Guest writer number 3- Troubled in Tunisia

While I’ve been busy working on other TEFLtastic projects (which you will hear about shortly I promise) my cunning plan to get guest writers has been really bearing fruit… More writers gratefully accepted, on any teaching or living abroad topic at all.

The latest piece is from a regular TEFL.net book reviewer who is, it seems, trying to outdo me with ‘doing the Med’. I’ve always had a certain exotic fantasy about North Africa that I have chosen to keep that way by never going there and spoiling it,whereas our intrepid writer took the plunge:

Troubled in Tunisia 

I’m just sitting here feeling bored with myself.
Bored? Bored? Bored??? How can you possibly be bored when you change countries every year or two???
Good question – the answer is that it’s been just too damned hot here to go out and do anything for the last four months! And now it’s Ramadan as well! Please excuse my singular lack of cultural awareness. It’s just that the agreeableness of a whole lifetime of enjoying a drink whilst chatting to friends is hard to forget.

Anyway, here I am, Troubled of Tunisia, decided to alleviate my boredom by browsing (no pun intended) through the tefl.net website – so the cost of living in Tokyo is nearly as high as in London? Wow! I have long since been barred (there’s nothing quite like embarrassing grown up offspring for entertainment) from going to the bar to order drinks when in the UK, because of my appalling habit of squreamking (a hybrid of squeaking & screaming) in agonised tones “OW MUUUCHH!?!?!” horrifically followed by peering myopically into the bottom of the glass and demanding “WHERRRE IZIT?” – Clearly a legacy of far too much time misspent on the Iberian Peninsula.

The taxi doors open automatically!?!?? We think ourselves lucky if we get in a taxi and the doors actually function!

I recently spent a fortnight in the UK which was marked by such entertaining features as
· Buying myself a fleece the day I arrived in the middle of summer
· Teaching my adorable little grand daughter to say “It’s raining cats and dogs” – why do all students always remember this particular idiocy?
· Seeing my barely one year old grand daughter having a sandwich stolen out of her hand by a greedy seagull – is this normal behaviour for seagulls worldwide?
· Trying to understand the rail network – does it network?
· The realisation, in Sainsburys, with my fifteen year old seriously teenage niece and slightly the worse for wear 85 year old mother that I was the responsible adult in the party – and it wasn’t a party!
· My sister-in-law placing her hands on her hips, fixing me with a piercing glare and stating loud and clear “You’ve become a foreigner!”

Fled thankfully back to a country where I neither expect to be understood or to understand - language or culture.

When I was a child, growing up in south east London I went to swimming lessons. There I learnt to swim, and did survival and life saving lessons too. One of the things I was taught was that if I was in trouble in open water I should divest myself of some of my clothes in order to avoid becoming waterlogged and furthering the risk of drowning. This summer I watched women going in the sea and swimming in full burkha/hajib (or whatever is the correct name for these garments – please forgive my ignorance) and mentally questioned the wisdom of this – are my preconceptions about water safety merely cultural?

Interestingly, the longer I stay away from Britain, the more British I feel.

Troubled in Tunisia
(Aka Kaithe Greene)

Thanks Kaithe.

Keep them coming guys! If anyone else would like to do a guest writer spot, just write “Yes please” or something in the comment box below and I will email you back.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 11:51 pmand is filed under Cultural differences/ cultural training, TESOL, Teaching English in North Africa, Teaching English in Tunisia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.