Living In Between

[I’d like to insert a disclaimer here: what follows is strictly my own point of view. Others may have totally different experiences and views. I do my best not to be an “Orientalist” (that is someone describing “others” from the outside looking in, usually in a condescending way), as Tunisians have made me feel at home in their world which has become mine. My intention is not to be critical.]

When I first moved to Tunisia, I found that people were friendly, polite, multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and generally well-educated thanks to aggressive government policies concerning education, developed at the time of independence in 1956. A large middle class dominated society and yet people were careful with what they had because one could not count on stores being well-stocked. Behind the serious business of daily life lingered a beach culture that bloomed as soon as the school year ended.

One of the biggest challenges to overcome were differences in mentality. Although Tunis and its satelite towns contain two million inhabitants, a small town mentality dominates Tunisian society. Families remain important and people do not move around very much. To have a job transfer to a city two hundred miles away would be the equivalent of going to the moon. Everyone knows or knows of everyone else, which means they don’t have to introduce others or be introduced. This created problems for me because at every Tunisian family gathering everyone knew me, but I didn’t know them and no one really thought to introduce me. I guess I was supposed to know everyone by osmosis! At first, I found this behavior rude until I understood the reason for the lack of introductions, and with time, I figured out who was who.

Getting used to how to conduct conversations took time. In my direct American manner, I would ask, “Oh, what do you do?” or “What does your father do?” or “Where do you live?” These types of questions would raise eyebrows, and someone might comment “What are you—the CIA?” One must ease into a conversation, however, this presupposes knowledge of the person with whom you are talking. It was a catch-22 situation for me until I gathered enough information by pestering it out of my husband, who is Tunisian and couldn’t quite fathom my difficulties. Genealogy is a safe subject, in fact, a preferred subject. Tolkian’s description of Hobbits always delights me because it fits Tunisians to a T. If two Tunisians who have never met before sit down together, the conversation inevitably leads to genealogy topics, and they will spend a couple of hours in hot discussion until they find a mutual relative—and it would seem that just about everyone is linked to everyone else in Tunisia. For people who know each other, they’ll gladly spend time on the subject, as well. These conversations can be very long, intricate, and boring to the uninitiated, however, I have developed some defense mechanisms: I just laugh and find someone else to talk with, or I participate, because thanks to my research on Tunisian women’s history I have learned something about Tunisian genealogies…maybe not enough to hold down a two-hour conversation, but enough to be polite.

Every society imposes rules upon its members, and Tunisian society is no exception, however, because it is such a small country with a rather sedentary population, one must be even more careful. In a country without freedom of the press (until 14 January 2011), gossip is a national hobby consequently, it would seem that everyone knows everything. One day, a neighbor (meaning someone living within a two-mile radius) went to Tunis and stopped by a shop to get photocopies of ID documents. The woman working in the shop noticed his address and asked “Do you know the American who has bees and sells honey? They say she lives in your town.” 

Well, that would be me, and I might add that I rarely visit that part of town and that I had never been to that shop. He replied that I was a neighbor and since he had to come back, she told him that she would like to buy a bottle of my well-reputed honey (Tunisians worry about getting a watered-down honey and willingly pay a higher price for a good, pure honey), if he could bring it. Which he did…it’s such a small world that it may seem constricting.

And yet, I have a huge advantage. As a militant non-conformist, I would have difficulty fitting in anyplace, but in Tunisia, people make allowances for what they may consider eccentric behavior: “Oh, it’s ok—she’s a foreigner.” And so, I live in-between and have the best of both worlds—and no regrets.