-A week ago we visited an NGO which I am forgetting the name of at the moment. It basically provides women with skills (making curtains, teaching English, painting..) in order for them to generate an income to be able to support their families. (also microfinances women in order to start their own businesses) We are hopefully going to be involved by teaching English to some of the teenagers who live in the neighborhood where this NGO is based. It is really trying to support this community and hopefully we are going to be able to help! I am most interested in the more behind-the-scenes stuff and I enjoyed attending a meeting that was discussing this exercise that the directors were going to conduct with the community to see how they can help, if they have helped and what should be planned for the future.
As I'm interested in policy creation/management etc. in inner-city communities this was really interesting to me. It also reminded me a lot of some brainstorming sessions at Project Morry these past two summers.
And, the woman who is the head of this project is incredible. She is a well-travelled and educated successful businesswoman who sat back and decided that she needed to do something more worthwhile.. and now here she is. I think that she's quite incredible and very inspiring. I don't think this is exactly what I would like to do with my life.. but it would be nice if there were more people in the world like her.
-There were about 20 deans here visiting from various schools around the United States. They left Saturday but were here for about a week. My personal highlight from their visit was when 2 came over to my host family's house for lunch.. my host mom cooked a DELICIOUS "traditional" Tunisia meal of cous-cous, fish, vegetables, salad, kefteiji, etc. and cut up strawberries and bananas with this juice on top for dessert! I was lucky because one the deans who visited my house was fluent in French and the other in Arabic- perfect! They talked with the host family smoother than I ever do! It was really great to see my host mom so excited and to be able to share such a great aspect of my stay in Tunisia with the deans.
-Yesterday 8 other students and I went to a university with one of our directors who is an English teacher there. We kicked-off the "English club"'s first meeting by talking with about 20 Tunisian students. The conversations were EXTREMELY interesting and I especially enjoyed an incredible discussion we had about the Tunisian identity. Tunisia is a special country because there is there interesting fusion of identity going on. Tunisia isn't exactly Islamic, isn't exactly African and isn't exactly Mediterranean or European... it's a mixture of all of these different identities and more. I asked the students about this and about what they would personally identify themselves as if it couldn't simply be "Tunisian" and the most popular answer was Arabic and African. (Think about it like "what would you identify yourself is if it was not simply "American") I then asked how they thought their parents would identify themselves, their grandparents and then if they were to have children, how they envision the identity shifting over the next 25 or so years. It's not an easy question to answer but the responses were very interesting and the thoughts that were pumping through my head have lead me to what I think will be the bulk, and perhaps the most interesting aspect, of my Independent Study Project that I have to start in only 4 short weeks. I could write more about this phenomenon but I figure it'll come up later and I also feel that it is very hard to explain right here.
-Friday night we (about 6 of us) went to a Tunisian rap/hip-hop concert! The performer's name was Balti and he is Tunisian. I must admit that I did not understand all of the words but we got excited when we did. It was an interesting insight into a "subculture" within Tunisia and, more specifically, Tunis. There were some political undertones, strong nationalism, pride, break dancing and various other aspects to the performance. And, one of the best parts- Balti was wearing a Red Sox jacket! Haha.
-After the concert we went to a bar on top of a hotel and ended up talking to a group of about 15 Americans from Stonehill College (in MA). It was interesting to hear their perspective on Tunisia. They are only here for a short time (less than a week) and after hearing their perspective I am very glad that I am on the SIT program for a much longer period.
-We have one more week of classes (this week) and then we go on an excursion to the Northern part of Tunisia- YAYY! Then after that we have two weeks of classes then ISP time- oh boy! Time is passing quickly! .. speaking of which, I have an Arabic test I need to be studying for.. talk to you later!
Oh, last thing- the weather here is GREAT- FINALLY!
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