Peace to Tunisia!

(Photo of Roman ruins at Dougga, Tunisia, by your humble blogkeeper)

Back in 2006 I visited Tunisia and wrote about it in one of my earliest posts.

A commenter on that post replied that

"In Algeria, they used to say: When Algeria is a man (a warrior), Tunisia is a woman (peaceful) ... "

I hope that pacific reputation survives the country's current political upheaval.

My adventures in Tunisia included a retired English archaeology professor breaking into a show tune from Oklahoma to help explain rivalries between herders and farmers in Punic and pre-Punic times.

An Eid Mubarak! (Blessed Eid!) uttered at the conclusion of any transaction went a long way toward generating good will, earning me smiles, at least one slap on the back, and accurate directions from a shopkeeper who led me out of his store and into the street so he could be sure of steering me right. And I saw a henna-haired woman in a sleeveless top, as slender and graceful as a cypress in the Mediterranean breeze, loading her shopping cart with booze in the liquor section of a supermarket in Tunis.

Peace and good wishes to the sane, hospitable nation of Tunisia!

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

A no-crime zone -- Tunisia

Crime fiction has yet to make an impact in this land of splendid Roman mosaics, old mosques, Punic ruins, and fine couscous. One Tunisian of my acquaintance speculates that this may be due in part to the high cost of books relative to many Tunisians' wages. Whatever the reason, I found no crime fiction on visits to one bookshop in Tunis and another in Sousse.

On the other hand, my tour group did include an expatriate Australian now living in England who used to work with Peter Temple at the Sydney Morning Herald. She said she had no idea he had gone on to success as a crime novelist. She did say he was a generous colleague and ¨a fabulous writer."

(To the right is a Punic figure found on the Byrsa hill in Carthage that archaeologists believe may be the oldest known depiction of Sideshow Bob.)


© Peter Rozovsky 2006