The chance to live in an Arab country, even for just a week, has been illuminating. First off, it wasn't all that bad! Obviously we were in a tourist resort but I never once experienced any anti-western feeling. Indeed, it was a very international experience, with British, French, German, Italian and African tourists all mingling. I even found myself slipping into my pseudo-esparanto tongue mixing three parts English with one part French and one part German. Of course not everyone was nice. The place was crawling with 'vendors' - all willing to sell you rubbish for inflated prices - and bartering shopkeepers who start at ridiculous levels (£20 for a £2 toy) in a hope to catch a fool. Relentless is not the word for these guys and you have to learn a firm NO! quickly to avoid annoyance. It's not always that easy as they are masters of open questioning and many of them have bribed the hotel staff to have access to the actual hotel lobby, passing themselves off as hotel entertainment staff.
I think that one of the starkest things to understand here is that whilst not quite third world, the area we were in was very ... desolate. Broken buildings, dust track roads, barely functional cars and nearly no municipal sanatation. Dead cat in the street in full rigor mortis? No worries. Huge empty hotels overgrown? Of course! Aggressive taxi drivers that driver death traps? Par for the course. However on the other hand, we saw not one beggar, unlike at home. The prices for commodities such as fruit and fish are set by the government, as is the exchange rate of their closed currency. It felt contented and 'safe', safer than many areas in Newcastle.
I think what struck me the most was the desperate and predatory nature of their commerce. We visited the medina in Sousse, which was beautiful begat this 9thC ancient walled city contained was, essentially, a massive series of souvenir and fake stalls. Tat as far as the eye can see. It was hard to think that these people relied on gulliable tourists to make a living although that would explain their attitude and persistence.
Of course this probably isn't helped by asshole tourists. We encountered a delightful family from Glasgow who demanded they had their own regular table in the restaurant. We made the mistake of sitting in their territory once and the father exploded at the staff. Full on f-ing and blinding about the useless hotel, the crap staff and them 'fucking towelheads'. For his whining he got a designated table and complimentary water and our shared waiter got a bollocking. And Muppet Boy eyeballed me all week, clearly wanting to make something of it. Silly thing is, if he had asked, we would have moved. The waiter was awesome, laughing with the kids, charming Christine and telling me all about the food and the weather ( it was bloody hot - in excess of 42 degrees). On our final night, the muppets had their own table and we had flowers, table settings, water laid on and the full works. Right next to them. Oh how we laughed. Needless to say, he got his tip!
And I relaxed. No, really! No Internet. No phone. No tv. Well, no tv for the first five days and then we relented. One English channel, MBC Action, which showed subtitled (in Arabic) shows like CSI, Heroes, Bones, The Unit etc.
I read mostly, ploughing through four Dresden Files novels and some background reading on the reasons for the Anglo-Zulu War. I even put pen to paper on some outlines for DFRPG adventures and a BTQ campaign book. Most of all though, I had time and space to do nothing, with no real need to worry about anything, even if jut for a few fleeting days. Very cool.
So was it a good holiday? Of course it was. It was very different from my expectations and that was a good thing. I did reflect, as I was sat opposite the mosque in Sousse, watching a man trying desperately to sell photos with a sparrowhawk whilst listening to some Arabic drumming, thy in two week time, I will be in the middle of the USA, draping myself in American popular culture. It should be quite the juxtaposition, I think
ps. I wrote the above the night before we left. On the plane coming home, I was sat in front of two couple who whinged and moaned about EVERYTHING on their holiday, from the moment they arrived until the moment they left. It was like a comedy sketch - complaints about the foreigners not all speaking English, about them serving them foreign food, about the presence of flies, about the 'funny money', about the quality of everything, the lack of english TV channels, the heat, the sand, the rooms - even the way people looked at them around the pool. Remarkable.