Once again, we seem to be early to breakfast. We're here, eager and hungry travelers that we are, last night's pasta and panna cottta just a happy memory. There'e the two cats - one of whom poked his cute head in our doorway soon after our arrival at the Dar Faiza - who seem to have their run of this room and most of the establishement. Whether they're fighting or disporting, I can't tell. And that seems to be the extent of life in the hotel's large and airy restaurant. We are ready for breakfast. Any time about nowish would be good....
And of course, breakfast comes, as it always magically does for two such bums traipsing around a country without a damned bit of work to do. The life-giving bread and its accompanying spreads, the dark liquid infusion of caffeine. All is well. The gentleman who's in a room around the corner from us - I met him sitting on a deck chair during my initial reconnaissance of the hotel's roof, has arrived as well. That might be it for guests right now at the lovely Dar Faiza. The cats come and go, again. And so do we.
It's easy like Sunday morning in Houmt Souk. Fresh air, blue skies and a quiet village center. Very few creatures are stirring as yet, even the vendors of all that colorful pottery. But there is a queue of taxis, and we hire one to drive us out to Hara Sghira, the other of Jerba's two Jewish settlements. Apparently Hara Sghira means "small town" to Hara Kebira's "big town." Relative terms, given that the big town has a population of about 1,000. It's not so much the small town we're going to see as its famous El Ghriba synagogue.
Despite the putative civility between Jerba's Jewish and Muslim communitites, the El Ghriba synagogue has seen its share of troubles. The worst incident occurred in 2002, when some lost soul in the name of Islamic extremism blew up a propane tanker in the vicinity of the synagogue. Ironically, aside from taking his own life, he succeeded in killing 20 others, none Jewish. Eighteen French and German tourists perished, along with two Tunisian Muslims.
We're dropped in the middle of Hara Sghira, such as it is. Just a strip of businesses along a curving blacktop lane. We walk the short distance down the road to the entrance of the synagogue, where we face the most rigorous secrurity we've seen during the trip. We're guided into a compact, white out building where we are made to walk through a metal detector and run our bags through an x-ray machine. Fortunately, we read enough to know that we would be asked for our passports as well, which happens with the other security procedures.
Having been approved for entry, we exit the building and walk very politely by a couple of conspicuously well-armed police officers at the head of the drive to the synagogue and attached buildings.
El Ghriba certainly lives up to the billing. It's exquisite. It also lives up to the translation of the Arabic name, which means "the marvelous," or "the strange." I've only seen a few synagogues before, but El Ghriba seems particularly unique in its profusion of colors and decorative styles. The Tunisian blue is incorporated into the interior posts, trim, and most prominently, in the blue and white striping of the moorish arches. The rich tilework, which changes in pattern and color from the main floor to the second, seems quite Tunisian. As if an inverted landscape, the blue of lower reaches gives way to various shades of green above, culminating in the deep green of the ceiling, in the middle of which is a round fixutre, made to look like a sun with it's outer ring of flame-like points, although a very polychromatic sun to put it lightly. Wow.
One of the synagogues main draws for pilgrimmage, beyond it's age - the present building dates to the 19th century, but the synagogue is said to go back perhaps 2000 years, making it the oldest in Africa - and beauty, is that is currently houses the world's oldest Sefer Torah, a special handwritten copy of the Torah. I wonder if this is what is being discussed toward the back the smaller room of the synagogue, where a tour group is gathered. The group's tranlator is forwarding questions to someone who represents the synagogue. But sucessive answers and responses relayed by the translator back to the group result in one woman saying rather sharply "that's the wrong question!" What the right question is, we do not find out.
Across the a narrow strip of asphalt from the main sanctuary is a building housing offices and a school. One of our heavily armed friends informed us that there are toilets at the back of this building. We certainly weren't going to wander around with the same sort of abandon that might normally demonstrate elsewhere.
In the starkest of contrasts to the exquisite sanctuary we have just quitted, I have just emerged from (reminded as I am by that disgusting scene in Trainspotting) from THE DIRTIEST LOO IN TUNISIA. I'm not kidding. Let us speak of this no more.
There's a modest Sunday market in progress, winding through the strip of Hara Seghira. The narrow street is crowded with people and vendors. Large Tunisian flags fly from many of the bigger stalls; strings of small flags are stretched across the road; as Lee had previously remarked, "it's a very flaggy country." Among the Arab and Jewish constituents, I notice what is something of a rare sight in Tunisia, a black African. It's obviously not a market for tourists, as all the daily and basic necessitites on sale indicate. Lee purchases a pack of tissue, which a particular vendor is kind enough to separate from a large, more wholesale bundle, as well as five dates, just five, from a somewhat confused man in another stall. But that's all we need....
Since Lee is a fan of museums small and strange, we have decided to include Guellala and its Heritage Museum on our limited tour of Jerba. We catch a taxi easily enough outside the market and enjoy the 10-minute ride down to the south coast of the island.
Guellala is supposed to be the Jerban bastion of both the Berber language as well as Ibadism, the latter being a particularly strict form of Islam. But we have a chance to observe neither, as our taxi makes a left turn before we get to the town and heads up a hill on a well-manicured road to the museum. It's certainly a grander looking place than we had imagined.
As we're paying our fare, our driver, across the murky gulf of our mutual French - the coast on our side being particularly rocky and strewn with verbal shipwrecks - makes it known to us that he's willing to wait while we visit the museum and then take us wither we will go. All of this for a price, of course. I don't really care for the price, and I feel we can probably catch a taxi, even in the more remote areas of this heavily-touristed isle. So, I smile and shake my head. Non, merci. Undeterred, he reapeats his offer with stronger emphasis. Again I smile and shake my head. Non, merci. Now he's angry. I don't think he's quite cursing us, but as we get out of the car, I do understand a few words: "Dimanche...taxi...IM-possible!" Like the Jules Dassin movie, Never on Sunday we are made to understand. He shakes his head and drives off in a huff. We might end up hitchhiking later, but I'm happy to send the asshole on his way.
What the Guellala Hertiage Museum lacks in small, it more than compensates for in strange. All of this in an expansive, palatial setting, all the white-washed surfaces here set off by green doors and frames.
Most of the museum consists of tableaux starring crazed-looking mannequins. Numerous first rooms are given over to Jerban marriage rites. We're rather agape and amused at it all, most notably a scene depicting hair removal, although the poor orange-faced, clearly pained bride-to-be seems seated in a position conducive to giving birth, propped back on her hands with legs spread wide. The woman at her feet, like all of her supposedly lifeless cohorts, seems to be enjoying her work entirely too much.
Lest the boys get off lightly, there are actually two tableaux devoted to circumcision, the most leg-crossing of which features an elegantly dressed man leaning over with a pair of rusty shears.
It seems as if we have found the Jerban Disneyland. Are half of the tourists on Jerba here right now? The strange place is packed, especially the marriage section, thick with French tourists, a few of whom seem to find my exixtence quite vexing when I am demanding enough to desire occasional movement. Damned French.
The wedding and cicumcision tableaux - I wonder at one point if Lee's friend Raja is witnessing any such strange rituals - give way to a series of displays of wedding dresses from all over the country. It's all rather fascinating, a fireworks display of fabric, pattern and color, but eventually it's like a rich dessert of which one has partaken excessively. Too. Many. Wedding. Dresses.
But wait, there's more. Out a door and on the opposite side of the semi-circle at which we began, we walk into the museum's courtyard and come to the "Museum of the Sea." The "museum" is kind of a small, nautically-themed grotto. But of course.
In addition to all of these delights, there is also somewhat inexplicably a live camel tethered in the courtyard. We try to comprehend all that we have seen, while enjoying the fine early afternoon, drinking mint tea at a courtyard table.
It's something less than a half mile down the hill into sleepy Guellala. The tea did little to take the edge off our hunger, so we roam the main street to examine the limited possiblilities for lunch. At about the two minute mark of our expedition, we have reached the end of Guellalan civilization. So we circle back and decide to try a sandwich shop we spotted on a side street.
The sandwich seems to be a good fallback, if not a first choice for meals in Tunisia. These people know how to make bread, sandwiches and pizza. It's a couple of the latter that we're enjoying very much, sitting on stools at a table against a side wall of the limited dining area, adjacent to another tourist couple. I'm impressed with the guy who I assume is the proprietor. He's very friendly and checked with us after our pizzas were delivered to make sure all is well. The only moment of uncertainty in his spick and span restaurant is the result of some young men showing up in uniforms, bandanas around their necks, some wielding some dangerous looking sticks. But we realize that this is some sort of scout troup, not a group of bandits.
We walk back to the main street and are able to catch a taxi in about two seconds. HA! I say.
The problem with all the beautiful mosques in this Muslim country is that the interiors remain a mystery to we non-Muslims. That being the case, we're excited to visit the disused Fadloune Mosque, necessitating a short trip to the northeast corner of the island, toward Midoun, before we finally head back to the Dar Faiza.
I was expecting an interesting ruin, the like of which Lee and I so enjoy. But while it is no longer used for prayers, the Fadloune Mosque seems almost pristine, an extremely well-maintained museum. It's a testament to how elegant a building can be even when expressed in such basic archtitectural language, absent of color and decoration. The mosque is (predictably) a whitewashed affair, generally low-slung, its facade marked by the convex curve of it's archways and the series of rooftop koubbas of varying sizes. Only a building back of the main body of the mosque, sort of a keep to the mosque's castle, is more vertical, it's tall walls buttressed, a narrow lantern minaret poking above the white horizon of the wall tops.
As pleased with myself as I clearly was a getting a taxi back in Guellala, I'm beginning to regret our particular driver. When he got out of the car with us, I assumed our man would just have a smoke, relax, whatever, while we took a brief tour of the mosque. Instead, he has decided to be our tour guide and won't leave us the hell alone. We're both taken with this place, but we end up cutting our tour short just to shut him up.
While Lee is taking a bathroom break before our departure, our new friend asks if we're married. I smile and say no. He then asks, in his limited English if I "visit" her. I know what he's getting at, but how exactly does one answer this question posed by a total stranger who shouldn't have asked it in the first place? Afraid that any of the sarcastic answers the question deserves will only further encourage him, I just laugh politely, the mildest affirmative I can offer. Lee also later tells me that our eager guide got a bit handsy when guiding her through one of the interior doorways. Charming.
So, by all means, visit the Fadloune Mosque. Just make sure your driver stays in the car.
The presumptuous driver not withstanding, it's been a lovely day roaming around Jerba. I wish it were warm enough to take a swim, but instead we have an exceedingly pleasant siesta back at the Dar Faiza. It's the very essence of what you hope for on a vacation: the sunshine that we have temporarily banished is all too ready to poor back through the now-shuttered windows, the crash of surf can be heard when one is quite still, we're in a place where we're completely at ease and time is something of which we are conscious in the most carefree way.
Before dinner, we use some of the remaining daylight to walk across the street and take a look at the Borj el Kebir. The fort almost seems too pretty, given all that has transpired here. It is good to get close enough to see the many gradations in color in the generally sandy stone, the patchwork of varying textures, which gives some indication of the accumulation of centuries. The water of the Gulf of Gabes is green in the shallows just a stone's throw from the fort; out to the fairly calm sea the water looks as infinite and blue as expected.
So, we meander around the fort, if nothing else to satisfy ourselves that we have missed nothing on the side opposite from our hotel. Before going back to our room to ready ourselves for dinner, we stop at a small store, more of a stand really, a short distance from the entrance to the hotel on Avenue de la Republique. Only from the vantage point across the street did we first notice the business. A shame, since we are able to easily procure a needed tube of toothpaste. This after a stop in Houmt Souk yesterday that saw us inquiring in a pharmacy for the same item.
Neither of us had any idea how to say toothpaste en Francais, so Lee finally said "toothpaste" while pantomiming the brushing of her teeth. At that the person helping us presented us with a small box containing, we could only assume, toothpaste. It seemed expensive, almost ten dinars, but perhaps toothpaste is expensive in Tunisia we thought. Only later, when it came time to break into our new tube of toothpaste did we find out that Lee's pantomime resulted in our being sold a tube of anti-fungal oinment for the gums. The strange look of the gentleman at the pharmacy counter began to make sense....
It would have been easy enough to once again follow the curve or Rue Dargouth Pacha - and who wouldn't want to frequent such an intriguingly-named road - which the Dar Faiza property abuts, right to the cozy Il Papagallo for another satisfying meal, but we've made it all the way into Houmt Souk this evening. We've come to Les Palmiers, just north of the covered souks of the Qaysarriya in the village center.
Our guidebooks have again served us well. We're thoroughly enjoying our dinner, kefta on my side of the table and some Berber stew on Lee's. She's taken not only with the stew, but with the vessel in which it's served. The simple, maroon pot is just the sort of things she's looking for, she says. But as with the irony of rarely seeing couscous on the menu - apparently it is often ordered a day in advance - in a country famous for the dish, she's been unable to find such a vessel on an island where pottery seems to burst out of the ground whole and pre-painted.
We were greeted and initially served by a very amiable gentleman who we assume to be the proprietor of Les Palmiers. While it was immediately determined that we were all delighted to meet each other, despite the bonhomie that prevailed upon the delivery of our menus, it quickly became obvious that the good man couldn't understand a word we were saying. He was quite self-effacing about it, apologizing at his lack of French. In his stead, he sent over Sufjan.
Over the course of our meal, we have the sort of conversation with Sufjan that you long for when traveling in a foreign country, a warm, open exchange with a local. Although Sufjan isn't completely local. He's actually from the north. We don't know what has brought him to Jerba, nor why he's currently working in the restaurant. Like so many people waiting tables in the world, his vocation lies elsewhere. His somewhat bookish appearance is borne by the the fact that he's a linguist, his studies having taken him as far afield as Greece.
In addition to some of the particulars of his life, we talk about our two countries. He feels the need to assert, or assure us that Tunisians who have done mischief - and we are actually unaware of any Tunisians involvement in acts of terrorism - have done so away from the good influence of their home country. We, in turn, assure him that all the good advanced word to which we had been subject about the friendliness and decency of the Tunisian people has been affirmed by our direct experience. We also commiserate with lamentations of our countrymen, their embarrassing behavior home and especially abroad.
We also share his disdain for the zone touristique approach to traveling. Sufjan is actually rather amusing as he dwells on the penchant of those visitors who hardly ever leave the safety of their hotel worlds for Mariah Carey and chicken. It might not be at all accurate or fair, but it's funny.
But as it happens, I think we might have a couple of visitors from the zone touristique at the next table. It is an American couple, that much I have been able to ascertain from their brief exchanges with another waiter. They've been very quiet throughout the meal. I'm particularly fascinated with the unassuming man who's sitting opposite (I assume) his wife. He's been sipping coke throughout them meal. I can't help thinking that I used to be that guy in some way.
Well, I still am that guy, in that I consume gallons of the diet version of the same beverage and am thrilled to find it where I can when abroad. But I get the feeling that these two, however uncomfortable they might be, are trying to step beyond their normal experience and the amenities of their high-rise hotel (although for all I know, they're staying at one of Houmt Souks famous fondouk hotels, on the site of centuries-old caravansereis; we were, quite happily as it turned out, unable to book one).
And really, we're just trying to do the same. God knows I am daily and constantly banging into my ignorance with regard to French, much less my sad and total ignorance of Arabic. And I don't know much about Tunisia at this point, but that's kind of the point of all this wandering, the really exciting thing about it. But I'm grateful to be far enough along the continuum of life experience that the good food before me and and the nice man talking to us speak to something in me.
I hope the quiet couple that have now left will have a good trip, with experiences they find worthy of stories repeatedly told, between themselves, if no one else. I hope our warm but slightly melancholy friend Sufjan finds more fulfillment that he seems currently to possess. As for us, we'll continue with the ridiculous luxury of our lives. Over to a nearby shop for some patisserie before heading back to the Dar Faiza. Through the sad, smoky gamut of men at the hotel bar. Back to our beloved room, above the strange din of meowing cats, complaining of lust or antagonism for each other, I can't tell. I'm hard pressed to come up with a subject worthy of melancholy, sadness or a loud, distorted meow on my part. Well, just the thought of leaving.
