Le Saf Saf

Well, we’re back. It’s been a strange experience, walking the streets of La Marsa around the apartment where we lived for the longest period of time during our stay in Tunisia. Just checking out the familiar places. The boulevard overlooking the Marsa Beach. The covered market where we did much of our shopping. The entrance to our apartment building. The nearest supermarket to buy a bottle of water. Even the toy store where we bought the doll that for a long time was our daughter’s favourite.

Of course, for Billie Stormzy, it was all new. His sister Rihanna Gaga slipped back into the Tunisian rhythm with an ease that somewhat surprised me, given that she has no real memories of her time here – although occasionally she does recognise places. However, it is striking to see how much at ease she is in this culture that is, in so many respects, so different from the Netherlands. She really seems to be enjoying herself hugely, and tells us repeatedly how comfortable it all feels. We’ve been here little less than a day now, and Billie Stormzy is also mostly content. Of course, it is nice to be with the whole family all the time, as we’ve been travelling from Scheveningen, via Rome, to Sidi Bou Said, the serenic seaside village where we are staying.

After roaming around La Marsa for a while, we go to Le Saf Saf, where we’re supposed to meet a number of old friends for a reunion. Saf Saf hasn’t changed a bit. Pretty, looking as if it hasn’t changed for a hundred years or so, with the white walls and blue wooden frames and roofs that are so typical for much of Tunis, as well as other details such as the yellow and red stained windows and colourful tiles. No camel though, much to the disappointment of Rihanna Gaga, who does remember that bit: there always was a camel, taken here daily by its owner to just stand there.

We sit down at a covered space at the centre of Saf Saf. It has two tables and tiled benches lining its edges, as well as a number of plastic chairs – enough for us and the friends we expect. Billie Stormzy says he wants to be on his own, and sits down in the corner furthest away from where his sister, his mother and me are sitting down. There’s a little market in the lower part of Saf Saf – which consists of a large walled space with an upper part, where we are sitting now and where tea, coffee and juices are served, and a lower part, where food is served, and sometimes concerts take place – as well as markets, such as the one we’re seeing now. It’s mostly homemade stuff: honey and jam, jewellery, bags.

Rihanna Gaga soon slips back in a habit she had as well as a little girl: running from the upper part down to the lower via a sliding ramp, then up the stairs next to the ramp. From where we sit, we can see her both when she’s downstairs, looking over the low fence lining our benches, and as she climbs the stairs. Billie Stormzy soon follows her, then continues to do as she does even when she stops doing it herself. It’s funny how kids enjoy doing this, as I’ve seen lots of other children at it too when we lived here.

One by one our guests arrive. A little boy Rihanna Gaga used to play with when she was a child and his Swedish mother – she married a Tunisian and the boy is half Tunisian. A former colleague of mine and his wife. A former student of mine, who later became Rihanna Gaga’s babysitter and also helped out my partner with some of her journalist assignments in Tunisia, also with her husband. A friend of ours who helped us out a lot with navigating the more troublesome parts of living in Tunisia, such as hysteric landladies, landing a job and explaining the peculiarities of Tunisian social life.

Rihanna Gaga reminds me I was going to buy some homemade crisps, something I announced when we walked alongside the Saf Saf earlier. Indeed, there is a line of foodstalls in front of the Saf Saf and this is one of the things they sell there. They also make amazing sandwiches, which I sometimes bought on my way to the airport when I was living in La Marsa and teaching parttime at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, for which I had to fly back and forth when the semester was ongoing. I’d take the sandwich with me in my suitcase as an evening meal in the Netherlands. It was a hectic time, on which I look back, as on so many things from those years, with mixed feelings. But it was nice to sit in a Dutch train, munching on a sandwich, lightyears better than any street food you could buy in the Netherlands, that only cost a few cents. I take Rihanna Gaga with me and we get two paper bags with crisps from the stall outside, which we share with our guests. Billie Stormzy loves it, as do the guests, and before we know it, the two bags are finished.

Meanwhile, Rihanna Gaga has spotted nice bracelets and necklaces in the market below and wants me to come with her. I joke to our friends, who don’t understand what she’s telling me, that my wallet is needed and follow her downstairs. She points at a few things and I tell her that she can certainly by some of them, but urge her to look around the entire market first to see if there isn’t anything else she would like more.

I have hardly settled back on the bench, or Billie Stormzy loudly calls out for more crisps. I tell him that that’s fine, joke to my friends that again my wallet is needed and pick him up so that we can go and get some more together. He can hardly contain his enthusiasm, and as I am paying – which is difficult, with Billie Stormzy on my arms, him holding a paper bag with crisps, and me holding a paper bag of crisps too – I tries to somehow get the crisps to his mouth, endangering the entire portion of crisps. It arrives safely back at the Saf Saf, however, and our friends are delighted Billie Stormzy managed to negotiate another round of crisps for everybody.

In this way, much of the afternoon is idled away. Some of us sip the strong, sweet Tunisian mint tea, others enjoy a citronade (unfortunately, it’s not orange juice season), or coffee. I also order a bottle of water for everybody – and then remember I’ve got something else to share. I take out a bag of ‘pepernoten’: the candy normally eaten at Saint Nicolas’s birthday, the fifth of December when Dutch people give their children – and each other – presents, sometimes with poetry and fancy packing. As I try to explain what ‘pepernoten’ are and the national holiday they’re associated with, my former colleague remembers how I once wanted to show my students how candy is thrown around on that day, but since I only had packages of stroopwafels, it ended in disaster because I ended up hitting a coffee cup a student had put in front of her, with the coffee spilling all over her.

In any case, the ‘pepernoten’ go down quite well among our friends. Rihanna Gaga is having fun walking around, down stairs to the lower area where the market is located, then up a slope back to where we sit. I remember how often I have sat here when we lived around the corner, and how she loved to walk down the stairs and up the slope, or the other way around. It's something she copied from other kids at the Saf Saf. From the vantage point of the raised, roofed terrace where we are now sitting, and where I often used to sit back then, it's possible to keep an eye on both the upper and lower part of the Saf Saf, and families often sit here while their children run around. After a while, Billie Stormzy joins his sister, descending the stairs, climbing the slope.

After a while, and much to Rihanna Gaga’s delight, a camel has, after all, arrived – although it is not the same camel, nor the same man. In fact, both look far less shabby than their predecessors. Billie Stormzy has noted that once again, the crisps have finished, so we get another two paper bags filled with those, while the ‘pepernoten’ are also still going around. Another recurring event is Billie Stormzy announcing he has to go to the toilet. That one is a bit tricky: he only pees sitting down, but the toilets here have no seat and are not – ahem – very hygienic. Deciding that getting potty-trained beats hygiene, and hoping that thoroughly washing his hands afterwards will safe him from the bacteria he’s undoubtedly catching in spades during his toilet visits, it actually goes relatively well, although of his six visits to the toilet, only two were actually necessary. The other four times, he tells me or his mum that he didn’t need to go after all. When he is not following his sister up and down the stiars and slopen, he sits on a bench, fascinated by the screens that are now attached to quite a few trees and pillars, that show advertisements and announcements. I notice he is waving his hands - as if he is swiping every time another image appears on the screen. Our friends and we wonder whether he thinks his hand movements are causing the change, or if he is just moving along with the stream of images.

Towards the end of the afternoon, he’s getting tired and retreats in a corner with his favourite toy: a calculator on which, as if by magic, he can make all kinds of numbers appear by pressing its buttons. By now, our friends are saying goodbye as well, and it is time to start looking for a place to have dinner.

Also on Breakfast at the Beach: Jump back in time to when I visited this place with Rihanna Gaga in 2015