CARPETS AND TEA GALORE

Kairouan, the forth holiest site after Islam (has the Great Mosque, the oldest in North Africa as well as Bir Barouta, a well that is said to be connected to Mecca) and probably the most local feeling place that we visited in Tunisia – oh and the major carpet producing city of Tunisia. While the big package tour buses did come in, they stayed only a couple hours leaving the city void of tourists by mid-day and us free to wander and get a sense for this quaint little city. We arrived around 5:00 after our 4-5 hour louage ride from Jerba so we were a bit worn and dusty and tired feeling and really not sure what kind of hassle we might get in this new place. In fact, it was fairly hassle free and we settled into the hotel before heading off for a wander through the city. Well, not so true, our first goal was to find an Italian gelato place that was supposed to be located in the nouveau village section. It, as would seem to be the case when we want ice cream, was closed. Ice cream free, we headed back into the medina and began a wander through the narrow twisty back streets. The town was full of wonderful doors in blue and green with fantastic iron designs on them and little sweets shops around every corner. Many of the doors in the streets were open and inside working away were shoe makers, furniture carvers and rug weavers. On the streets, the locals were out buying bread and fruit and going about their evening businesses having a chat and a laugh and it had such a nice wonderful feel to it.

Since we had actually managed to eat well the past few days and were loaded up with grease filled sandwiches from that afternoon, we decided to make a sort of picnic thing to eat on the terrace of our hotel (LP said there was a terrace). This turned into quite a little treasure hunt as we decided that we wanted some of the lovely strawberries that seemed to be everywhere, peaches, cheese, yogurt, bread and tomatoes. No problem getting the bread (vendors on the street everywhere with wonderful fresh stuff), fruit and yogurt but good cheese and tomatoes seemed to be a bit more challenging. We ended up with a pull tab tin of Austrian processed cheese spread (thought it would be better than the laughing cow triangles) and after much searching, four lovely tomatoes (and a cucumber!).

We had seen the tomatoes a little earlier in one of the back streets and were not quite sure exactly where. None of the main fruit vendors seemed to have tomatoes and after several tries, we decided to ask the bread vendor. When I told him I was looking for a tomato, he just about died laughing. Apparently this was a very bizarre request. So, we carried on and tried asking another vendor, who also laughed. We then tried a nice woman walking with her daughter and held up the other produce that we had purchased hoping to give a better indication of what we were after. She understood but couldn’t help. It was about this point that one of the annoying shop guys appeared to try and drag us into his store. As we looked a bit confused, he said, “are you looking for something?” and I simply replied, “oui, je cherche un tomate” (yes, I am looking for a tomato). He was quite stunned and confused by this and immediately fell into silence. We escaped. Hmmm, what a great way to get rid of these guys, eh? For once I was actually looking for something but apparently something so confusing it completely baffled these guys. It continued to baffle as we had a couple more shop keepers try to get us into the stores and each time we replied with the “je cherche un tomate” (my spelling is probably totally wrong with that so I am sorry) they would look at us blankly and we would escape. Note to self, always request something that they won’t have or be able to find for you and you gain a few seconds to escape!

Tomato goal achieved, we headed back to the hotel to enjoy the lovely evening on the terrace. Well, the hotel guy looked at a bit odd when we asked to go to the terrace but he brought us up there anyway. Turned out to be a great place to hang laundry and not much of a terrace but hell, it was outside, away from hassle and had a nice view over the city. The hotel guy was quite charming and quite taken with Jules and set us up with a nice little table of stacked bricks, a couple of chairs and then, most wondrously, appeared with a small pot of tea to go with our meal. It was quite a grease free meal and quite lovely!

The next day we decided to tackle the carpet shops and see exactly what Kerouaine had to offer. They actually did have quite a number of nice carpets to look at ranging from Kilims to silk Persian carpets. Many of them were quite nice. Our challenge was not just to find a carpet and get it at a good price but also to see how many glasses of mint tea we could squeeze out of them. Think we managed about five through the course of three stores. It is quite q nice way to refresh yourself when you are tired. In one store we actually felt quite bad though as the guy was really trying to find a carpet for us and we just did not like a single thing that he had. No matter what he brought out we had to say, “sorry, don’t like it” and he would scurry off to find something else. He did look a bit depressed when we left without even contemplating a price on a single one.

We even managed lunch in one of the carpet shops – with our own food that is. However it was very gracious of them as we had not bought anything yet and after I did, they were not very happy with me, or at least appeared to be unhappy as they do…Jules did a fab job of negotiating her carpet and even had me feeling uncomfortable. It appeared to be the battle of who could remain silent for the longest period of time and Jules clearly won as she walked out with the carpet for less than half of what he was asking even after he had done a start off reduction. Basically she just stalemated him and I don’t think he was used to it. The conversation went something like this:

“OK, 250DT”
“hmm, no, I was thinking more like 80DT”

Silence, Silence Silence, more silence…steph feeling uncomfortable and really hoping someone would say something soon!

Carpet Guy: “OK, I can go 220DT”
Jules: “No, too high, how about 100DT”

Silence

Carpet Guy: “100! 180 does not even cover the cost of the materials, let alone the labor”

Silence, Silence, Silence…me uncomfortable again…

Jules: “Hmmm”…Silence
Carpet Guy: “OK, 150DT”
Jules: “No, still too high…110DT?”

Silence…carpet guy caves, come across room and says, 120DT?
Jules: OK

Carpet guy then had the audacity to ask Jules to give him a tip for the wrapping and folding of the carpet…as if he still did not make a pretty penny!

After that, it was time for some sweets from the sweet shop and then another Louage off to our next destination…back to the coast and the beautiful Med.