It was a beautiful day in Tunisia today with a high around 80 degrees and the sun shining bright. Today we drove all over the island of Djerba. We didn’t leave the hotel until 9 am, so we got up early to go check out the beach. Nothing can keep thetwinsontour away from the beach. Like a moth to a flame, we are there. The sand here is a bit whiter than in Tunis, but also has lots of dried sea leaves all over the place. It’s still pretty soft and amazing to sink your feet into. 

The “D” in Djerba is actually silent. I have no idea why this is.  Something about going from Arabic to French and maybe something else in between. While you are reading this, I need you to say Jerba in your head when you see Djerba.  Thank you. 

It is olive season right now, so there’s lots of people out harvesting them. In Tunisia, they do this all by hand! Can you imagine? No machines.  We stopped and “helped” a family for a while.  The first step is to put a plastic mesh tarp around the bottom of the tree. Most of harvesting is done standing on the ground, but they do have ladders for the taller trees.  Then you and your family stand around the tree and run your hands over the branches, knocking all the olives to the ground. You can also use a little plastic rake similar to one you used in the sandbox as a kid.  You just run that rake over the branches as fast as you can. All the olives fall to the ground, and I guess I don’t know what you do with all of the olives once they land on the plastic tarp. Eventually, the olives wind up as olive oil, very fine olive oil. It is such good quality that Italian companies will buy it and then mix it with Italian olive oil and claim it as their own. I guess the moral of that story is to just buy Tunisian olive oil at the grocery store because authentic Italian olive oil isn’t any good?  This area of Tunisia only grows olives for olive oil, not to eat.  The olives are much smaller than olives we eat.  Most of the harvesting is done by the family, but if they need to hire someone, the going rate is 50 Dinars per day ($16)  and 60-70 ($19-22) for an experienced, master olive picker. I am not going to make my fortune picking olives.

We also went to a pottery factory. I bought a few things, but I did not learn any new life skills while there. They did have some adorable camels there, too, which amazingly enough liked to drink water out of plastic bottles. I always thought camels didn’t need water? (Actually, they are dromendaries, and not camels.)

After that, it was the Jewish synagogue of Djerba. I don’t think I have ever been inside a synagogue before. This one was decorated with very pretty tiles on the walls. Tunisia is 98% Muslim, so it is less than 2% Jewish. Most of the Jewish population lives on Djerba, and they always have since the beginning of time.

We went to walk around the old Jewish quarter too. The main draw here is the artwork on the buildings. I am hesitant to call it grafitti because its not really. It is more like murals.  They had some artists come in about 10 years ago and paint some of the houses. Then the rest of the town got jealous, so they came back a few years later for round 2. It was quite pretty to walk around.  

And finally! We got to shop! We opted to have a quick fast food lunch.  I guess that word choice is redundant, but I don’t care. We went to this little place and pointed at a piece of bread, and then the guy just started loading stuff up on it. There was some mayo, lettuce, onions, probably chicken, and a slice of processed cheese just like Kraft singles to top it off. Then he popped it in the oven to heat it up and melt the cheese. It was quite delicious!  And economical!  Which is a good thing considering the shopping purchases I made later.  We paid less than 9 Dinar each for our sandwiches and a can of Coke.  That is $2.85.  And the sandwich was too big for me to finish!  What a deal!

Shopping is stressful in Tunisia because you have to bargain. Some of the prices are just ridiculous. Case in point–my sister picked out a magnet and asked the price. When my sister’s eyes bulged out of her head at the 25 Dinars (over $8), he immediately dropped to 10 Dinars ($3). My sister still declined and started to walk away. The man said, how much do you want to pay. Shrewd negotiator that I am, I immediately said 5 Dinars! And the man said ok. 5 Dinars was the price they were marked outside the shop…. Why on earth do I have to negotiate fixed prices to get the fixed price? Arghhhhhhh….. Anyways, we wandered around for a while and gave up on buying souvenirs, and just headed for the jewelry shop. Where we proceeded to buy silver filigree jewelry that looks an awful lot like the stuff we bought in Macedonia (due to both being part of the Turkish Ottoman empire), but we didn’t let that bother us and said here’s my credit card!

We had just enough time at the end of the day to put our flip-flops on and head to the beach again. Because really, can anyone ever really get enough beach time?

And, that’s enough for now because we are way, way, way behind.  There’s just so much to do every day that it’s impossible to find the time.  Well, maybe I would have enough time if I didn’t have an addiction to scrolling through Instagram when I should be writing.

Love,

thetwinsontour