Just Picture This!

With appreciation to the great Paul Simon:

 “Kodachrome

They give us those nice bright colors

They give us the greens of summers

Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day

I got a (Canon) camera

I love to take a photograph”

Jendouba jendarmes, please don’t take my Kodacrome away!

Today, my first full day in Jendouba, Tunisia, began in the usual way. Woke up around 8am, took a shower, dressed, looked for my glasses and found them flattened beneath my feet on the floor. Bummer! Fortunately, these were my current lenses and my new and as yet unworn ones were still in my suitcase.  So, now I have nice new glasses but no backup.  Ah well…

After a leisurely breakfast with Chris & Tami and their three children, Chris and I drove over to his English language school – More Than Words – where he had 3 young students coming whose parents had arranged ask Chris to provide special English lessons prior to a move to Saudi Arabia.

Chris said that he’d be about an hour and I could do as I liked until he finished. So, I decided to walk around the neighborhood – An aggregation of single and multiple family houses, small shops, and a large mosque. As always, I carried my faithful Canon camera with me to pictorially document my surroundings.  There were few people out and several of the shops were shuttered but a couple of market/grocery shops were doing business.

The architecture in Jendouba, typical of Tunisia according to Chris, is very interesting – different from that in Ghana where I’ve spent considerable time over the past 15 years.   






There seems to be a special attention to colorful and geometrically unique doors and gates on the homes. So, I decided to photograph these as well as the streets and buildings I passed.

 

 I intentionally did not take any pictures of people – except for two men in front of a little shop who gestured that they wanted me to photograph them. (Tomorrow I’ll take copies of their photos to them as Thank You gifts).

I had been walking in a 3-4 block area for about 45 minutes when a Jendouba police car stopped next to me and two uniformed policemen got out followed by another man in civilian clothes. All three had radios in hand and were talking on them as they surrounded me.  One said, “Come, get into the car. We need to talk with you.”

Figuring that the last thing I wanted to do was get into a police vehicle with people whose language I did speak and who probably did not speak English, I said, “I’m just going to my colleague’s school. I’m a university professor from America and am taking photographs of Jendouba buildings to show people at home.” (I probably said several other sentences as they were continuing to urge me to get into the police vehicle but I cannot recall them now.)  I knew where I was in the neighborhood and that Chris’ school offices were just one block away. So I said to the officer who had some English ability, 'Let’s walk to my colleague’s school. It’s just here,” and proceeded to walk up the street. The officer who could speak some English asked if my colleague was a Tunisian. I said that he was an American but speaks fluent Arabic, has lived in Jendouba for 10 years and in Tunisia for 20 years – all of this as I continued to walk. So, the two of us walked round the next corner and up the street followed at our walking pace by the police car driven by the other officer and the civilian police officer in his personal car.

When we got to “More Than Words,” I led them up to the second floor (considered the first floor in Tunisia) and found Chris in a classroom.  I said, “Chris, I think I’ve been arrested.”  He responded with, “Good!” (Chris is very laid back and has been in Tunisia for 20 years). 


He came out and talked with the policemen for several minutes and they decided we needed to come with them to the police station.  So we got into the back seat of the police car and they drove us to their local station – followed by the plain clothed officer.

At the station we sat in a hallway and waited while several men discussed our situation. None was in uniform but Chris assured me that they were all police officers.  A couple of them came out and talked with Chris and asked for my passport which was back at the house. So Chris left and walked home to retrieve it.  A couple of the officers came out when he got back, shook our hands, smiled, took both our passports, and then returned to one of the three offices along the hall.  They came back to the hallway and asked to see my photos, which I showed them. They smiled and talked with Chris who said they were laughing and saying to each other that this was silly and that the pictures were only of buildings and doors and nothing to be concerned about. Chris said that apparently someone saw me taking pictures and called the police. Once that happened they had to investigate.

After about an hour of sitting in the hall, several conversations between Chris and various officers, a lot of smiles, handshakes, and Arabic pleasantries, we were told  to have a good day and that we needed to go the downtown police station and “register” me. Chris asked if we had to do it right away and was told, “No; but do it today.”  So, after returning home and having lunch we drove into the center of Jendouba and reported in.  We were informed that a photocopy of my passport was needed and were directed to a bookstore on the next street – which we visited twice because we were not told to make 2 copies of the documents. Chris chatted with the three officers behind the chest-high desk (none in uniform) who all laughed, welcomed me to Tunisia and asked how I liked it. A half-hour later we were on our way home.

This evening the four North American families in Jendouba met in one of the homes for a weekly “service”.  I had met them the night before and as soon as I walked into the host family’s house, our host asked, “Was that you who had the problem with the police today?”  She had been at a grocery store in the neighborhood and was told by the shopkeeper that the police had stopped a man “like her” (meaning a white non-Tunisian) who was taking pictures. So, I had to share my first-day’s experiences with everyone.

On the positive side of this morning’s activities, Chris may have picked up some more students for his English language classes as several of the police officers told him that they wanted their children to learn English.  When he told me this, I asked him if there were other areas of the city where I could go and stir up additional potential customers?

 
All the officers I met this morning were cordial, pleasant, and gracious and wished me well during my stay in Jendouba. But it was definitely an unexpected beginning to my two weeks here.