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Dear Tunisia, 

 

I think that you and I will be very happy together. First off, I love how since I have left the airport (the international travelling hub mind you), not a SINGLE person has spoken to me in English. Not my cab driver (with whom I spent a very long time driving to a touristy sub-urb to pick up keys and then back to the down town make it to my apartment), not any of the store owners and shop owners that I have bought food from. 

 

This is a distinct difference from Jordan. 

 

Second, I love how you are on the sea and so blue and white, and the view from my apartment, with it's little balconies is so lovely. Thank you for that -- it will be an inspiring and productive place to work, I hope. 

 

Third, I love how I can walk out my door, just meandering down the street to get to know my neighbhoorhood and run into a very large open-air fruit and vegetable market. In all my time in Jordan, I never found that -- I think Jordan has modernized and westernized to the point that grocery shopping is now down predominantly in grocery stores. I think I prefer the jumbled chaos of the market, I hope North Africa keeps this tradition! 

 

One thing I noticed -- and was really struck by, however, was that in the entire market (dozens and dozens of stalls) -- there were no cucumbers to be had! Cucumbers are like a dime a dozen in Jordan and one of my staples when I lived there. (I really love them!) But I also remember how in Jordan they were easily grown there -- in the tent-like greenhouses. I even have photos from when we visited a farm in Madaba. 

 

It is interesting, and a bit strange that Tunisia doesn't grow its own cucumbers, or at least doesn't have any to sell. I am really curious now, and am going to ask -- they had everything else, amazing pomegranates, tomatoes, mandarins, bananas, beets...but no cucumbers??

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.