Tunisia
Chapter three
Christmas morning in the Medina de Tunis and the Bardo Museum.
I write this while listening to the Charlie Brown Christmas album. It’s Christmas Day in Tunisia.
Bouthine meets me in the lobby of the hotel at 0800. She’s already there by the time I come down. She introduces herself, telling me her name and that some call her Boubou. I had cut the cake into two parts and hand them to her, telling her that the hotel had given me cake and I wanted to share. She thanks me and leads me out to a waiting car, introducing me to Samir, our driver for the day.
The skies are dark and threatening rain. Boutheina tells me that we’ll be driving about thirty minutes due to traffic to the medina. We’ll be heading to the clock tower, their version of Big Ben, before turning down the Ave Habib Bourguiba and the Avenue de France to the gate into the medina. She hands me a small bag of gifts: orange perfume, a small bottle of colored sand with I ❤️ Tunsia and a camel painted onto it.
Samir drops us off before the Cathedral and Boutheina positions me for a photo, before leading me to the I ❤️ Tunis sign. She asks if I want her to take my photo but I demur.
As we head towards Victory Square she stops me and points up at a building in front of us. It’s the first balcony built in Tunis. Take a picture, she tells me. I do.
In front of the Porte de France, she tells me that it’s one of 15 gates that used to ring the medina, also taking the time to explain what the word medina means (old town). Of the gates, this is the best preserved.
It starts to rain and she leads me down the Rue Jamaa Ez Zitouna towards the mosque, hoping to find shelter in the covered markets. It’s a lot quieter than it has been the past two days and we walk easily down the street. Boutheina had asked where my AirBnb is and I look for it, but with most of the shops closed, I miss it when we pass.
She pauses and has me turn around to see the old brick construction of an original building and points out cafes and shops. She holds leather slippers in her hand telling me they’re made of camelskin.
On January 1st, part of the building will collapse into the street. I’ll be coming back from a concert at the Municipal Theater and a small crowd will have gathered around the debris. The street will be closed, and then the closure expanded.
She points out doors and windows and bades me take photos. By the mosque, she points out the UNESCO sign and a tile map of the medina. She leads me to a madrassa and tells me that the colors of the doors have meaning. Yellow refers to a religious person. Green is generally a door to a mosque. Blue is for regular people. Later, she’ll point out the colors on a tile, telling me that ellow represents the sand of the Sahara, blue the sky and the sea, and green representing hope and paradise.
She leads me to one of the oldest working hammams in the city and points out a tinsmith, telling me you can hear them pounding all day making their wares. You can get your name in Arabic engraved on an item if you wish.
She points out arches and flowers and leads me to the Al Madrasa As-Slimaniya, now an art center and bids me enter. She tells me that students would study and sleep here, pointing out the rooms lining the central courtyard that served as classrooms. She leads me to a portico and has me turn around so that I can see the dome of the associated mosque.
Outside, she shows me more architectural details, blue window screens, naẓars to ward off evil, details on doors: the crescent moon, jasmine.
While I take photos of a arched area she busys herself with two boys selling bracelets. She tells me she wants to help them and has me pick one out. I choose one with a naẓar. Merry Christmas, Boutheina says, and I slip it onto my wrist.
She takes me to a perfumery. A man seats me down and presents his best perfumes, showing me the device they use to decant the oils. He tells me there’s no alcohol in any of them, they are the pure extracts and tells me that famous brands purchase their bases here.
Afterwards, he asks me what I’d like; he’ll give me a good price. I tell him that I’m just at the start of my trip and am not looking to buy anything. But I’ll be living in the medina for a few weeks and might stop by after my tour.
We wind our way towards the edge of the medina, passing the Souq El Berka. Bouthine tells me it was once the slave souq; now it’s a goldsmith’s market.
We head out of the souq and the medina towards Kasbah square. A man stops her and they chat, laughing all the while. He’s a shopkeeper she knows and she tells me he was surprised to see her with just one guest. He’s used to seeing her with 50-60, tourists off of a cruise ship for the day.
She leads me out of the medina, having me turn around so I can compare the octagonal minaret of the Sidi Youssef Dey Mosque with that of the central Ez-Zitouna Mosque before meeting up again with Samir.
We drive to the National Museum of Bardo, housed in a former palace, for the Roman and Byzantine mosaics. A plaque at the entrance marks its establishment. The lobby has a gigantic mosaic on the wall of Poseidon surrounded by circular portraits along with a plaque commemorating the 22 killed by Islamic militants in the 2015 terrorist attack.
After collecting our tickets Boutheina leads me down a passage that used to be the stables. She points out a portrait of boxers that once sat inside a Roman baths. She points out the blood spewing from the head of the figure on the left.
We wind our way around the musuem. Before a statue of Apollo another guide is discussing it with his guests. Boutheina asks if they’re German and then starts a spirited discussion with their guide. Afterwards, she tells me that the Germans are responsible for the disfigurement of the statues, having knocked noses and genetalia off of statues. We are Berbers, she said she told the guide; they are barbarians.
We wander into old palace rooms, admiring the old bedroom and a room in which visitors were met. The rooms boast intricate tile and stucco work.
Back in the galleries we pass mosaics large and small. In one room we see a mosaic of Ulysseys tied to the mast of his ship so that he can hear the sirens’s song. Bouthine tells me to remember this mosaic. Later, she will show me from whence it came.
She leads me to the Africa room and other galleries, pointing out that Byzantine mosaics use larger tiles and have a funereal bent. Roman mosaics are more celebratory. We pass more rooms with beautiful stucco work in the ceilings en route to more galleries.
We pause before a large mosaic of Neptune and pause. In the corners of the mosiac Bouthine points out the four seasons represented by women in various stages of dress. It’s a beautiful mosaic, incredibly well-preserved.
We pass a large hall of the palace, under renovation. Bouthine bids me take a photo of the grandeur and I do.
We pass into the Virgil Hall, and I am again struck by the beauty of the details. The stucco work in the dome is exquisite, and the tiles beautifully-painted. I linger in front of the mosaic of Virgil flanked by Clio and Melpomene. It’s the oldest portrait of Virgil in existence.
Near the end there’s a bust of Muhammad Khaznadar, the son of the Prime Minister of Tunisia, who first proposed the museum in the 1860s. Since 1888 the museum has been housed in the old beylical palace, exhibiting major works discovered since archaeological research began in Tunisia.
I think the tour is over, but there are more rooms and mosaics to be seen. I revel in them. I think back to an evening in Croatia where, arriving late to my destination due to lack of bus service in the off-season, I raced around he town looking for an obscure mosaic, finally finding it behind some buildings by a small lot.
Before one large mosaic of animals Bouthine tells me that it shows all the animals that used to battle in the coliseum.
There’s much left to do in the day, and while I could spend another hour or two rewalking the galleries to soak up more of the artistry, I’m given another ten to fifteen minutes to browse the shop before it’s time to go. Our next stop? Sidi Bou Saïd! 🇹🇳
—25 Dec 2024, morning
