مساء الكخير ladies and gentlemen!!! Today I come to y'all with day 8 of my Tunisian trip, (a few days behind... But I seem to be having a lot of trouble keeping on track when I've been having so much fun here... ahaha!!) and my goodness, it's been a full week since we've arrived here. Looking back, it's so funny how I, at this time last week, was worried / not entirely happy to be leaving the fun back in the States behind. Well ladies and gentlemen, it's safe to say that is completely behind me. With the exception of a few classes that have felt like they have lasted far too long, (which is funny, I have a good time in most of them still...) I've experienced a whole lotta fun and and excitement here in Tunisia. We've still got four or so weeks left too... It's gonna be good!! But anyways, onwards... Day 8!! Huzzah!!
So today started with my rooster alarm on my phone blaring right next to my head. (Reminds me of Haiti each time I wake up... haha!!) I got up and got ready, and headed upstairs to eat a quick continental-ish breakfast that consisted of many many banana yogurts (so good by the way...) and a few pieces of bread. After that we finalized the room, met downstairs and got ready to head out to Mahdia, where we'd be seeing the Fortress. It was a bit of a drive to the city and when we got there, I was impressed (yet again...) by our driver's ability to negotiate the thin roads in a bus with traffic rolling everywhere. He's pretty much a pro!!
The streets I'm talking about... I dunno how our bus driver did it...
Before making it to the Fortress we decided to stop off at a cafe for a break. The thing that made this cafe special was that it was right on the rocks and the Mediterranean Sea. While a few people chilled and had coffee or a tea, a few more adventurous members of our group and myself headed down some steps that led to a groups of rocks that jutted out of the "bay". I spent the next few minutes with Mark and Travis exploring the areas underneath the cafe and climbing around on the rocks.
A perfect example of the rock climbing involved...
The view from under the cafe.
After all that climbing and jumping etc. we walked from the cafe to the fortress. Unfortunately, at this time it began to rain a little bit. This wasn't a big deal, and actually was kind of nice, the cool rain does wonders on a hot day. Anyways... The fort was pretty neat... It was built on the end of this peninsula which would have been a nasty sunvagun to assault should someone had needed to... While it was pretty cool, it was nothing near as neat as the rabat (Arabic fortress) that we would visit later... So I won't expand much further... What was something else was the graveyard that was set-up right next to the fort. Built along the coastline and along the little peninsula that the fort was set up on, all of the graves face east, where Mecca is... On a good day (as it would be later on in the evening) with the sun out and the beautiful breeze that seems to be ever present here in Tunisia... It would be an amazing little place to be buried!! Honestly, from a cultural standpoint, it's pretty neat how the Arabic culture deals with cemeteries. As I asked our tour guide Rasheed a few questions about them and he laid out a few rules that a family must follow. The graves are modest by nature, because their religion doesn't allow big, ornate tombstones, and they all are built... Get this... To crumble after time... They're expected to, and that's okay, because it symbolizes their movement into the afterlife... And they must always face Mecca. In all my time living overseas, I have never seen a Muslim graveyard built somewhere that isn't at least halfway pretty. It's pretty cool.
The graveyard
After leaving the fort, we headed to a small town (possibly even a suburb) of Mahdia where we were to eat a Tunisian lunch with a family. Yes, you got that right... A family. A "super mom" who cooked all of the food required to feed 14 hungry college students and three grown-ups... Oh, and some for her family too, and a "super dad" who would not allow us to go more than a minute or two wanting something. We needed water? Without even asking he'd get up and run back inside and present us with a new bottle. What a neat experience it was to sit down with this family and see yet again how awesome the "Arab hospitality" can be. Just another example of how neat this aspect of their culture is.... I've always had a fasination with the Bedouin, the people of the desert, who somehow manage to live their entire lives.... (Not just a week, or a month, or maybe a year... I'm talking... ALL THEIR LIVES!!!) out in the middle of the world's biggest desert. These guys will and are obligated to by their honor to, and I read somewhere a quote from one of the Bedouin themselves, take even the "devil's son" in for three days should they stumble in from the desert and feed and care for them before setting them loose again. It's incredible how different hospitality is viewed here.
The mound of Kous Kous we were served along with other courses.... Soooo good!!
After being shown the awesome garden the husband keeps and saying our goodbyes to the awesome family , we took off for the Rabat. Now I've been in my share of forts and the such, but my goodness... This one takes the cake, with a sheer combination of awesome Indiana Jones treasure hunter rooms, a flippin' tall tower, and awesome ramparts!!! I kid you not, this place was incredible... (Seeing as my internet will be going out here pretty soon... In the sake of time I have narrowed the description of this huge castle-like structure down a few sentences) The highlight of the Rabat was the little room that we proooobably shouldn't have been in that had this hole in the side of the wall with a long 2x4 running into the darkness....
Indiana Jones anyone???
Well.... Patrick and I weren't to be deterred... We both climbed into the darkness and crawled across the dark chasm into another chamber where the longer 2x4 just ended... Deeming it smart to stop there... We stopped there.... Anyways... I got my adventure for the day and just enjoyed scrambling all over the rest of the rabat.
The Rabat...
The view of the city from the Tower
The rabat's tower
We ended our excursion with a trip to Habib Borgiba's tomb. He was the first president of Tunisia and was credited with ending polygamy and giving Tunisian women the right to divorce, things that were unheard of in the Arab world during his time. The tomb was pretty neat as was the massive graveyard (again, next to the sea) just next to his tomb.
One of the Spires next to the tomb complex
After visiting Borgiba's tomb we left for Tunis, the trip was similar, as I wrote this blog
entry I fell asleep... Fortunately for y'all, while I can copy these words onto the internet, I can't copy the huge mark left on my page made by my drooling all over the place... (I was tired.... geeze... :D ) But I need to add this one last thing... You remember the mountain I mentioned in the last entry??? You remember how I mentioned it had "a brother"??? Well....
The other mountain....
I'm ticked I didn't get it earlier... It was incredible... I end this blog entry with praise for how awesome the Lord can be... He hasn't allowed me to forget it over the course of this trip!
Take care!!
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