On our list of achievements:
- registered 2.5 children in the school (inshallah we will make it 3 by sometime in January!!),
- lost and found one cat,
- met and had drinks with some of our neighbours,
- experimented with French (mispronounced by Terrena) resulting in a weird and funny taxi ride,
- walked around our neighbourhood (les berges du lac 1),
- discovered that our garbage will not be picked up (ever!),
- had extreme guilt about not being able to compost or recycle,
- shopped at a store which seemed like a Costco on steroids,
- visited the Canadian Embassy,
- drank orange juice squeezed from our backyard orange tree,
- encountered many stray dogs and cats,
- slept until noon (twice)
- stayed up all night...(also twice)
- tried to watch TV but gave up after having no clue what the show was about!
- were surprised by the number of armed guards around the school the children will attend,
- set up our internet,
- participated in a fire drill at the American School in the midst of enjoying an outdoor lunch
- changed money awkwardly at an ATM,
- forgot to ask which coins were which....needed help from various people,
- locked Richard out of the gate on the road in the middle of the night while looking for the lost cat,
- fed our cats sardines and they loved it,
- discovered a pastry and chocolate store- perfect for Kaitlyn,
- created a spectacle at the Tunis airport with our 'caged cats',
- discovered that a security guard sent by the embassy patrols our house inside the gate many times a day...
- too scared to drive yet....advice from others is go for it 'inshallah'
- bum gun lessons (http://voices.yahoo.com/how-bum-gun-toilet-hose-thailand-the-3667987.html) resulting in moments of reflection on our personal hygiene.
In addition, every Tunisian we have meet so far has been friendly and helpful from the moment we arrived at the airport.
Below is the door to the gated entrance to our house in Tunis. We are so grateful to have a beautiful and comfortable house to live in while we are here. Love to all back in Canada!! We are safe and very well taken care of here.
Yay! So glad you're settling in and have found essentials like the pastry shop. BD looks happy surveying his new kitchen too. Is there no way to compost in your garden, or will that just attract the stray dogs and cats (and worse)?
ReplyDeleteJohanna
Well Johanna...we would like to try to compost here but it seems that our garden only has a place for garden waste. I don't know what kind of rodents there are here (there are lots of neighbourhood cats to help with that population) and I don't want to encourage any more cat escapes...Shadow is in a full patrol touts les temps and I suspect attracting more animals would make him very agitated. We will ask our neighbours what they suggest regarding the kitchen waste question. I don't like seeing all the garbage on the street.....
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