Mid-Visit Musings

I began this post a few days ago but couldn't get a handle on what I wanted to say. Now I am three-quarters of the way through my time here in Jendouba, Tunisia. In 4 days I will leave this fascinating country and return home to Summerville, SC, via Paris and New York City.

Jendouba is a medium-sized city in the northwestern part of Tunisia; two-plus hours west of Tunis, the capital, and an hour-and-a-half south of the resort city of Tabarka on the Mediterranean Sea.

Jendouba's people are friendly and welcoming but few of them speak any English at all. French is the second language here, as it is in much of Tunisia, but it is everyday French mixed with Arabic creating a local patois which is decidedly more Arabic than French.

There are very few westerners living in Jendouba or in much of Tunisia outside of Tunis. So I asked my hosts and their North American friends, "Why are you here? Why have you come? Why have you chosen to live in Jendouba?" They answer with, "Do you know the story of Abraham?"

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing  . . So Abram went, as the Lord had told him. . . 

 

 

 As Abram left his home and all he knew taking with him his family and such as he could carry, so my new friends have left their homes and families in the west and settled themselves in Tunisia. They have businesses here, speak the language of their neighbors (as a result of diligent and lengthy study), educate their children in local schools or, in some cases at home, buy groceries in the local open air markets, sit in cafes in the evenings talking with friends - in short, becoming full-fledged members of the communities in which they live and move and have their being.

Is it easy? Surely you're kidding. Is it demanding? Without question. Is it dangerous? Only to the extent that entering into any country and culture as a foreigner and stranger calls for increased care and caution. Is it worth all the time, energy, anxiety, frustration, separation, and confusion? How else are we to know those whom we do not know?

How else are those in far-off parts of the world going to understand us if they never see and meet us on their own turf, in their own backyards, in their everyday walk through life?

I wish I were twenty years younger