borogove

sabrina here again. so we leave for london in less than two days, and i must say that i, at least, am ready. i finished my stint at the El Walid school for disabled kids last Friday, and since then, serge and i have been taking full advantage of living so close to the water -- going to the beach, visiting friends who live near the beach, and sitting at the cafe sidi chabaane so we can look at the beach. it's been great fun, but our beloved apartment started acting up a few days ago and leaking water in various places, so keeping house has become much more of a chore. and i'm looking forward to having more diversity in my diet (though yesterday we did find the Hong Kong restaurant in tunis! it's a branch of the one we'd tried to go to in sousse. it's owned by a tunisian and has tunisian staff, and the food was really pretty good).

these past few weeks have been lovely, though. my time at the el walid school was frustrating in some ways -- i didn't often feel like i added much to the equation, as there were plenty of staff for the number of kids in attendance (there were even 3 german volunteers living at the school doing their 10 months of national civil service -- in germany, apparently, you can do civil service instead of military service, and you can apply to do it abroad!). i was supposed to serve as a teaching assistant for the pottery classes as well as do some painting of the facility. they decided not to have me do any painting, though, and given the number of staff, i wasn't really needed as an assistant. so mostly i just tried to help set up and clean up and interact with the kids, who were great fun. most of the kids only speak arabic though, so we had to make do with lots of hand gestures, occasional teacher translations, and singing -- i think i did more singing than pottery, in fact. we sang frere jacques and alouette, as well as old macdonald, which they sang in arabic while i sang in english. and, at their request, i sang a few of the taiwanese folk songs i could remember. i also learned a few arabic words and got pretty good at shouting "le le le le", which means "no no no no", at them when they'd pick fights with each other. the kids were mostly in the pre- to late teens and had a wide variety of disabilities. many were autistic. some had physical disabilities only. others could not communicate verbally at all.

the kids were lots of fun, and it was also fun getting to know some of the teachers and other staff, many of whom were in their twenties and early thirties. two were planning to get married this summer, in "small" weddings of 200-250 people, and graciously invited me, but alas, we'll be gone before they take place. so anyway, i'm disappointed that i didn't add much value as a volunteer, but it was a fun experience for me in many ways.

so everyday i'd come home to our apartment, which serge kept immaculate -- he was a wonderful househusband -- and we'd take walks by the harbor or go shopping at carrefour (where i found one other asian restaurant, in the food court) and then cook dinner, watch tv, go to our cafe, and, if they were open, go to the bombaloni (kind of like a fluffier zeppole) stand (note to talat: still haven't found yoyos but have at least learned that they're like bombaloni but with less sugar). it's definitely been a very nice life.