Christmas in Sicily, January's Jasmine Revolution, February in Sicily and Germany

Hello friends and family! Apologies for my long and unintended hiatus from my blog. I will make a much more significant effort in these next few months to post more entries and to keep everyone more informed on my travels and experiences abroad.

So . . . quick recap from the last few months:

In December I finished up the first half of my internship at Amideast-Tunis. It was a very busy time with post-IEW plans and preparing for the deadline of all the student applications for the Tomorrow's Leaders program. Everyday was a new project and a chance for me to really experience the behind-the-scenes work of an exchange program. My work was preparing the selection process and beginning to review applications as they came into the office. I also proctored another SAT early in the month, which gave me some extra spending money for Christmas presents.

I am fortunate enough to have friends all over the world and I do my best to keep in touch with people throughout the year. Friends living near Catania, Sicily invited me to their house for the holidays, and I gladly accepted. We toured around the region visiting small traditional Sicilian villages and the big city of Catania to experience a Mediterranean Christmas complete with cappucinno and cannolis. It was fantastic to walk on the beach and hike up the nearby cliffs on Christmas morning with only a light jacket while enjoying the sunshine and crisp sea breeze. Christmas dinner was a wonderful experience with an all out holiday-style dinner and friends from all over the region. I ate very well that night and enjoyed the company of military friends who had traveled all over the world thanks to their posts and personal interests. It is always great to mingle and to hear other's stories about their adventures abroad.

As always, it was difficult to leave my much needed vacation in Sicily to return to Tunis for work. I said goodbye to my friends and boarded the plane bound once again for Africa. New Year's eve was spent with Canadian and Italian friends in Tunis as we watched the satellite broadcast of countries all over the world ringing in the new year. We ate well and toasted to the upcoming year filled with new friends and new adventures.

Little did I know that when I returned to work at Amideast in January, Tunisia was already experiencing great change that would start a revolution of massive proportions. I had heard of some unrest in the south of the country, and that a young man had drenched himself in gasoline and burned himself in response to the lack of opportunity for educated youth in Tunisia. It was very difficult to find any news of the event in the local press or on the evening television reports due to Tunisia's strict censorship laws. The secret police are in fact a very big deal in Tunisia and the citizens take care to not discuss politics or their opinions on the president Ben Ali. As the days progressed, I heard more rumblings about the situation getting worse, and that the frustrations over the lack of government support were not only in the south but were a general national resentment. I was able to find a few articles on France 24, the NYtimes, and BBC online which became my primary resources for the next few months. Rumors of riots growing larger convinced the director of Amideast to close down the school for a few days until things settled down, and so the revolution began in Tunis.

Here is a Times Magazine article with more details on the revolution:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2043331,00.html

I must say that I have never actually experienced a revolution from within the country, and it was so powerful to see the spirit of the Tunisian youth challenging their oppressive government by telling them "you are not doing enough for us, so we want change". Almost half of Tunisia's population are youth ages 16 - 25, many of whom have college degrees with no opportunity for work. Many of these students have become disenchanted with the system that promised a good education leading to a good job, and consequently have no option to properly support their families. I was so proud of my Tunisian friends who joined their fellow countrymen on the days of the protests to support the change that they wished to see in their own country. President Ben Ali was very stubborn with his people and did not give in easily, but eventually the pressure became too much.

During the day the military protected the government buildings and establishments, but at night the city of Tunis turned volatile. A curfew was imposed from 5:00 pm to 6:00 am in order to prevent more protests on the streets. I was instructed by my colleagues to stay indoors and not venture out at all because the police had orders to arrest anyone who looked suspicious or anyone who was gathering in groups larger than three. There were snipers on the roofs near my building, and army tanks driving in each day to protect the buildings from looters. At times it was reassuring to have so much protection around the building that I was living in, but at the same time I knew that the tanks were close because there was a chance that we would actually see some of the violence. I made sure to stay in my apartment with my friends and not go outside during the day unless it was absolutely necessary. We stockpiled as much food as we could and began to wait for things to get better in Tunis.

Each morning, I would log onto my computer and check facebook to see what had happened the night before. My Tunisian friends would post status updates, photos, and even short videos taken from their cell phones to show what was really happening. By the afternoon the videos would be taken down and oftentimes the photos would be blocked by the government. It was a pretty strange time for everyone in the country. As the portests became more violent, the death tolls started to rise and we knew that something big was going to happen. Finally President Ben Ali came on the news and said that he was stepping down as president of Tunisa. We couldn't believe it. Had this really happened? The biggest question that was on my mind was, "now what?". None of the youth who were less than 25 years old had ever voted or witnessed a real presidential campaign, and policital activism was something that only happened in secret with individuals who held strong views due to all of the censorship and press restrictions. "What is going to happen now?" I asked myself this question that night, and I am still asking it now.

Ben Ali had at least 2500 personal body guards on his payroll that acted as secret police to inform him on what was happening in his country throughout his 23 year presidency. When he fled the country he essentially told his body guards to destroy everything of value so that Tunisians could not enjoy what he had created for them. Talk about a "god-complex", right?

The apartment complex that I was staying in at the time had shops and boutiques on the first level of the building. Within days of Ben Ali leaving Tunisia, everything underneath my apartment was looted by gangs of pro-government supporters. I remember looking out my window one afternoon and seeing hundreds of people running down the hill and into the courtyard with pipes, bats, and fence posts ready to destroy the shops. I called my roommates together and we shut all the curtains and gathered in the living room together away from the windows. The sounds of yelling and smashing glass echoed up the stairwell, and I had never been so scared that our apartment would be broken into. We locked the door and braced it with a heavy cabinet and prayed that no one would venture up the stairwell. It was a very scary feeling knowing that we lived on the fourth floor and the only safe way out was through the front door. That hour is potentially the longest one that I have experienced in my life thus far.

When we heard the sound of large trucks driving down the street, we ventured toward the window to move the curtain aside. The Tunisian army haad finally showed up with more tanks and soldiers to chase away the gangs, but not before they looted everything from the shops below us and threw most of it into the street. When things had quited down outside, we ventured out onto the balcony to look down at the debris. Shop owners were arriving to check their their wares, and were sadly sweeping up the broken glass and taking what was left from the looting to better storage facilities. It was frusterating to know that these were Tunisians doing this to their own people, and that it was simply creating more problems for those who were just trying to be safe and follow the rules. Those who were loyal to Ben Ali were not going to give in easily.

The frightening part was that many of these body guards were also policemen, so the people found that they could not trust the organizations that were supposed to protect them. The army, on the other hand, remained in good graces with the Tunisian people throughout the revolution because they would not fire on innnocent protestors. In a sense, the army was called in to protect the citizens from the police and from the violent protestors.

After more than a week of protests, violence, and living under a curfew while watching the news indoors all day, my university program decided that it would be best for me to leave the country for a while until things settled down. They arranged a flight for me the enxt morning that would take me to Italy, and then onto Sicily to stay with the same friends that I had spent Christmas with just a few weeks prior. I packed what little I had with me that night and caught a cab the next morning to the airport. All foreign bank accounts had been frozen at that point to prevent the Ben Ali family from withdrawing their savings and departing the country as well. I waited in line for what seemed like hours due to all the tourists who had unfortunately been cooped up in their hotel rooms for their vacation. The flight was nice and my friends were more than happy to receive me as a "refugee" from North Africa.

It was comforting to finally be staying in a place where I felt safe. I no longer woke up at night to the sounds of gunfire outside or smashing glass, and finally felt at ease to be outside of my residence without hearing the drone of helicopters hovering overhead. The first week that I was in Sicily the tv was my main source of news to follow everything back in Tunis. I was able to access youtube for the first time in months, and Al-Jazeera in English, which allowed me to follow the events in real time. I spent five long weeks in Sicily and one week in Germany waiting for things to calm down in Tunisia so that I could return to continue my internship. At times, I wresteled with feelings of guilt for leaving my friends and my work behind, but was reminded that I had to follow my university program's guidelines.

As with all revolutions, there is no designated timeline for things to work themselves out, as it is oftentimes a people's movement that requires time effort to build a solid foundation. I knew that this was a project for Tunisians to do for themselves, and it was not a situation where I could necessarily help. I am truly fortunate to have friends in this part of the world and to have been welcomed into their homes during my time of, shall we say, "displacement" until I found a new place to go.

My university internship program advisors were fantastic in working with me throughout the time that I was gone to figure out what my next move would be. Tunisia was no longer an option, at least for the next few months. Finally, Morocco arose as a viable option because they had an Amideast office in the capitol city of Rabat. I happily accepted the offer, and made arrangements to start my new internship on March 1. Five weeks in Sicily and one week in Germany gave me a wonderful chance to relax and to process everything that had happened in Tunis, and also to prepare for future plans. I greatly enjoyed my time spent with friends and the trips that we were able to take together.

So now, as I prepare to start a new adventure in a new country, I will take with me the things that I have learned and create whole new experience.

On to Morocco!