PC595 Revolution Optimists Convince Themselves everything is almost normal - Wrong !
Tunis was boring so I leave to smaller friendlier Places
| Wed 2nd - | - Kasbah seems to be open, except small bottom square. | Tourist stuff Couchsurfing meetup | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thu 3rd - | Tourist stuff - Met up with Kaiser and his friend walked till 5pm ...Malaga Guy was back | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fri 4th - | - NMIT breaks story of US company to build cement factory in SBZ, but a check discredits this story. Now not only playing down negative stories, but relying on fabricated positives. | Tourist stuff - Locked myself out - Took tram upto Cite Olympic walked along highway upto Menzah - wow this city is huge ..whole of north is a mass of concrete buildings built in the last 20 years. Through university... Then too tram to north, but all concrete buildings. .. Beautiful French girl turned up, but that's 18 years too late for me. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sat 5th | - Story of 2 shot dead when crowd attacks Le Kef police station breaks | Tourist stuff - Took tram to southern suburbs a contrast to north, this is more rough houses. First Moujah ..nothing .. Then in Ben Amous saw 2 things... First spotted a basilica, but then found it was a complex of facades a movie studio, then in a poor market area found a police station completely burnt even 1 wall had been smashed in.
What a surprise Computer Teacher Adel turned up .. He was preparing to go on the Convoy of 10,000 people to SBZ. The 5 of us from the hotel plus 2 went to the bar, but only 1 beer before the bar had reached it's sales limit. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sun 6th - | - Facebookers still pushing positive stories, but it becomes apparent since Friday police have killed 5 and maybe 7 people. | Tourist stuff - run -wasting time checking stories, lunch with Pascal - internet | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mon 7th - | - internet is off for some reason, there is a huge demo at Ministry of Education | Tourist stuff - Right decide to get out of Tunis it's boring. So take louage to Beja - like it, but cold. Go to buy beer, but every supermarket here has been destroyed ... So revolution has reduced liberty ... It's much more difficult to buy beer. Accidentally meet up with Hytham's friends : Chady and Medhia so spend a lot of time talking. Meet friendly fricasse seller. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tue 8th - | Tourist stuff - It's souk day. Walk all the way north and up hill for view.. I come around hills to west and Kasbah to meet with Aymen and his sister the English teacher.. Meet up with the lads later. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed 9th - | Government announces schools will go on holiday immediately; Probably sonething to do with half th teachers being on strike, whilst half th pupils are boycotting school until the syllabus is changed and RCD teachers sacked ... or maybe they don't like school ... guess | Tourist stuff - It's cold, write diary at park | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thu 10th - | Country is still in a mess, loads of strikes and people disregarding laws, Yesterday in Sousse some shops were looted | Tourist stuff - It's cold, might go to Sousse Friday | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fri 11th - | - | Tourist stuff - walk west of Beja, bus to Tunis, louage to Sousse should have come via El Fahs, getting thro Tunis took 1 hour | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sat 12th - | - | Tourist stuff - Sousse central, MagasIn General is completely destroyed..went Emile's Café, then bus to Hammam Sousse ..noticeable no fire damage there
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| Sun 13th - | - | Tourist stuff - worked on net, I missed out On CS meeting | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mon 14th - | Government launches big tourism push, but coincides with lots of strikes | Tourist stuff - I meet up with American teacher - Jake | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tue 15th - |
- Movement to end strikes.
- Police arrest armed gangs in area I wanted to hike at Zriba | Tourist stuff - I meet Pierre | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed 16th - | - | Tourist stuff - Got T shirt from Pierre It's the New Tunisia Facebook Revolution T-shirt his Company manufacture - or 15 years he has been in Sousse supplying imported branded clothes to shops here  
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| Thu 17th - | 300 LOOTERS ARRESTED IN ARYANAH AND KAIROUAN
First stories Ben Ali in coma | Tourist stuff - beach, western suburbs. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fri 18th - | Tourist stuff - Ill : now I suddenly got flu, my throat is so sore. I never got flu before I was 31 now I get it a few times a year. As you get older your bodies immune system get too strong. Does your own immune system eventually kill you. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thu 17th - | Idea : The show youth loves the New Tunisia Campaign
| Thu 17th -
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I had an idea the other day.
The Love the New Tunisia campaign : show you care.
Like :
- cleaning up your local beach, park or river.
- Maybe as a classroom activity they could prepare a letter outlining their proposal and ask a foreign embassy if they can provide paint. - Perhaps each foreign embassy could sponsor the paint for a particular town etc. - Destroying things to make the revolution was the easy part, now people have to do the hard work of building a new Tunisia. Fri 18th -
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| write, walk internet etc
| Sat 19th -
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| - walk west - some park nothing much, tourist office
| Sun 20th -
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I am hanging out in Sousse, but it is a bit boring, nothing special happening and hassle from the , "bezness" people .. 50% of the time it's as I am walking along with earphones on with no one near me suddenly 1 or 2 guys will appear pointing at their wrists and asking the time. The rest of the time it's when I am near the beach or tourist areas and guys come up talking crap.
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Now I have a boat ticket leaving to Sicily next Saturday night .. so it will seems I will use it. So I need to do some research ..
| I might do that hike to old Zriba Village. - I had been hoping to find some work or project, but I haven't been lucky bumping into any. Maybe I haven't been proactive enough; I haven't been knocking on the door of every English school. Instead I have been relying on making contacts through bumping into people, but mostly people I meet don't want to talk again after they see I don't share their enthusiastic optimism for the revolution. .. People almost never call me back.
Mon 21st -
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9pm BBC WS Radio just reported live from a crowded occupation of Kasbah where thousands are saying they will stay until ex-RCD leave the transitional government
| - I think I went up north of El Kantoui - villages of squatter houses built on the coast. El Kantoui wasn't as bad as I thought, but not the type of place I would hang out, expensive and mon-Tunisuan.
| - One area that is OK is On the coastal highway 2Km north of the medina is that street running from the beach and Gokart track to South side of Hammam Sousse it has a park and a lot of fast food places, busy without being too touristic. Mon 21st -
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| write, walk- torist office- , internet
| Tue 22nd -
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| write - walk - far west, internet
| Wed 23rd -
| Army are still in downtown Sousse. Wow went past the Carrefour in south Sousse and it's still closed, seems to me any supermarket that sold alcohol was targetted for looting more than others.
| write - walk - far west, internet
| Thu 24th -
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| - Finally left Sousse - first a city bus to Enfida ... A French colonial developed grid market town then a bus to Zriba, hitched to Old Zriba with a Berber called Muneer
| Fri 25th -
| - another huge demonstration against RCD in the transitional government .. Mostly schoolkids
| - I needed to get my teeth checked by a dentist, first I went to tourist info : useless then louage to small town 40 mins away Grombalia. I see they burned out their Carrefour supermarket and it's still closed. Dentist was useless; just said since I could feel no pain and no obvious caries then it was OK, but said I needed a new bridge costing £300 .. Yeh right. Nothing much in Grombalia so went onto Soliman..OK, but beach part is fine so I just went on back towards the city stopping at a suburb called Hammam Lef. Interesting cos looks ver Italian. A Tunisian born in Sicily made a fortune in New York and then came here and developed the main street NY style ..it ends with a Casino at the sea. Mmd Trabsi explained before then the suburb had been for the retinue of the Bey who build a palace in 1900 on the hill. After that few Arabs ever lived there it was always French then Itali ns and Jews. Mmd is trying to develop an abandoned church as a community learning centre. | - Got back to rown and we all went off to a bar which some Tunisian said is Tunis hottest. Obviously thEy have different ideas to us ..it was some poncy place Belesconi type Mafia guys take theier miniskirted bought young girlfriends. They insisted we could just buy beers which were double normal price, but we had to buy $10 pizas aswell, but luckily we got a phonecall from the flatmates saying vandalism had started after the demonstration and now town was tense, so we made our excuses and left. Got back to find fires burning in the middle or ll the roads around oureighbourhood. Sat 26th -
| - Kasbah sitin still happening | - Some big demonstration on Av Bourghiba - people kept saying "oh there was shooting", but that only means they heard sounds which could have been tear gas, rubber bullets, blanks, not necessarily live fire. - Crowds and teargas on - I went to buy a couple of things, then 12pm as I was going to buy wine on Av Bourghiba I could get there as crowds were streaming away from the teargas and shops started to pull down the shutters.
| - Came up to Monoprix supermarket on Av Liberte buying bEer there was an experience. Inside the alcohol shelves were closed so I had to go to the bottle shop part around the back. It was like a scene out of Mad Max. First there are 2 guys at the metal security and then inside metal walls split the room into 4 lines : one entry and one exit for each server, but of course some drunk guys are trying to jump the queue. One drunk guy pushed back gets really angry just as I am server and picks up a bottle to stab someone so they close the main door .. I push past and get out this madhouse. - Came back and we went for lunch at a nice café. - 4.30pm experience with drunk young guys trying to grab me., but most of street normal - 6pm I am finishing at the cyber café, but then they had to lock us in as there as there were pops and police announcements. - people inside said it was thieving hooligans not politics. - 6.45pm it quietened. I phoned the apartment and asked what they could see out of the window. They said it had calmed as they could see cars and normal people walking. The Tunisians didn't want to leave as they were scared of live bullets, but I pushed past them and saw there were people walking so I went on. But 10m away was a car burning and pockets of police on riot-torn streets. I walked one block to the corner and then the teargas was overwhelming I could see the remains of the mob at the end of that street. I had to walk halfway along that street to get to the apartment. Made it, I couldn't answer any questions as I had to flush my eyes with milk. - The others are all excitidly looking out of the windows at the action as the police mop up the remains of the mob, but I'm thinking how am I going to get a taxi to the port. I ssupposed to be at the port at 8pm but now it's after 7pm. We eat it's 7.50pm I phone someone, but they are talking crap, "ooh you won't be going tonight there is a curfew." When you think about that that's ridiculous, you can't have a sudden curfew as people have to get home. - Of course no one wants to be brave enough to walk with me. I fully loaded walk through riot torn Place de Liberte up Rue de Ghana, which has a few hundred people on, a few soldiers walking, a few people in front of their shops, still some people in some cafes.. Taxi doesn't want to stop. Get to the main highway Rue Mmd Five. There is an army group their with APC etc. So I wait. A few taxis pass, but don't stop, I flag down one with a woman already in a but it turns out she's going on the road to Bizerte so I get a 30Km journey instead of 8Km. I had to wait in queues for boarding pass, entry, passport and entrance to boat and the boat left 2 hours late. Tue 22nd -
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| write - walk - far west, internet | Tue 22nd -
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| write - walk - far west, internet
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- Asking me the time and grabbing my arm
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