On the second night of their visit, my parents walked back to their vacation rental alone. My mother then sent me the following text message, which she insists is completely comprehensible:
“made it white rabbit on steps phone says no in french”
No punctuation, no capitalization, no explanation. I didn’t reply.
The next day, she parsed the secret and sacred mommy code for me. Apparently my parents surprised a rabbit on the steps leading up to their apartment. Said rabbit panicked upon seeing them and attempted to flee up the stairs, managing to trap itself on their little balcony. It then slunk past them down the stairs and disappeared into the darkness. Probably late for a very important date. Then she tried to call me on the landline at the apartment and received a negative-sounding message from the Francophone operator.
Obviously.
After several more rabbit sightings, I finally confirmed this hare-brained tale with the landlord, who confirmed that they do indeed have a free-range rabbit who was, at that moment, probably hiding under the car. When I asked whether I could pet the animal he wondered if I would like to eat it.
French is a confusing language.
Arabic is a little better. After a rainy day spent wrestling through the oft-over-crowded medina in downtown Tunis (where we posed for requisite Posing in Front of Arch portraits), my family finally found the palace in which was housed a 24-hour ceramics event.
The party included huge vats of couscous, makhroudh and tea, all for free! We also got to chat with the various artists who had come in from Spain, Algeria and northern Tunisia. I had a long conversation with the tiniest of the ladies (in green), who, I later learned, was the most important of the bunch, ceramics celebrity-wise. She also sang to the assembled crowds when my friends visited the party later that night. Upon hearing that we were American she looked at my mother and said, “Ah, California?” which disconcerted the rabbit-spotter. We then learned that this lady had hosted a Californian girl in her home for a month - the woman apparently wrote a research paper about the ceramacist. The woman’s assistant insisted that we exchange phone numbers, and we purchased some lovely little fish and a tortoise.
The day we’d planned to visit the North Africa American Cemetery in Carthage turned out to be Memorial Day. This meant that we were greeted with more than a tour - we got to attend the entire memorial event! This included music from an imported Navy band, Marines carrying flags, and local soldiers standing at attention. Half of the audience was in uniform, and we listened to speeches made by the US Ambassador and a highly charismatic general. There was a tour of the expansive grounds after the ceremony. I’d never been to a war cemetery before, and had for some reason assumed that all of the grave markers would be crosses. Not so - quite a few Stars of David stood among the stones, as did a specially adorned stone commemorating the one Medal of Honor awardee interred at the cemetery. There is also the grave on an Olympic sprinter, whose inclusion greatly excited my father.
When it came time to take a trip outside of Tunis, we hired a driver to guide us to the southern island of Djerba, with a stop at the colosseum, el Jem, along the way. el Jem remained almost entirely intact until some silly soldiers smashed through one wall. In the center of the ring, where gladiators once jousted lions, or whatever it is Romans did for kicks, men were busily setting up for a concert.
In the far corner of el Jem there is a tribute to the president done in a style I have decided to call faux-saic - his portrait was painted onto tiny, symmetrical tiles, rather than being actually created by multi-colored tiles of unique shape and size. Comparing this work to the many gorgeous Roman mosaics at the nearby museum, I think the prez got a short shrift.
The best thing to do in Djerba, when not eating fatty foods and lying on the beach like a lost whale, is to spend the day on a pirate ship. Several companies run pirate ship tours to what they call Flamingo Island (I saw no flamingos). The crewmen dress like pirates, complete with scarves and eyeliner, and perform various pirate-esque duties like climbing the ship's ropes, selling tee shirts, dancing with the ladies, and serving lunch.
We spent an hour or so on the beach and then ate in a shaded area where the clowniest of our crew performed what I gather was a highly entertaining skit. Like all the announcements made on our voyage, this skit was in French, German and Italian (and a little Arabic - there were several groups of Libyans on our boat with whom I chatted in Arabic and English. Libyans are awesome). The pirates were mocking the behavior of various tourists. To imitate a German, one man stuffed several towels under his shirt and waddled expressively. To be French, he borrowed my sunscreen to butter his hose. When he returned the lotion to me, he called me “Blanche-Neige.” So much for my efforts at tanning (yes, I know that true tanners don’t use sunscreen, but I don’t want to turn red!).
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