Around the corner from our appartment, on the way to the medina, there's a lovely little park with a fountain and a small well that's been turned into an artificial waterfall. A sign announces that the park was founded as a commemoration of the ties between Monaco and Tunisia. Rihanna Gaga loves this park. The square around the fountain, lined by blue benches, is ideal for running around on and the place is filled with cats she can watch and talk to. It's a lush place, with nicely kept greenery.
In the middle of this park is Dar Dallagi a beautiful salon du thé, decorated in the local style with painted ceilings and blue wooden furniture. While there's a terrace that sprawls out into the park, the real place is located on the first floor, with a large balcony overlooking the trees and bushes. Normally, Arab pop songs blare out from the large speakerboxes placed around the salon, but this morning it's Koran recitation.They're still cleaning, but the manager assures me they're open for business. Although the menu announces they serve breakfast, I ask to make sure as I've learned that menus don't really mean a thing in Tunisia. The manager nods, but adds that they're only serving Arabic breakfast. This sounce much more promising than the viennoiserie that the menu promises, so I sit down and order breakfast for one.
Rihanna Gaga is at first a bit puzzled by the Koran recitation. Very much like with the call for prayer, she seems a bit unsure about what this is. Is it music? Should she dance to it? She looks at me and hesitatingly makes some movements with her arms - her teacher at the daycare centre she used to go to was Iranian and taught her a kind of bellydance with very gracious arm movements and this is what she does when she tries to dance. I nod - why not dance to Koran recitation? However, she decides this is not what should be done. She clearly likes the recitation, though. She smiles and starts to rock slowly to the undulating rythm of the Koranic verses. Must be her Muslim roots (from my father's side we descend from a Muslim Indonesian family).
It's very quiet. We're the only guests and on our way here, the was but very little people on the move. This might be the calm after the storm: yesterday was election day, the day Tunisia elected its new parliament. Throughout the late evening and early night, cars were driving up and down the streets, honking their horns, apparently celebrating the victory of their party. But one could also see this mood as a celebration of post-revolutionary democracy. With these elections, Tunisia may call itself the first and only truly democratic country of the Arab world and this is a source of great pride for the Tunisians I've talked to - and rightly so. They did it and so far, they're the only ones who did it in this part of the world: get rid of a dictator and install a democracy. It's a democracy in its infancy, going through all the troubles an infant democracy may go through, but it seems they're going to make it work. Countries like Tunisia - and Indonesia, which has been going through a similar process for the last fifteen years - show that all the bullshitting about people not being ready for democracy, that some people just need a strong dictator to lead them, is just that: bullshit. And I guess that's making a lot of people very nervous. Good.
The breakfast is excellent! It consists of Turkish coffe, a hard-boiled egg, chunks of bread and bowls filled with honey, olive oil and a thick nut paste. The idea is that you tear off pieces of bread and dip them in the bowls. It all tastes delicious and when I tell the manager so, he smiles and says it's all Tunisian. Rihanna Gaga takes some bread as well and wants to copy me, trying to dip it in the bowls. I let her have some olive oil.
I love Turkish coffee - in fact, it's the only coffee that I really like. I like how it wakes you up without the kick some other coffees give me (I react quite strongly to caffeine), I like how its sweetness turns it into a kind of fluid candy. And I clearly needed to wake up: when I reach for my wallet, I discover it's not there. Apparently, I forgot it when we left this morning. I was tired: Rihanna Gaga woke up quite early, having toppled her travel cod, and then she broke the touchscreen of my mobile phone. Not on purpose, of course, but it still put my mind in a bit of distress. Luckily, our home is less than five minutes walking and the manager doesn't mind that I go and get it. The whole thing costs TD 8,500 (around €3,40), which really is excellent value for money.
In the middle of this park is Dar Dallagi a beautiful salon du thé, decorated in the local style with painted ceilings and blue wooden furniture. While there's a terrace that sprawls out into the park, the real place is located on the first floor, with a large balcony overlooking the trees and bushes. Normally, Arab pop songs blare out from the large speakerboxes placed around the salon, but this morning it's Koran recitation.They're still cleaning, but the manager assures me they're open for business. Although the menu announces they serve breakfast, I ask to make sure as I've learned that menus don't really mean a thing in Tunisia. The manager nods, but adds that they're only serving Arabic breakfast. This sounce much more promising than the viennoiserie that the menu promises, so I sit down and order breakfast for one.
Rihanna Gaga is at first a bit puzzled by the Koran recitation. Very much like with the call for prayer, she seems a bit unsure about what this is. Is it music? Should she dance to it? She looks at me and hesitatingly makes some movements with her arms - her teacher at the daycare centre she used to go to was Iranian and taught her a kind of bellydance with very gracious arm movements and this is what she does when she tries to dance. I nod - why not dance to Koran recitation? However, she decides this is not what should be done. She clearly likes the recitation, though. She smiles and starts to rock slowly to the undulating rythm of the Koranic verses. Must be her Muslim roots (from my father's side we descend from a Muslim Indonesian family).
It's very quiet. We're the only guests and on our way here, the was but very little people on the move. This might be the calm after the storm: yesterday was election day, the day Tunisia elected its new parliament. Throughout the late evening and early night, cars were driving up and down the streets, honking their horns, apparently celebrating the victory of their party. But one could also see this mood as a celebration of post-revolutionary democracy. With these elections, Tunisia may call itself the first and only truly democratic country of the Arab world and this is a source of great pride for the Tunisians I've talked to - and rightly so. They did it and so far, they're the only ones who did it in this part of the world: get rid of a dictator and install a democracy. It's a democracy in its infancy, going through all the troubles an infant democracy may go through, but it seems they're going to make it work. Countries like Tunisia - and Indonesia, which has been going through a similar process for the last fifteen years - show that all the bullshitting about people not being ready for democracy, that some people just need a strong dictator to lead them, is just that: bullshit. And I guess that's making a lot of people very nervous. Good.
The breakfast is excellent! It consists of Turkish coffe, a hard-boiled egg, chunks of bread and bowls filled with honey, olive oil and a thick nut paste. The idea is that you tear off pieces of bread and dip them in the bowls. It all tastes delicious and when I tell the manager so, he smiles and says it's all Tunisian. Rihanna Gaga takes some bread as well and wants to copy me, trying to dip it in the bowls. I let her have some olive oil.
I love Turkish coffee - in fact, it's the only coffee that I really like. I like how it wakes you up without the kick some other coffees give me (I react quite strongly to caffeine), I like how its sweetness turns it into a kind of fluid candy. And I clearly needed to wake up: when I reach for my wallet, I discover it's not there. Apparently, I forgot it when we left this morning. I was tired: Rihanna Gaga woke up quite early, having toppled her travel cod, and then she broke the touchscreen of my mobile phone. Not on purpose, of course, but it still put my mind in a bit of distress. Luckily, our home is less than five minutes walking and the manager doesn't mind that I go and get it. The whole thing costs TD 8,500 (around €3,40), which really is excellent value for money.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten