photographs that are hanging in the shop and in the assistant director's office. What a fascinating job. Can I do that when I grow up? I was reminded of Professor Knight's various organological passions.

Tomorrow I have an interview with the director of a small "off-mainstream" theater in Tunis where they apparently sometimes have fusion music concerts. Hatim will facilitate and translate for me which I hope goes well.

More soon hopefully!

Please post a comment if you are reading here—I'd love to hear how everyone is doing and what is new!

Long time no post...

This is just to say that I am doing well and have not vanished from the face of the earth which could have been suggested by my mysterious vanishing from this blog. Simply enough (and a much better reason for not blogging than vanishing from the face of the earth) my internet has been fouled up for the past week and a half or so.

Life is great. My Arabic classes have concluded (we had a final exam this past Wednesday) as have my Field Study Seminar and Thematic Seminar (we're done with lectures). This mean's we've got all sorts of free time not only to complete our independent research project, but to do things like throw lavish birthday parties and have an extensive passover seder for the entire SIT crew hosted by myself and my good friend Ryan who attends Brandeis and is a Jew-iphyle. It was wonderfully haphazard and involved us visiting the jewish quarter in La Gulette, meeting the rabbi, and picking up 14 portions of a combination of tuna and brisket in the most delicious sauce I have ever had the pleasure of consuming...oh, and a box of French Matzah as well. The entire seder was in English, of course, and included a multi-denominational silent prayer and ad-lib tellings of the passover story, etc, and the ritual four glasses of wine. One of the best days I have had, full of shopping, cooking, sharing, questioning, and eating with good friends.

This past weekend I got to go to an absolutely fabulous concert: Anouar Brahem (who grew up in Tunis) and a new quartet (A Lebanese, a Sweed, and a German (I believe)). Anouar Brahem combined Tunisian (Arab / Andalusian) Oud music with Jazz influences mainly, as well as some Indian and specifically Iranian influences. Really interesting stuff that certainly be one of the main componants of my Independent Study Project. The title of my paper will be "Fusion" musics and Tunisian Identity in an Age of Global Stereo.

Speaking of which, today I found out who my advisor is for my project—a scholoar and historian from Tunis who gave us our first tour of the medina and who apparently knows a lot about Tunisian music. I am excited to meet him and get to planning some interviews. He speaks good English which is a G-d-sent.

Today we spent a long time making some great grilled cheese sandwiches (quite a delicacy here where quality cheeses are rare and a bit pricy) with tomatos (4 or 5) that I bought for around 40 cents from a man at the central market who had to hold the 50 milleem coins right up to his eye to see its value.

The internet looks like it might be waning. I'll check in again soon, in sh'Allah (If God permits).

I hope everyone is well.

Rudbelik (look out and take care) (accompanied by pointing at one's eyes, one and then the other, with a single index finger)