Sorry for the blog-silence, I have obviously been calling the Mamas and the Papas and emailing all you lovely friends intermittently as the political situation has broken down here over the past week. But I'll just jump on now, tell you a bit about what is cooking here and how it has affected everyday life and what went down last weekend. Forgive me for not knowing too much, most of the local news is in Arabic, and the French and English sources seem to have a looser handle on what's going on. I ask my Tunisian friends and colleagues a lot and usually take it from there.
So last Thursday, on Republic Day, Mohamed Brahmi, the leader of the opposition was assassinated by a gunman outside his home in Tunis. This is not the first time the leader of the opposition has been assassinated, as you will remember. Not good, at all. Everyone was outraged. But as it was daytime, and they were hungry and thirsty, they stayed calm through the day until the fast was broken at sundown.
Then at sundown thousands marched to the Bardo region of Tunis and demanded that the Government be dissolved and all the MPs step down for re-election. There was chanting and excitement all night long. The next morning 6 MPs had stepped down, but around 60 were needed to leave to force a re-election - there was still a long way to go.
On Friday - which is the typical day for protests after the mid-day prayer, were were all encouraged to leave the office at 12pm for safety. I was delighted as I was fasting, and so I could do Ramadan like a real Tunisian and sleep all afternoon work from home like an excellent employee. In the evening we went out for a massive Iftar on the beach. Yeah, were were all supposed to stay safe in our houses, but it was so boring and I had the fasting-hunger of a warrior. I started to take pictures, but then I remembered that it was rude and only makes you guys hungry anyway, so I stopped, but look at the weird drinks at this one... mud juice?? I have no idea what it was, it tasted nutty.
It was a brilliant Iftar and I ate too too much, because I was nervous about the BIG RUN on Saturday. But the quality was superb and they even had a nice lady making the traditional Berber bread, which is my total favourite.
I ate so much that I had to lie down, but luckily, because of all the shishas that you could do, there were areas for that anyway, so I didn't feel to bad about it. It felt beautiful to lie on a load of couches, under the stars, on the beach, with an uncomfortably-full tummy... well, almost wonderful.
So Saturday was the big run BIG RUN (gotta caps that fool). The longest Africa Training Run of the Marathon Training Experience. 29 kilometres. Come and get them. Some people will never run longer than that before a marathon. I plan to do one longer training run, as per my schedule, because I'm really nervous, I have time and I would prefer less surprises on the big day. But last Saturday was my longest Africa Training Run of the Marathon Training Experience, because this Saturday (i.e. this morning) I have a taper week, so I have a shorter run (still 22.5km > half marathon, mind) and my long long run is going to be in Greece. I got my running team all mobilised so that I would be able to use someone's toilet, carb replenish and drink like an infidel during the day behind a closed door, and then I set off at early-pearly o'clock (I won't even tell you what time I had to get up to carb-load before this, but it rhymes with more caffine). I did the first 2 hour, 18km loop solo, down to La Goulette, then met with the gang for the second 11km. It was all meticulously planned and perfect.
The first loop was good, through Carthage, past the ruins of the Basique de Damous Karita, where if you believe the legends (and I always do) the Council at Carthage was held in 397, and they picked which books to put in the bible. Past my friend Donkey, who is out grazing every Saturday morning, and is always in the middle of the road, and yet never gets run over. Over the train tracks, where it never matters what time I arrive, there is always a train about to come and the barriers are always down. Through Le Kram, where the people LOVES A GREETING - seriously... can you not see I'm trying to run up a bit of training here? But they see me, all Caucasian-like and they just can't resist a quick "bonjour". Full of politeness and manners, I bonjour them all back and it all becomes like the opening sequence of Beauty and the Beast, except that I am panting and sweaty and Le Kram is no provincial French village. Still, they are carrying baguettes, and they do think I'm crazy.
So through Le Kram and into La Goulette, where I had planned to run all the way to the monastery before turning around, but some boys started shouting to me from the other side of the road. This happens a lot, so I dismissed it at first, but then it seemed that they might be trying to be helpful. So I glanced over. They didn't have much French and were shouting mainly in Arabic, but I get a bit of C'est Interdit and look ahead to see the road is all blocked with police cars and maybe ambulance lights, or fire-engines? I gave them a thank-you (Y'ayshek), did an about-turn and recalculate the route in my head, though I probably only lost 500m.
The rest of the run was glorious, I met my team, we ran the town, the time was good, the protein shakes and showers after were amazing... here's the watch:
I checked the news when I got in. There had been a car bomb in La Goulette. I had arrived maybe 30 minutes after it had gone off. No one had been hurt. Lucky lady.
And then, after all that fun and excitement, and while Tunisia was still not really sure what was going on, we decided that it was Lucy's last weekend as a 33 year old and we ought to do something fun. I don't know if I have mentioned... but it's getting pretty hot here, and all of the salt lakes around the city have dried up, leaving excellent racecourse for... Buggy Races!
So this is what we did, the country may have been on turmoil, but adrenalin junkies need their fix. I didn't drive. I am a horrible driver. I am a great passenger. Screaming and taking pictures is my cup of tea.
And I wore my Pyjama bottoms, because they had Moomins on and were cool and I had just run 29km and really didn't care what anyone thought.
After a regular Saturday night, it was Sunday, and after getting my prayers on, we continued the Birthday Weekend theme with a trip to Ghar el Melh, where we once ran the 10km race. It was MAD HOT:
It was pretty rotten at the beach. We didn't realise how aggressive the men would be outside of Tunis and there were hardly any families or women around. After just a couple of hours it all got too much and we had to go home. We shouldn't have gone without boys. Lesson Learnt.
But I did want to show you this... They have started blacking out the roadsigns in Ghar el Melh, apparently to confuse the Salafists.
"Ooh, it's like Bedknobs & Broomsticks" Lucy and I exclaimed in unison. And that's how I know she's my soulmate.
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