Lili Land

Tunisia has two types of playgrounds: public playgrounds, which are often so badly maintained that they become risky; and private, paid playgrounds, which are slightly better maintained and come with loud music and colourful moving attractions. Lili Land is an example of the latter that comes with its own café as well. I've spent hours here with Rihanna Gaga. She dislikes the moving attractions - the trains and carousels scare her to no end - as well as the inflatable structures. But there is a large installation that has three levels and offers slides, swings, climbing and bridges that she really likes. It took her some time to find her way around it, but now she knows how to. She can play well up to an hour in it (the staff almost never tells me to leave after the twenty minutes that you officially buy for five dinar), which I spend on the ground cheering her on, but increasingly also just reading. More and more, Rihanna Gaga plays by herself, these days. Or rather, with her dolls and animals that she takes everywhere with her.

Today, for the first time, we visit the café (which really is a series of outdoors furniture spread among the attractions and a small covered area called the VIP lounge, where birthday parties are also held). I order a chocolate pancake and a coke, but when they're brought I already regret both. I've realised lately how much more sugar I've started to consume after I moved to Tunisia. Because one tends to eat out so often here - partly because, when with a child, hanging around places like this becomes one of the few things to do - and then, compared with the Netherlands, it is quite difficult to get something healthy. Even when just ordering a tea, one often automatically is served a cup with the sugar already in it - in large quantities.

We sit at one of the low tables, surrounded by two chairs and a couch. Rihanna Gaga first sits on the couch, content like a pasha with all the space she has to herself. But then she moves from the couch to my lap, after which she keeps caressing me and giving me kisses. She then lays down, looking up at the tree that shades us, and tells me she finds it a beautiful tree. She puts up her legs, looking at her legs, and then says she's 'in the tree'. I don't know if she means she imagines being up there, or that it looks as if she is - or that she wants to go there. In any case she finds it very funny and laughs loudly. The weather is very warm today. The temerature increased quickly recently: only three weeks ago we still needed to put the heater on and now it's approaching 30 degrees Celsius.

The trees at Lili Land are a bit of a contested topic, actually. According to a friend of ours, it is illegal to cut down old trees in La Marsa. And La Marsa is full of old trees, especially in and around the Saada Park, in which Lili Land is located. Apparently, the owner of the playground rents this spot from the municipality that is responsible for the park, the former gardens of the Bey of Tunis. Saada is, in fact, a very beautiful park, but the spot of Lili Land is a bit barren, especially around the edges. And this is, our friend told us, because apparently the owner paid some bribes that made him get away with cutting the trees around the edge of the part of Saada in which his playground is located. Because, so the story goes, he felt that the big old trees hid his playground, so that people weren't aware of it. It certainly works, to the extent where I had to change the daily route I walk with Rihanna Gaga to her daycare, because whenever we pass Lili Land she starts demanding that I take her there. But in the end, our friend told us, it worked like a boomerang, because the La Marsa people got so angry that they boycot the playground - since then, I've always felt a bit uneasy about taking Rihanna Gaga here. And whatever the truth of the story is (like all Arab countries, Tunisia is filled to the brim with rumours and conspiracy theories that are impossible to check), it never is really very busy here.

The pancake is pretty bad. I see, when they make it, that it isn't made fresh but instead is a heated up readymade pancake, which results in a pretty bland taste. Through speakerboxes around the playground, hits from a few years back can be heard, as well as a string of Adele hits. If you've been to this playground several times, you know all the music they play here by hear because it is a pretty limited collection. After Adele is finished, Iggy Azalea and Rita Ora's "Black Widow" comes up, much to Rihanna Gaga's delight. She bops her head enthusiastically and moves her hand in a series of intricate movements. I guess the song appeals to her preference for loud songs with a strong beat (she loves my collection of nineties rave, songs by Fluke, the Prodigy, Apolo 4.40 and the like...).

The crowd is mixed. There are some couples that dress like what you would expect from orthodox Muslims - him with a long beard, short hair and baggy trousers, her in long flowing robes that cover everything - but then there are plenty of women in tight and very revealing clothes as well.



After we've finished the pancake - despite the fact that it's a chocolate pancake, Rihanna Gaga is not very interested and neither am I - we go the the playground. Rihanna Gaga plays long and I read an wave at her every once in a while. After that we pay a visit to two monkeys that are kept in a cage here, something I always feel slightly uneasy about. I feel it doesn't really teach Rihanna Gaga how animals should be treated. The cage is not small, but for two lively macaques it certainly isn't large either. And anyway, it just feels wrong. Monkeys shouldn't be here, having little more to do then watch the children play in the playground and adults play snookers in the same hall where Rihanna Gaga's favourite climbing installation is located (funnily enough, I once saw one of the monkeys pick up a stick and make the same thrusting movement as a snooker player would make with a cue). The same goes for the deers opposite the monkeys.