Writings of Andrew Schiestel

The morning was brisk, the sun was out, and the sky was clear. A man walks across a road holding a black plastic bag full of hard but unknown goods. A woman wearing a hijab and jebba enters the back of a parked yellow taxi; the taxi’s dashboard light toggles from red to green. Two university-aged boys walk side-by-side northward up the street. The convenience stand was open—early in the morning: a column of French and Arabic newspapers lay stacked on display; the stand’s entrance door jarred; its attendant stands on the door’s sill talking on his mobile phone. A middle-aged man wearing a taqiyah sits on a concrete slab at the entrance of a park across from the neighbourhood’s mosque: He fetches a cigarette out of a pocket with one hand, and a lighter out of a different pocket with the other. Two adult grand-sized German Shepherds walk alongside each other excitedly exploring the environs: Their collars are the only indication of proprietorship. Their pedigree explains the likelihood that a gate was left accidentally, or purposefully, open. As the traveller walks up the veranda steps of a café, a superintendent at a nearby building exits with a cup of coffee in hand, ostensibly, having not paid for it. Another man supporting himself with crutches soon exits with a coffee in hand too. The string of benefaction ended with a fourth man: This one, a daily city worker with a munificent heart. Predictably, his request for alms would have been granted, but his timing didn’t pan out this morning: The barista was spent by this point and explained in an exasperated way that he couldn’t keep giving out coffee gratis all morning. Crestfallen, and not understanding the sincerity of the barista’s words, the worker walked a block away and complained with much gesticulation to another building superintendent who regularly, too, requests alms. The two would be joined by a third man and talk for some while. In the nearby Saf Saf plaza, five men sit in a semi-circle in conversation in front of the historic Ben Yedder café. A local old dog known to the men, and the men known to the dog, walks down the adjoining street slowly, its tail wagging side-to-side. In the bosque that’s too large to be a coppice, but too small to be a forest, that bournes La Marsa, a man walks hastily down a trail. Another man wearing a grey sweater and sweat pants and adorning large black ear speakers jogs down another trail. A group of boys ride electric-powered scooters down the street that runs parallel to the bosque. They eventually make their way into the thicket and the mother of one of the boys appears on a bike chaperoning the three. All suddenly stop and become silent as one of the boys falls off his scooter and into a pile of debris. All laugh and continue talking as the boy stands up. “Youssif! Youssif!” the woman shouts as one boy deviates down a different path. He would straggle but eventually follow the group as they carried course through the bosque. “Sbe7 lkher marra okhra!” (Good morning again!) The traveller greeted a parking attendant he regularly sees. “Sbe7 lkher!” the attendant cheerfully shouted back. “Ehbringah!” A local restaurant cook shouted his own name; a regular joke between him and the traveller. “Ebringah, jawouk fesfes!” The traveller congenially vollied back—The Jawouk fesfes is a Tunisian Arabic way of saying, “You are a good man!” But in a hip, and modern kind of way. The chef’s face lit up, as it always does, very pleased with the compliment. A man sits at the side of a street with a jar of honey and a bag full of more. He points to the jar between his feet with one finger in an undulating fashion, says no words, and smiles. “3andi 3sal tawa,” (I currently have honey) the traveller says with a smile back to the man. The man nods and smiles more. The traveller continues his walk down the street, crosses the main throughway in the district, and steps onto the promenade that acts as a corniche to the Mediterranean Sea. The sun was close to its meridian by this point. More people were abound. Football was being played in the valley below the promenaded plateau. The beach was becoming busy. And many splashed in the water; it’s tide clement. It was January 1, 2023 in La Marsa, Tunsia, in North Africa.

(Written on January 1, 2023 in La Marsa, Tunisia)