Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Like a dream within a dream, my voyage home had many internal voyages, and being a girl who actually enjoys the physical displacement of travel, as well as the cultural and holistic implications, I though some might be worth telling you about.

There were two particularly exciting things that happened on my trip home:

• I drove a car for the first time in maybe two years. Before that, I had spent the two previous years driving an automatic in Uganda, so that probably doesn't count either, so really it was the first time I had driven in four years. I was so nervous, but it was brilliant because my sister took me out for a test before hand to re-teach me all that I had forgotten. But all that I had actually forgotten was how much I actually enjoy driving. So now I'm getting all excited about buying a new car next year. The best thing about when you drive? You get to pick the music!
• The second great adventure relates to the switching of the flight service by British Airways from Tunis from Gatwick airport to Heathrow. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but it has made direct flights to the UK a bit more difficult and expensive to come by this summer. I have used some innovative solutions, like flying to Paris and then picking up the Eurostar to Kent. But on my return journey last week things didn't work out so simply: 

I was late for the Eurostar to Paris, and although it hadn't left the station yet, the man said I couldn't board. I gave him the please-help-me eyes, with an extra portion of eyelashes, and explained that I had to catch a connection to Tunisia that afternoon and I was really, really sorry. He said he would try, and after some clicks on his computer, he made me an offer:
"I can put you on the next train," He said, "The only problem is, it only stops at Disneyland"
I sighed.
"So be it," I whispered.

- an extract from "Stories about how I earnestly try to go back to Africa, but end up in The Happiest Place on Earth" by Michelle Tutt

Zakynthos, Greece

At the printer in the office the other day, my Italian colleague remarked on my nice summery tan (and plethora of freckles!) and asked where I had been on holiday? When I informed him that I had spent a glorious week on the island of Zakynthos in Greece, he became very excited and started reciting the following sonnet (which he later emailed to me... someone had had too much coffee...). I stopped him around the second verse, politely, reminding him that although I was impressed with his Poetic Recall, my Italian does not extend far beyond "buongiorno principessa" (from my favourite film "La vita è bella"). Anyway here she, is, and beneath, the translation.

Sonnet IX, "A Zacinto" - Ugo Foscolo written 1802-1803 

Nè più mai toccherò le sacre sponde
    Ove il mio corpo fanciulletto giacque,
    Zacinto mia, che te specchi nell’onde
    Del greco mar, da cui vergine nacque

Venere, e fea quelle isole feconde
    Col suo primo sorriso, onde non tacque
    Le tue limpide nubi e le tue fronde
    L’inclito verso di Colui che l’acque

Cantò fatali, ed il diverso esiglio
    Per cui bello di fama e di sventura
    Baciò la sua petrosa Itaca Ulisse?

Tu non altro che il canto avrai del figlio,
    O materna mia terra; a noi prescrisse
    Il fato illacrimata sepoltura.

Translation by Nick Benson:
 

Never will I touch your sacred shore again

where my young form reclined at rest,

Zakynthos, regarding yourself in waves 

of the Greek sea, where Venus was

virgin born, and made those islands bloom

with her first smile; nor did he bypass

your lacy clouds and leafy fronds

in glorious verse, the one who sang

of fatal seas, and of the broad exile

after which, exalted by fame and by adventure,

Ulysses kissed his rocky native Ithaca.

You will have nothing of your son but his song,

motherland of mine: and our fate already 

written, the unmourned grave.

So that's a bit beautiful - Ugo Foscolo was born on Zakynthos in 1778 when in was under occupation by the Venetians. He moved to Milan after the collapse of the Venetian empire and never returned.

My time in Zakynthos may have been a bit less poetic, but no less epic.

The Spartan Run

I was really nervous about this. The longest and most important training run of the entire marathon running period. Really nervous. I calmed my nerves by telling everyone all about it and putting a tonne of pressure on myself. This didn't help a great deal, but I certainly learnt a thing or two about the way I cope with obsticles. Or something.

Anyway, I didn't want it hanging over me the whole holiday, so I had some massive pasta on the first night and snuck away early to bed, while the party rolled on. Rising early (maybe 5am?!) I had some of the bagels that I have brought with me, a load of water and then I went for it.

I had already measured out a 15km loop on the island, so the idea was to do that twice and then a bit more, and come back, and lie down. I set out as the sun rose, a little after. As I had already feared and joked about with my friends - there were loads of people still out from the night before, drunk and stumbling around, being sick, being carried home or wondering around aimlessly, wondering where their hotel was.

I'm not gonna lie and put a false smile on this. It was really, really hard. It was hot, dusty, the route was boring, long. It was the hardest physical training I had ever done.

I got alot of thinking done. I had alot to think about. So it was good to have this time with just me and the road (and a couple of guard dogs testing the lengths of their harnesses, some zippy vespas and the odd car).
Then I ran out of things to think about, and spent the time drawing nice parallels with the birth of the marathon in Ancient Greece and my training, and how I'm just like one of the 300 Spartans. This made me feel strong and legendary and wonderful. 33km or 4 hours and 13 minutes later, I was done.

It was hard - I was slow, dehydrated, and I really struggled, but I still can't wait for the Marathon. This whole thing has been completely incredible.

Then I went to a Tinie Tempah concert, because, yeah, I'd earnt it.

No Panties in Zante

If you thought that Zakynthos, or Zante, its Venetian name, was an island of poetry and endurance running, then I'm sorry, my preciouses, but I have been leading you up the garden path.

 Zante is a hedanistic playground for twenty-some-things to dance around, act irresponsibly and have a wonderful time. It's a right-of-passage for British culture to do these types of holidays, with your mates, preferably in matching t-shirts, to spend far too much money, get up to all sorts of mischief and get a glorious suntan.

All of the clubbing package destinations offer a similar set-up, Malia, Zante, Kavos, Ayia Napa, Magaluf... all the hotels are located around a central strip. Everyone goes out for dinner and drinks in their hotels until about mid-night. Then people start going to a few bars, alongside the strip. The bars all have attractive "promoters" outside. These are usually people who have come out for the whole 5 month season and spend their time luring groups from the street into their establishment, with shouts of:

"Alright ladies, where are you off to tonight? Fancy coming in here for a cheeky little one?"

If you don't want to stop, but want to take advantage of a good offer, you can take a drink for the road, in a plastic cup. Drinking on the street is positively encouraged. As is the inhalation of laughing gas, which is sold everywhere, by the balloon.

Then, around 3am, you hit the strip.

This is where all the big clubs are - and the foam parties, and colours parties, and themed things, and big giant clubs, and full moon nights. For girls it's free to get in everywhere, for guys, less so.

And then you finish up around 8am, grab a gyros, and go on home. Simples.

I got to thinking in my pensive drunkenness how different this was from Tunisia (and yet how physically close we are) and I started to think is this liberating? is this better? Girls and lads feeling free from judgement and social pressures and an oppressive society. I certainly felt happier and more free, but was this just because I understand this culture, it is mine and it has shaped me, that I don't feel the entrapment of it? Because there is still the way we judge one another on looks, still the social pressure to drink and enjoy feeling out of control and still the shaping of a society that encourages an extended youth, a Peter Pan culture of Manchildren and Lolitas, whose lack of responsibility is endearing and playful, why be "only young once", when you can be young forever?

It was wonderful and I was delirious with happiness, but I kept my panties.



Girl vs. Food

This is hard to write you about. On a holiday when I achieved, probably my biggest feat of human endurance, that 33km run, my body also let me down in epic proportions. If you've run long, you'll know this, but after a long, long run, you usually have no appetite. Nada. Not to be too graphic guys, but, all that motion... your tummy is usually in pieces. Just have some protein and some water and wait until things are a bit more settled to replenish those calories. 

So after all that running and then the concert and subsequent afterparty. I woke up the next day, with a hangover and the hunger of the Incredible Hulk. So I was ready for a food challenge. Very ready.

It was the perfect challenge. I have been eating Sunday dinners all my life. Big ones too. When I was 18, I went through a summer of eating a Sunday dinner at the pub I worked at, then going home straight afterwards and eating my Mum's roast too. Sometimes I would even go round my then-boyfriend's Mum's too, and so clock three in one day. Good British food, I have no limit for this stuff. The odds were all in my favour, all we had to manage was the execution. The waitress came over, I made my order.

She recoiled back, alarmed. "No girl has ever attempted this," she said. I assured her, I could do it. I must have had a determined look about me, because suddenly she seemed to understand.

I waited nervously, strategically going to the toilet at intervals - Then it arrived:

It was a MONSTER. The waitress warned me, it's the Yorkshire Pudding that will do you in, but my stomach was in lieu of at least 2 years' of Yorkshire Puddings, so I went straight for the meat and potatoes. It was so hot, the gravy was on fire, and the 20 minute time limit had my heart racing.

I did my best. It was delicious, but here's how my plate looked after 20 minutes.

Heartbroken, I fell at the last hurdle. I was so sure and so confident, but alas, it wasn't meant to be.

I saw that waitress many times over the rest of the holiday as her boyfriend worked in out favourite bar. She always seemed to give me the eyes that told me: she knew I was a winner and a champion in my heart, but that Yorkshire Pudding had just caught me on an off day.

England's Green and Pleasant Land

I just had such a brilliant holiday home, and here are some stories from my lovely UK

I am not Dead... I am in Herne Bay

My hometown is little. The kind of little where you walk around and know people. But it has reputation for being a bit dull. This is not entirely unfounded. There's little industry nearby, and not a great deal to do. When I was 10, they opened a swimming pool and cinema - but the roller-rink was recently closed down... swings and roundabouts, swings and roundabouts.

So a bit art festival is a big deal. Enter "I am not Dead... I am in Herne Bay", a centenary festival to celebrate the visit of Marcel Duchamp, the Franco-American artist, in 1913, when he famous wrote in a postcard to a friend the phrase from which the festival drew its name (in German).

After hosting some lectures and formal exhibits, the arts council also put some fun stuff out for the plebs (me!). 

Marcel Duchamp worked in an extreme form of extremism, producing a group of work known as "readymades". This involved taking everyday objects, and joining, signing, or simply titling them and hence allowing them to become an art piece.

Such as the urinal used for "Fountain"

 

And the cheap Mona Lisa Postcard "L.H.O.O.Q.". If you pronounce these letters in french it sounds like "Elle a chaud au cul" - She has a hot arse!

 

I didn't attend any of the events of the festival, but we had fun jumping all over the exhibits. I put Freddie in the urinal, not realising that it was just on two wheels and the whole thing swung about and almost fell over. He screamed until I got him out. No matter. I am still the best Auntie.

Don't Dream it, Be it.

While I was home, I also went to the Rocky Horror Show! This has been a dream for a while. I actually can't believe that I didn't put this on the 30before30 list. My friend sent me a message a while ago and said that it was touring and coming to Canterbury and did we went to go. Yes we wanted to go! But the times were difficult, because of my other commitments I could only make the matinee... could we still dress up for the matinee? My friend wasn't sure... maybe we would be the only ones. So we went in plain clothes. Boy, were we wrong.

Do you know about the Rocky Horror Show? It's 40 years old. Forty. Wow.

If you don't know it's a show about alien transvestites based on 1950's B-horror-movies. It's racy, but also a bit embarrassed of itself, very camp, lots of fun and energetic. Since the release of the accompanying film "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" there is a culture of audience participation, where the audience arrive dressed as characters from the the show, and shout responses at certain parts of the play and sometimes throw things, like toast, kit-kats and rice, as is appropriate in the script.

I guess that it's not that fun to clean up theatres (especially the new, refurbished Marlowe in Canterbury) so props were banned.

But we still destroyed the timewarp.

An Officer and a Gentleman

It wasn't that I never thought my university friend, Gemma, would ever get married, but headstrong and stubborn, she used to tell me she never would. 

"Okay" she once relented, "maybe for the dress..." 

So imagine my delight and surprise when she announced her engagement to a former student that she had met while doing her PhD in Astrophysics, who was now an officer in the army. This, I had to see.

The wedding was beautiful, very chilled out and relaxed. I've been privy to lots of wedding planning lately as I am bridesmaiding and maid-of-honouring all over the place, and I'm very aware of all the planning spreadsheets and tasting and whatnots that go into planning the reception. So I smiled and laughed when Gemma and Simon (the groom) were doing the rounds on the tables as the dessert was served and asked "ooh!? what are we having?". So Gemma!

The reception was the most raucous I have been to, the dancefloor was never empty. And just a day after seeing Rocky... 

I cannot be held responsible for my actions when they played the Timewarp... 

Pausing for Effect

I do love a bit of honestly, and right now, I can honestly say that 2013 has so far, been the best year of my life. 

Yes, she has had challenges and failures and heartache, but she has also been bountiful with opportunities and risks and excitement, and certainly not in the least the past two weeks. So please bear with me as I try to update you on France, the UK, Greece, eating competitions, super-long marathon training runs in HEAT, theatre trips, art festivals, impromptu trips to Disneyland, weddings, concerts and my parent's new kitten.

It all just happened and I am exhausted.

I'm back in Tunisia now, but I have to go to India for work in 6 days.

This is my wonderful, wonderful life x

Ramadan Greatest Moments

Tomorrow night, we'll all be out looking for the moon, and if it is seen then it means that the Month of Ramadan draws to a close and the festival of Eid al-Fitr will begin. In Tunisia, we get two days of holidays and the fun really starts.

It's been an amazing month and I'm so glad that I took the time to hang around and enjoy it this year. This is likely my last Ramadan in a Muslim country and although it was frustrating at times, from the challenges of trying to source your lunch everyday to the impossible mission of finding a taxi between 7:15pm and 8:30pm, it really had an aura of magic about it too. That a whole country can single-mindedly come together in a spiritual pursuit for a whole month, despite the effect it has on their daily comfort, convenience of life, and national economy, is completely remarkable. Here is a list of my favourite moments:

Number 1: Office Logistics

My workplace encourages flexible hours during Ramadan, you can either come in late, and leave late, or start early and leave early. Whatever suits. Most people come in late and leave early, but who am I to judge? It's Ramadan... Relax! Meetings are discrete with comfort breaks and all of the restaurants and the cafes in the area have paper up at the windows, so as not to taunt the fasters. And yet, my company offers NO PRAYER ROOM. This means that for the five-times-a-day prayers, you have to leapfrog over colleagues who have determined that the best place to pray is ... wait for it... the stairwell! The 4:30pm prayers have been my the biggest problem, I was usually carrying coffee.
Number 2: The Ladies' Get-Out-Clause

There are get-outs of fasting. If you're a child, ill or disabled or a lady during her monthly magic-time. My favourite email all Ramadam was from a (female) Muslim colleague:

"Yo Michelle, Let's go for lunch, I just got my period! Yippee!!" Nutso.
Number 3: The Mental Strain

Productivity levels are so low - your brain is made up almost entirely of water. When preparing some data about various countries, my colleague asked me whether we were assessing the Democratic Republic of Congo. I replied, "No but we need the other one, the other Congo,"...then I smiled and said "y'know the Undemocratic Republic...". He gazed at me blankly. "I'm sorry Michelle, during Ramadan, I am too slow for your best jokes."
Number 4: No Potty Mouth

During the holy month, you're not supposed to curse, get angry, be mean or nasty or gossip. I find it hard not to do any of that stuff and so kept getting told off:

"Michelle, Please stop swearing... it's Ramadan" It was just a regular day in the office for me.
Number 5: No Moaning

You're also not supposed to moan about how hungry/thirsty/miserable you are. I failed at that too. The office intern said during one of my fasting Fridays, "Oh Michelle, I like it so much more when you fast - I see how greatly you suffer and it makes my own burden easier to bear"
Number 6: The Physical Effects

On another fasting Friday, I got a ride home with my Muslim Friend Dana: 

"Oh my God!? are you okay!? What happened to you face? your eyes?"

I just replied "fasting." 

"Wow..." she said, "It shows..."

Number 7: The Awakening of the Spiritual Senses
On my final fast I chose to break it with Lucy over dates and Gin and Tonic. Not exactly traditional, but maybe part way there. She told me how if any more of her colleagues recommend that she fast because it's healthy she was going to scream. I launched into a impromptu speech about the differences between spiritual fasting and will-power fasting and the differences between Ramadan and Lent and the popular 5:2 diet that is taking the UK by storm. I went on and on for ages, barely taking air. 

"Wow..." said Lucy, "I don't think I'e ever heard you speak so passionately about anything before, you didn't even do that little smile that you do when you're talking about something serious to show that you are not really taking yourself very seriously at all". 

I looked her in the eyes and I told her the truth, "I am just really, really hungry."   

Number 8: Pockets of Munchie.

My absolute favourite thing about Ramadan, is the little pockets of fast-breakers who just pop out of nowhere, somehow manage to find a table and chairs and break the fast with whoever's around. Like the instructors at the gym who have a little table by the entrance, or the arm guards at the end of my street with their tank, or these security guards at the shopping centre near my house.

Bon Appetite!

In Tunis news, we have just entered Limbo: The head of the Constituent Assembly and Secretary General of the centre-left party Ettakatol Mustafa Ben Jaffar announced to the nation that the constituent assembly or parliament would be suspended. What does this mean? Nobody in my Facebook newsfeed seems to know.

Say a little prayer for Tunisia?

Storytelling

Once upon a time (four weeks ago) I went to London for the weekend to celebrate a friend's Hen Party... I did tell you. Remember?

I flew Tunisair, who give you more food than British Airways, but are always, almost-predictably late. Landing at Heathrow, I darted down to the tube to fly across town to meet the other Hens and begin celebrating my friend's final moments of 'freedom'. I had come straight from the office, and was moving with just hand luggage. I wasn't exhausted, but I wasn't looking my finest either, having come off just a cheeky three-hour flight.

So I assumed my seat on the tube and started re-clock-in to all the social norms of my country. It's all strangely familiar, and yet, you feel like such an outsider at first, it takes the brain a little while to catch up. I remember when I came back from Uganda once and all I could see everywhere, on the train, on magazines, on posters was those funny black and white boxes, the mobile barcodes. It took me a while to work out what on Earth they were.

A lad sat down opposite me. He was groomed, very groomed. I'm au fait with the whole metrosexual thing and all, but this guy is new levels. plus he is wearing bright green trousers, which makes me smile as it reminds me of this so I chalked him up as being some over-groomed toff, just off a flight from Zurich and I take out my book.

When suddenly, Oh My God! he's staring at me... This is the London Tube. Eye contact is an actual crime. Is he actually staring at me? I thought this just happened in Tunisia, why is this stranger looking directly at me? Am I actually in the UK? Am I on fire? I will look up very quickly to ascertain if he wants to engage in some kind of exchange. Why is he staring? Is it really a starable offense that the hem has fallen down on my dress and you can see some loose threads? I will fix it, y'know.... I just haven't had time yet....

I glance up quickly, aware that if our eyes meet, we will certainly burst into flames.

And then I see it. He is checking out his reflection in the blacked out window behind me. He is actually rearranging his hair.

Mate.

Do boys in the UK do this now? Is it socially acceptable for boys to be that vain? Then (and just to note, I was not staring, I was merely observing discretely) he took out his Iphone with it's reflective casing and continued to play with his hair, like it was the most normal thing in the world. I was flabber-ghasted. This was not my country.

He then took out a wet wipe from his leather carry-on and polished up his shiny shoes, smiling with satisfaction as he did it. My eyes rolled.

He reached into his bag again, and although, I felt like nothing, ...a hairdryer, ...a vanity table, ... some tweezers... could surprise me at this stage, I was still curious to what Rupert (as we were now calling him) had for us next...

...When out came a brand new, freshly-printed, Penguin copy of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, the same book as I was holding (though my copy had lived a bit). Imagine my surprise and delight! Then we did a bit of real eye-contact and a nod for being book-twins.  I secretly smiled to myself, wondering if this book about a depressed, poverty stricken Russian scholar, who leaps around St Petersburg like a madman is really a book for Africa Girl and her un-hemmed dress, or just an outfit-accessory for vain, green-trouser Ruperts, straight off the plane from Zurich?

Nevertheless, I just finished it, and I LOVED it.

Please: No Religion, No Politics.

I come from a country where it is not considered polite or proper to talk about politics, or religion in company. Africa is different (the rest of the world may be different, but as I have only lived outside my country in Africa, allow me to draw on my experience). Here you can throw politics, or religion, or ethnicity into any conversation, and that's okay.

I was in Zambia for the 2006 elections and surprised when women from a farmers' group spoke to me openly about who they had voted for. And it was not unanimous, many had voted for different candidates, but they spoke openly and proudly about their chosen candidate. Allow me to find some pictures from my trip to Zambia...

Wow... looking through those old pictures from Zambia made me miss living in Sub-Sahara Africa so much! Hopefully I am going on a trip there in a month (Nigeria), otherwise, my relocation next year (although the country is still to be decided... ) cannot come soon enough!

The top picture is from the school that I was working at. Some of the classrooms were turned into polling stations, and your little finger nail on your left hand was painted once you had voted. One bottle of nail polish remover could topple a democracy. The second picture shows the moment the winner was announced.  We were in a car going home, but in the end we were stuck in traffic for hours as a huge street party broke out.

In Uganda for the 2011 elections, it was the same, people talked about the issues. Really talked. Office debates every lunchtime and long discussions. Perhaps is the African culture of talking a problem out and convincing each other of the solution, rather than the western way of taking a vote and disgruntedly going with the consensus. 

Tunisia is the same, we can talk and talk and talk about politics. To strangers, to shop keepers, to children and young people. Every taxi driver is a political scientist and every citizen knows the proposed constitution by heart - especially the wording on the legal status of women, which thankfully was revised from original edit last August:

"The State guarantees the protection of women rights and the promotion of their gains, as a real partner of men in the mission of the homeland building, and the roles of both should complement each other within the household ..."

"Complement..." Sheesh!! Don't worry, they changed it!

Does the UK even have a constitution? How do I, a seemingly educated adult with three post-graduate certificates have to even ask this?... I just looked it up. We don't have one. Not a written one anyway. So there.

Anyway, I'm rambling, sorry. On Monday night last week I was invited to an Iftar dinner at Ishrack's house, the colleague of my friend Lucy. The conversation was awash with politics, everyone was patiently waiting to see if enough MPs would step down to force a re-election and excitedly discussing how they had been at Bardo the night before, handing out food to the protesters. We were a party of about twenty, with a number of over-sugared children running around on push bikes and other ride on toys. I noticed that all children are the same the world over as their mother kept shouting at them to partagez! partegez! (share) and jouez gentiment! (play nicely). Cultural note - these were high society Tunisians, and so spoke French at home, luckily for me.

The sun set and the eating began. All the usual dishes, but this time homemade with special touches. The couscous especially was superb, I asked Ishrack how she made it and she told me that it was all ground by hand my her belle-mère (I love this phrase for mother-in-law, literally "beautiful mother"). Ishrack's belle-mère was a real character. She came late with a sullen face and as she entered everyone leapt up to give her the best seat at the table. She smiled at no-one, spoke to no-one. Later, I asked Ishrack whether something was wrong, fearing that us strangers at the table had annoyed her? But Ishrack explained that her father-in-law, the old lady's husband had died two years ago. The old lady had cried so much that she had ruined both of her tear ducts. She had just undergone an extremely painful operation on one of them to help relieve the sinus pressure in her head, and so her quietness and lack of conversation should be forgiven. I think it's one of the saddest things I ever heard.

After dinner, I was delighted to see GIANT Ouedhnines el Khadhi - I just cannot get enough of these!

Then we played with the children on the terrasse, something like "Simon Says" and Lucy spoke to Ishrack about schooling and challenges with different education systems. Some people smoked shisha and digested, and just relaxed.

Some of the group were inside watching the news and let out a cry and called us to go in. Eight Tunisian soldiers had been shot and killed during an ambush in the Chaambi mountain region in Western Tunisia. Their bodies had been mutilated. We all went inside, (even the children who were quickly ushered out again) and tried to understand what was going on. The footage had got back to the crowds who were protesting at Bardo and they turned their volume up a notch. Then the President spoke live and said their was no plan to dissolve the government.

Our companions hugged each other in fear for the future. We had some birthday cake and went home.

It's hard to understand what it is to be Tunisian at the moment. To have such an intense national pride for being the first Arab countries to stand up against a dictatorship two years' ago and trigger something spectacular. To be considered the most forward thinking Maghreb nation in terms of women's rights and the state of Israel in the 1950s. Tunisia was a trailblaizer.

Now I hear people saying:

"I don't recognise my own country"

"I am frightened for the future"

"Things were better before" (pre-Revolution)

But whatever the future holds, it is fundamentally important, that we never stop talking about this.