More to come; on our way back to Tunis this afternoon we'll stop in another town, Sousse, and hopefully tonight I'll have time to add some more photos.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The Tunisian Sahel
This weekend our program took us on a trip to the Sahel, the coastal plains of Tunisia that faces the Mediterranean. The trip included places such as the Roman Coliseum at El Jem (featured in the movie Gladiator, first two photos) and the coastal town Mahdia, where we found Tunisian kids jumping off old ruins (third photo). On the way there we passed by the agricultural belt, where we saw vineyards and olive orchards (final photo).
More to come; on our way back to Tunis this afternoon we'll stop in another town, Sousse, and hopefully tonight I'll have time to add some more photos.
More to come; on our way back to Tunis this afternoon we'll stop in another town, Sousse, and hopefully tonight I'll have time to add some more photos.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The America I Want
Last week I had the unique opportunity to attend a special reception at the US Ambassador to Tunisia's home in Sidi Bou Said on the day of President Obama's speech in Cairo, Egypt. Attending the ceremony was the executive staff of the US Embassy, Department of State interns, Tunisian Fulbright Language Tutors, and myself and my CLS program--all people deeply invested on the subjects the President remarked on. In the conversations I had with these people, I arrived at an insight on the future of America--a future that I and the other young adults at the reception would soon oversee.
We are entering the Post-American World: a term coined by journalist Fareed Zakaria to explain the new era in which the US is no longer a hyperpower head-over-heels over everyone else. India, China, Brazil, and other rapidly developing nations will soon reach a level of close to even competition with our economy. While this may seem intimidating to Americans who have lived through close to 30 years on top of the world, it is in fact an opportunity. But it is an opportunity we must soon seize, for there is a time limit that, if passed, the Post-American World will not include the America that we truly desire.
What is that America? I hope I am not alone in thinking that in recent decades America has undergone an identity crisis. We no longer know who we are, and what we stand for as a nation. Once, we had the prestige of the world for three central aspects of our identity: First, for our freedoms of thought and tolerance of beliefs; second, for the tools we give to our citizens--all of us an immigrant--to climb the ladder of potential to our highest peaks; and finally, the strength and willful resolve to stand, as George Washington advised us to do, as a neutral nation that did only what it had to do, not what it should do.
These three aspects of our identity have faded into the fabric that once was America. Now we are a nation that values the will--or tyranny, as Jefferson once said--of the majority over individual freedoms such as marriage or wearing religious clothing like hijab. Now we are a nation that tries to deny its immigrant heritage by making immigration inhumane, near impossible, and most terribly, without regard to basic human dignity--a condition that made the British colonists immigrate to America over three hundred years ago. Now we are a nation that intervenes in the affairs of other countries as if we had total and complete jurisdiction--all in the name of doing "what we should be doing" like "spreading/keeping democracy safe" or other subjective banners that, as we see in the disastrous ideological wars of Vietnam and Iraq, end up making us look arrogant in the eyes of the world.
There is a fourth aspect that perhaps will make or break our future. When the Founding Fathers sat amongst each other on Day 1 at the Constitutional Convention, the great experiment of America sitting on a blank piece of parchment, despite all of the knowledge and political philosophy each of them possessed, if they lacked one essential thing, we would not have America today. I am talking about the will; the desire, the want. They wanted peace. They wanted tolerance. They wanted representation instead of majority or one-man majority tyranny. They wanted people to come from all across the globe to participate in the great experiment. Above all, they wanted to succeed.
The three other aspects of identity, and, indeed, our very future, hinges on what we want America to be. How can we determine what we want? We must look at our heritage, and see what our Founders wanted. We must look at our mistakes in the past 240 years, and see if we want to continue making them without regard to their lessons. We must look at our present, and see our shortfalls before they become long-falls and lead our children down a road we do not want them to take.
I use the term "want" in a generational context. For my generation is a generation of "wants" instead of "needs", because we have everything and then some at our fingertips. In reality, we "need" to reshape our American identity. But this verb has no impact on a generation who finds motivation only in what we desire. If we had lived through a Depression, World Wars, or other tragic events that made us realize how interdependent we all really our to each other, things might be different.
We all know we must reshape our identity. But we lack the motivation. I will work as hard as I can to motivate my generation and others to want this. Ghandi may have said, "Be the change you wish to seek", but he left out the most important part: The change you seek will not happen, until you convince others to seek it too.
We are entering the Post-American World: a term coined by journalist Fareed Zakaria to explain the new era in which the US is no longer a hyperpower head-over-heels over everyone else. India, China, Brazil, and other rapidly developing nations will soon reach a level of close to even competition with our economy. While this may seem intimidating to Americans who have lived through close to 30 years on top of the world, it is in fact an opportunity. But it is an opportunity we must soon seize, for there is a time limit that, if passed, the Post-American World will not include the America that we truly desire.
What is that America? I hope I am not alone in thinking that in recent decades America has undergone an identity crisis. We no longer know who we are, and what we stand for as a nation. Once, we had the prestige of the world for three central aspects of our identity: First, for our freedoms of thought and tolerance of beliefs; second, for the tools we give to our citizens--all of us an immigrant--to climb the ladder of potential to our highest peaks; and finally, the strength and willful resolve to stand, as George Washington advised us to do, as a neutral nation that did only what it had to do, not what it should do.
These three aspects of our identity have faded into the fabric that once was America. Now we are a nation that values the will--or tyranny, as Jefferson once said--of the majority over individual freedoms such as marriage or wearing religious clothing like hijab. Now we are a nation that tries to deny its immigrant heritage by making immigration inhumane, near impossible, and most terribly, without regard to basic human dignity--a condition that made the British colonists immigrate to America over three hundred years ago. Now we are a nation that intervenes in the affairs of other countries as if we had total and complete jurisdiction--all in the name of doing "what we should be doing" like "spreading/keeping democracy safe" or other subjective banners that, as we see in the disastrous ideological wars of Vietnam and Iraq, end up making us look arrogant in the eyes of the world.
There is a fourth aspect that perhaps will make or break our future. When the Founding Fathers sat amongst each other on Day 1 at the Constitutional Convention, the great experiment of America sitting on a blank piece of parchment, despite all of the knowledge and political philosophy each of them possessed, if they lacked one essential thing, we would not have America today. I am talking about the will; the desire, the want. They wanted peace. They wanted tolerance. They wanted representation instead of majority or one-man majority tyranny. They wanted people to come from all across the globe to participate in the great experiment. Above all, they wanted to succeed.
The three other aspects of identity, and, indeed, our very future, hinges on what we want America to be. How can we determine what we want? We must look at our heritage, and see what our Founders wanted. We must look at our mistakes in the past 240 years, and see if we want to continue making them without regard to their lessons. We must look at our present, and see our shortfalls before they become long-falls and lead our children down a road we do not want them to take.
I use the term "want" in a generational context. For my generation is a generation of "wants" instead of "needs", because we have everything and then some at our fingertips. In reality, we "need" to reshape our American identity. But this verb has no impact on a generation who finds motivation only in what we desire. If we had lived through a Depression, World Wars, or other tragic events that made us realize how interdependent we all really our to each other, things might be different.
We all know we must reshape our identity. But we lack the motivation. I will work as hard as I can to motivate my generation and others to want this. Ghandi may have said, "Be the change you wish to seek", but he left out the most important part: The change you seek will not happen, until you convince others to seek it too.
Monday, June 8, 2009
A Stranger (Feeling at Home) in a Strange Land
Yesterday I moved in with my host family, the Dhabbebi's, a charming and welcoming family in the suburbs of Marsa. The town is nestled between Gammarth and Sidi Bou Said, about thirty minutes by taxi to Tunis, and goes right up to the Mediterranean. The Dhabbebis' have made me feel so much at home that I no longer feel as if I am an observer; I have stepped beyond the boundaries of a tourist and have begun to feel what it is like to be a part of this beautiful Tunisian culture.
Arabic classes are difficult and demanding. We spend about five hours in class five days a week, and then about four practicing and doing homework. But I'm impressed by the flexibility of a stress-free mind; everything we learn is coming very easy to me. I will have a unique opportunity come the end of this year to see myself learning in three very different learning environments--Los Angeles, Tunisia, and London--and really understand how I shape my perspectives, engage in my environment, and realize how I best learn.
Below (from top to bottom): A view of Marsa from the roof of my home; clothes air-drying in the warm sun against the backdrop of the Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul; homes on the Marsa hills right above a Mediterranean beach.
Arabic classes are difficult and demanding. We spend about five hours in class five days a week, and then about four practicing and doing homework. But I'm impressed by the flexibility of a stress-free mind; everything we learn is coming very easy to me. I will have a unique opportunity come the end of this year to see myself learning in three very different learning environments--Los Angeles, Tunisia, and London--and really understand how I shape my perspectives, engage in my environment, and realize how I best learn.
Below (from top to bottom): A view of Marsa from the roof of my home; clothes air-drying in the warm sun against the backdrop of the Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul; homes on the Marsa hills right above a Mediterranean beach.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
A Word On Tunis
I'm ending my fifth day in Tunisia with the window open, the sound of Arabic music drifting across the streets that are teeming with excited Tunisians (they won a World Cup-qualifying match today). My roommate and I just finished half of our weekend homework for class, and we can't take another minute. It's tough, but rewarding. The last few days I've been able to greet and order food in Arabic, as well as get along quite well with a taxi driver and haggle my way to a cheap 8-dinar ($6.00) belt.
While there are plenty of stories from the last few days that I could tell, I'll stick with a word on Tunis, the capital city and where I'm staying until tomorrow morning.
Tunis is not for the faint of heart, but, like many cities, it has a unique way of being likeable despite its intimidating outer shell. It is a city of paradox--it is chaotic yet unhurried; towering modernistic hotels next to ancient mosques; crumbling Italian villas transformed into a clothing store; iPod headphones hidden under hijab. A 1300-year-old mosque sits in the epicenter of Tunis, beautiful and breathtaking in its ancientness and the sound of the imam calling the faithful to prayer from its commanding minaret. Nestled among modernity is the sprawling, labyrinth of the medina, the original hill where the city was founded. Here you plunge into its hive-like maze of narrow streets that from above look Biblical with its sun-parched walls and clotheslines and goats on the rooftops. In the hive itself are the souks (street shops), where wily shopkeepers shove made-in-China ceramics in passerby's faces yet become particularly moody when foreigners beat them at their own game and haggle to a fair price (a moodiness that is strangely cathartic to the victor).
Tomorrow morning I'll be leaving Tunis for Sidi Bou Said, a small town on the Mediterranean. There I'll have my Arabic classes (five days a week, six hours a day) and live with a host family for seven weeks. Already I've realized that immersing yourself is not as hard as it seems; all you need is a mind open and absorbant, ready to accept the contradictions and paradoxes of that culture and realize that your own culture is just as confusing. Culture, like language, is something you need to hear at all times in order for you to find out what it means.
Below (from top to bottom): A door in the medina; a narrow alleyway in the souks; an Italian villa, a remnant of the Sicilian farming community that lived in Tunis a hundred years ago; the Olive Mosque and its minaret.
While there are plenty of stories from the last few days that I could tell, I'll stick with a word on Tunis, the capital city and where I'm staying until tomorrow morning.
Tunis is not for the faint of heart, but, like many cities, it has a unique way of being likeable despite its intimidating outer shell. It is a city of paradox--it is chaotic yet unhurried; towering modernistic hotels next to ancient mosques; crumbling Italian villas transformed into a clothing store; iPod headphones hidden under hijab. A 1300-year-old mosque sits in the epicenter of Tunis, beautiful and breathtaking in its ancientness and the sound of the imam calling the faithful to prayer from its commanding minaret. Nestled among modernity is the sprawling, labyrinth of the medina, the original hill where the city was founded. Here you plunge into its hive-like maze of narrow streets that from above look Biblical with its sun-parched walls and clotheslines and goats on the rooftops. In the hive itself are the souks (street shops), where wily shopkeepers shove made-in-China ceramics in passerby's faces yet become particularly moody when foreigners beat them at their own game and haggle to a fair price (a moodiness that is strangely cathartic to the victor).
Tomorrow morning I'll be leaving Tunis for Sidi Bou Said, a small town on the Mediterranean. There I'll have my Arabic classes (five days a week, six hours a day) and live with a host family for seven weeks. Already I've realized that immersing yourself is not as hard as it seems; all you need is a mind open and absorbant, ready to accept the contradictions and paradoxes of that culture and realize that your own culture is just as confusing. Culture, like language, is something you need to hear at all times in order for you to find out what it means.
Below (from top to bottom): A door in the medina; a narrow alleyway in the souks; an Italian villa, a remnant of the Sicilian farming community that lived in Tunis a hundred years ago; the Olive Mosque and its minaret.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Souks and a Small World
Yet another quick post...
Above is a picture of the souks, a labyrinth of shops and vendors nestled in the 800+ year old alleyways of the old city of Tunis. Just after this picture I experienced my first "haggling" (more on that later!)
Below: One of our Fulbright Language Tutors is a Tunisian named Ash. Seeing him wear this shirt made me really realize how small a world we really are in. For those of you who don't know, the University of the Pacific is not only in the same city I went to high school in, but my mom teaches there. Ash has never been to the US and he got it from a Goodwill store in Tunisia.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
First Night in North Africa
First night/morning in North Africa! Tunisia is incredible. I've only got a few moments to update all of you so here are some initial pictures I've taken of the area around me.
Below: (from top to bottom) The courtyard of an old Italian villa; the Bab al-Bhar (Sea Gate), a gate over 1000 years old that serves as the entrance to the medina of Tunis.
Below: (from top to bottom) The courtyard of an old Italian villa; the Bab al-Bhar (Sea Gate), a gate over 1000 years old that serves as the entrance to the medina of Tunis.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Tunisian Prologue in DC
Today we had a full day of program orientation that was chock full of goodies. They spent about an hour and a half explaining what to expect in Tunisia, and I'm glad they did. The most exciting part was meeting some very, very interesting people.
To back up a day: Last night I met an Iraqi-American with an incredible background. Fluent in Arabic, specializing in five complex Iraq dialects, he's heading down to San Diego in a few days to teach Arabic with the State Department. This guy was totally unrelated to the CLS program (the program I going with to Tunisia, aka the Critical Languages Scholarship). For a good half-hour we chatted about his experience working in the State Department, which included a five-year stint working as a translator for the Iraqi army. He shared his stories of translating during the Battle of Fallujah and his perception of how Iraq is becoming a more secure state.
In exchange I answered his questions about California; he was particularly interested and very surprised to find out our state's dismal economic condition. He was excited about learning about the program I'm on, saying that the State Department needed a lot more translators. He encouraged me that the more I became an expert on Middle Eastern policy, the more invaluable I could be as a potential Department employee.
Back to today: This morning they had a diverse panel of Arabic/Middle-Eastern experts that, through three perspectives - one worked in the private sector as a consultant, one was a State Department bureau chief, and one headed a prominent NGO that helped international refugees - shed some light on employment opportunities. I asked both the NGO and State Department chief about how the two sectors interacted with each other, considering that in a lot of literature and media the evidence suggests they butt heads. They both had positive responses, however. When the NGO industry took off in the 1980s / 1990s, the government began to use them as a way of on-the-ground information gathering. During the Balkan crises in the mid-1990s, their coordination led to the biggest refugee resettlement in history.
During lunch I also got to talk with the director of the CLS program, who herself had been with the State Department before returning and deciding to spearhead the program. She reminded me of your friend's grandma that you'd love to have, yet you knew she gave your friend the hardest time. She told some entertaining stories of her experiences abroad and shed some insight on living in the Middle East.
The rest of the day we learned about Tunisian culture, what to do and not to, and learned some incredible news: we would be staying with a host family for the entirety of the program. I'm stoked: what better way could you learn a language?
It's midnight DC-time and I'm going to stock up on sleep tonight for tomorrow's seven-hour flight to Tunisia (with a layover in Paris). I'm not sure when I'll have internet access yet but I'll post as soon as possible.
Here are some photos I took today of some sightseeing we managed to squeeze in.
Photos of the day: The Capitol and the Washington Monument
To back up a day: Last night I met an Iraqi-American with an incredible background. Fluent in Arabic, specializing in five complex Iraq dialects, he's heading down to San Diego in a few days to teach Arabic with the State Department. This guy was totally unrelated to the CLS program (the program I going with to Tunisia, aka the Critical Languages Scholarship). For a good half-hour we chatted about his experience working in the State Department, which included a five-year stint working as a translator for the Iraqi army. He shared his stories of translating during the Battle of Fallujah and his perception of how Iraq is becoming a more secure state.
In exchange I answered his questions about California; he was particularly interested and very surprised to find out our state's dismal economic condition. He was excited about learning about the program I'm on, saying that the State Department needed a lot more translators. He encouraged me that the more I became an expert on Middle Eastern policy, the more invaluable I could be as a potential Department employee.
Back to today: This morning they had a diverse panel of Arabic/Middle-Eastern experts that, through three perspectives - one worked in the private sector as a consultant, one was a State Department bureau chief, and one headed a prominent NGO that helped international refugees - shed some light on employment opportunities. I asked both the NGO and State Department chief about how the two sectors interacted with each other, considering that in a lot of literature and media the evidence suggests they butt heads. They both had positive responses, however. When the NGO industry took off in the 1980s / 1990s, the government began to use them as a way of on-the-ground information gathering. During the Balkan crises in the mid-1990s, their coordination led to the biggest refugee resettlement in history.
During lunch I also got to talk with the director of the CLS program, who herself had been with the State Department before returning and deciding to spearhead the program. She reminded me of your friend's grandma that you'd love to have, yet you knew she gave your friend the hardest time. She told some entertaining stories of her experiences abroad and shed some insight on living in the Middle East.
The rest of the day we learned about Tunisian culture, what to do and not to, and learned some incredible news: we would be staying with a host family for the entirety of the program. I'm stoked: what better way could you learn a language?
It's midnight DC-time and I'm going to stock up on sleep tonight for tomorrow's seven-hour flight to Tunisia (with a layover in Paris). I'm not sure when I'll have internet access yet but I'll post as soon as possible.
Here are some photos I took today of some sightseeing we managed to squeeze in.
Photos of the day: The Capitol and the Washington Monument
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