Tunisia: Mahdia
The drive from Tunis is a never-ending gas-brake-gas-brake race down the coast, with the sun behind us and a large round moon beckoning to us from the east. We take a break at a rest stop, and this is not unlike the ones we took in Morocco: gas station with the bare necessities, like a one aisle Seven Eleven, minus the hygiene and the brand names.
Everywhere there are merchants hawking third-rate tourist souvenirs, like balloons, postcards, or cross-eyed stuffed camels. The restroom is not as bad as I had expected it, actually better than at most Greyhound terminals in the U.S. It’s a good thing the boys can witness something like this. Over the past two years (with the exception of Morocco), it’s been first world toilets, accessories, and doors that open whenever your foot tells it to. Every now and then, it’s not a bad thing for us westerners to be humbled.
We are dropped off at our resort, but the guy at the concierge declares that we are at the wrong hotel, so he gets on the horn to call the shuttle driver back, which means we get to endure another five to ten minutes of hair-raising, brain numbing, I-just-won-my-license-in-a-lottery type of chauffeuring that drives some people to drink and others just to the next john so they can toss their cookies with dignity. For the second time within the last half hour, I stiff the driver. Fact: customers, in the end, are the final arbiters in the quality control chain.
At our hotel, we check in and I get to witness a full moon over the Mediterranean Sea. That picture alone looks absolutely gorgeous, as if nothing else before that mattered, not the gray skies in Germany, not the strike at Carthage Airport, not the driver and his attempted murder-by-steering-wheel, nothing. That is a picture to behold, the classic Moon River (or Moon Ocean) by Andy Williams, or the Moonlight Drive Jim Morrison crooned about. Complete with a glass of Ardbeg Scotch, neat.
At the hotel, people address you in German, which should tell you plenty about the hierarchy of things around here. German, then French, then, if you really, really must, English. Although this hotel is officially owned by the Spaniards, it’s the Germans who rule, see Woolworth’s late proverb about the customer and the king.
Later in the evening, Liebi and the boys turn in early. I am still wired, and I still feel cheated after most of the day was wasted at a substandard airport and in a dreadful shuttle. There is a store down below, five stories down, across the street: Vente de Bijoux, Piercing. Besides the jewelry and piercing, they offer tattoos. How’s that for a colorful product pallet?
It must be 11 p.m. by now, most of Mahdia has gone to sleep, with the lone exception of yours truly and the famous lighthouse on the peninsula. In front of the bijoux store, four young guys (teens, maybe students) also have other ideas. Armed with a boom box, their evening is going to end when they say so.
In short order, they perform chorographical dances with song, in addition to the numerous sketches, where they present themselves as soldiers, policemen, or pick your figureheads of authority. At the very end, they line up, snap out a salute and bust out laughing before they take a seat at the front of the bijoux store and return to more mundane things, like checking text messages. I must admit I envy these kids, simply because they are 20 and have the world still in front of them, even though I am equally sure they have issues (like living in Mahdia) that I never had to face.
In the end, it’s leela saida (good night) and curtains to Mahdia. Let’s make a game of this place, shall we? If these kids can, so can we.
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