Smoking sweatshirts, the magic passport trick, a riot, and a rifle: My journey to Tunis and the first day

 

I had enough adventures on my trip to Tunis to last for the entire trip. This is a LONG entry, because lots happened. If you don’t have time, you might find adventure three most interesting, followed by adventure one.

ADVENTURE ONE

Early in my first flight, from Chicago to Frankfurt, I noticed puffs of smoke erupting from the sweatshirt of my neighbor across the aisle. His head was buried in said shirt, but his hands were visible, and I noticed an e-cigarette in his hand. Quite apart from the fact that any kind of smoking is forbidden on airplanes, I am extremely allergic to something in the smoke from vaping (thanks to Sammi Crane whose former vaping habit allowed me to discover this). Shortly thereafter, I noticed my chest and airways constricting and the sensation that someone had run a sharp knife across the back of my throat – yep, his head was in the sweatshirt again. I quickly did some calculations involving the likelihood the plane would have to turn back if I complained and he made a scene versus the likelihood the plane would have to turn back for me to receive medical attention. I decided to ask a fly attendant to have him stop after allowing me to return to my seat quietly, as if I hadn’t been the one to report him. I was taken aback when the flight attendant asked why I hadn’t confronted him myself (not my job), and I reminded her that I don’t speak German, and I had heard him speaking it.

It took two flight attendants to insist on the smoking regulations to him, in the process of which he pulled out his flight documents and THREE passports. After that, he made frequent bathroom breaks, coming back smelling of vape. He was very jittery as if he was on something more potent, and when meal time came, he was extremely sloppy, flinging bits of food across the aisle toward me. I also observed that he kept trying to make phone calls, but fortunately did not connect. A flight attendant noticed the latter and told him off; this time he pulled out FIVE passports, like magic! Prior to landing but after the official request to turn off devices, he tried to make a call again. I gestured for him to stop. He indicated that he was turning the phone off, but I mimed that I saw him dial a number. He glowered.

After we landed, my seatmate and I raced off the plane to get as far from him as possible. End of adventure one.

ADVENTURE TWO

As we landed, the flight attendants indicated that the Lufthansa desk was close to our gate at Frankfort. In the airport, my connecting flight wasn’t on the departure board, so I sought out the desk. Closed; please go to the next desk along the way. Frankfort airport, like Heathrow, is one of those places where you feel as if you are descending through the circles of hell as you make your way from one area to the next and through various security checks (why were all the people pulled over black or brown?). It’s not as if you could float through an alarmed door to pick up explosives off the tarmac. It took 45 minutes of walking and one train to get to my next gate. On the way, I passed four service desks, which were all closed. Evidently, Lufthansa was trying to entertain clients with a service desk scavenger hunt. At least my flight had finally started showing up on the departure board! I finally asked someone at a gate for assistance with another question and was quickly reprimanded for not talking directly at the plastic – I can never hear through it – and for thinking she might help with a booking question. This reminded me of the challenges of traveling while hearing impaired. I nearly missed my flight because I was sitting
happily by the gate reading, and I missed an announcement that my fight had been moved to a different gate, a third of the way back through the circles of hell. I also missed the ping of my text message, but fortunately checked just in time to get to the right place and on my flight.

The boarding process was interesting – strict ordering by groups, and then we went down the stairs to a bus that took us across the tarmac and mixed us up all over again. So much for hierarchies!

ADVENTURE THREE

We traveled to Tunis without any excitement, and I even dozed a bit when not making faces at a charming toddler across the aisle. Got off the plane and down a corridor where two officials in lab coats took perfunctory looks at our vaccine/testing certifications. Then we turned a corner and . . . came to a screeching halt. There was a snaking line about twice the size of the lines at O’Hare when two large international planes full are waiting to get through passport control, and in about half the space. The line moved very, very slowly; I was told this was not common at all. At first, I enjoyed looking at people from different parts of Africa in their local clothing, watching people roll out mats to pray in line, and in one case, a woman sitting on a blanket to rest her henna dyed feet. But after two hours, we were still far from the front. People were yelling at the only security guard. He finally let about half the line move forward toward the desks randomly and allowed some civilians into the diplomatic passport line. At this point, there was a free for all with people pushing and getting in front of each other. The passport agents kept stopping to make calls (presumably for help), which didn’t speed up the process. Some people rushed through without getting passport stamps, and a gaggle of men in suits arrived. I assume they were police or security, since they certainly didn’t stamp passports, which would actually have helped.

And a minor RIOT broke out! People were chanting in unison and yelling from the back, pushing those of us closer to the front, and it was frightening. There was a lady with a toddler in front of me, so I stuck both of my elbows out to keep people from pushing us too hard. One man started cursing me in Italian. He was pretty surprised when I turned around and talked right back to him in his native tongue. I pointed out that given that we were in the middle of an epidemic and that he and many of the other men were unmasked, it seemed reasonable for them to give others a little space – pushing wasn’t going to make things go any faster. He cursed some more. I told him he was maleducato (poorly brought up, or educated – one of the very worst Italian insults), and he did quiet a bit. I asked the man on the other side to give me a meter’s space in French, since he was pushing pretty hard and also unmasked. He yelled back that I shouldn’t stick my elbows out; they hurt him. Well, if he hadn’t been pushing . . . . But his wife was most offended of all. She insisted with great outrage that I was safe around her husband and that I didn’t need the extra meter, that he would hear about it if he tried anything with me! I explained, now in French, that I was sure her husband was honorable and I cast no aspersions on him. I was simply concerned about COVID. He raised his mask with a frown.

The security guard told the people he had allowed in the diplomatic line that they could no longer be there and pushed them back into my area. They were furious to be shuttled back and forth and tried to get in front of my group. More shouting and rushing of the passport desks. Finally, our passport agent gave up and people went through, some with stamps and some without. I stopped for her, but I certainly can’t find any stamp in the document. I wonder if I will be permitted to leave the country without official proof that I entered? (The Japanese once wouldn’t let my little brother Walter leave for that reason – he had gotten a new passport in the interim. Dad had to take his passport all the way back
through Haneda Airport to arrivals, get a stamp, and come back. Walter was nearly hysterical with worry that Dad wouldn’t make it back in time.)

Once I got through passport control, luggage was waiting higgledy piggledy in piles because so many flights had come in without their passengers making it through passport control. After a little archaeological work, I found my bag and proceeded to meet my hosts Rym and Nadia Souissi (there are two Nadias), who had been waiting patiently with big smiles and roses! I was ecstatic to see them.

ADVENTURE FOUR

My short-term apartment is in a suburb of Tunis. The area looks like a combination of Cairo and Yangon. In terms of the former, there are the half-finished buildings everywhere; as in Yangon, there are huge piles of garbage on empty lots and by the roads, populated by feral cats and a few mangy dogs.

The building smells of cat piss in the hallways, but the apartment is mostly clean (the kitchen and floors could use some work by my coronavirus standards – prior to COVID, I wouldn’t have cared at all). It’s large, with two bedrooms and two living areas, as well as a kitchen, pantry, and very clean bathroom.
Not too much excitement there, I am pleased to say, though I was surprised to find a flowerpot shaped like a racist caricature of an African’s head with big red lips. I quickly turned it back to front.

There was also a large rifle on the wall, and I could feel my chest constructing with PTSD, so I asked the landlady to take it away. She looked very surprised to find an American insisting on the removal of a firearm from the premises, but I just couldn’t see myself looking at it day in and day out for almost three weeks. I explained that I had been involved in a campus shooting where students were killed. Later, I found piles of frozen meat in the freezer – hunting, anyone?

One of the windows looks out on a small garden with lemon, lime, and orange trees! Yum.

My hostesses, Rym and Nadia, took me out for a lovely late lunch of shish taouk, baba gannoush, and pistachio kneffel, but I have to say I liked the sesame pita hot out of the oven best! Home, a shower, and twelve hours of sleep, which I dearly needed after so many adventures.

DAY ONE – WORK AND PLAY

One of my sponsors, Rym, and I spent the morning “planifying” for the next two weeks. I am impressed by the generosity of everyone in thinking of my need to play tourist, and I will visit many sites I had never dreamed of seeing. For example, on Sunday we will go to an organic farm and have a farm-to-table meal. I am supposed to give an extra session on managing change as we journey that day. I have no idea at all how that will happen, but it will be an example of flexibility and change in unusual circumstances. Flexibility is my byword this trip because everything has changed so many times; indeed, I had planned on only 18 participants, and I have heard numbers ranging from 22 to 24. I just hope I can hear them all. They are all very concerned about me speaking English, and I will speak slowly and use French whenever I can. I do have to wonder, though, what they expected when they requested a scholar from the US.

After that, we went to a fancy restaurant for lunch – Club Citroen, on the premises of said car dealer. Now if the car dealers in DeKalb had restaurants with beautiful gardens and extensive menus on the premises, car shopping might be more fun! Nadia Lamloum, a software engineer, joined us. More food – I waddled out.

In the afternoon, we went to Carthage. The museum there is being renovated, but we saw the amphitheater, burial sites, cathedral, and other places.

I wanted to find a Roman bust I remembered from a picture of our visit to the site exactly 50 years ago, but it must be inside the museum now. Took pictures of the lion pit for the grandchildren! As I recalled, vendors everywhere were selling “original Roman” oil lamps for a pittance, but since Mom got one then, I didn’t feel the need for another. I would not be surprised if they are made in China and dipped in mud to look authentic.

We next drove to Sidi Bou Said, an adjacent suburb that looks like pictures of traditional Tunisian or Greek Island towns with whitewashed homes and bright blue doors and windows. The sun had come out by then and the views over the ocean were stunning! We stopped at a café and I sampled tea with mint and almonds. Yum!

 

Preparing for tomorrow’s seminar now.