Sefsari

Last week my host mother insisted that my roommates and I dress up in her mother's sefsari. A sefsari is the traditional garb of Tunisian women. You still see many older women wearing them in the souks. Usually when I see a woman wearing one she isn't covering her face with it, it's simply wrapped around her body and over her head, often she has the front of it open so that you can see her face and she can use both hands. I found it to be quite comfortable.

A lot has happened in the past few weeks, I'm sorry for not taking the time to post more! I'll put up pictures from Thanksgiving soon. Yesterday was the official end date of our program. As of today, the only two OSU program members remaining in Tunis are myself and another boy. I'll be leaving this coming Sunday. It's quite lonely being here with out my roommates. Our apartment that usually seems so full is all of a sudden empty. In addition, my roommate Megan left me with a gift of a nasty cold to remember her by. I've spent all day lying on the couch drinking tea and watching tv shows on my computer. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll have a little more energy. I don't have much planned out for my last week in Tunis. I will be assisting in an English class at my school several times, taking my normal French classes with Tunisian students, checking out the Medina one last time, and having tea with a few of my Tunisian friends.

I started helping out with this English class yesterday. The teacher of the class is a really wonderful woman who told me that she was an exchange student in Tacoma when she was in high school. Any time that I've found out that I'm talking to someone who was once an exchange student I always feel a bond with them, regardless of their age. She told me that she finds it ridiculous that many of her students that are studying for a degree in English have never spoken to an English speaker. I came into the classroom and had a great discussion with her students about the university system in the US and what my life is like as a student. They were shocked to hear that I live so far away from my family and that I pay tens of thousands of dollars for my education. She also pressed me to tell her students how much I read and how much material I cover in a quarter, it seems that her students are really reluctant to do work.