Writing this on the train back from Gatwick, and quite frankly it’s nice to be back in the warm. There are several myths about Tunisia – one of which is that it’s nice and warm and sunny. Well it might be on the coast in summer, but it certainly isn’t inland in November.
Yesterday we drove up into the north-west of the country, almost up to the border with Algeria – the tail end of the Atlas mountains. Cold and bleak at this time of the year, it was also drizzling with rain.
The hills themselves are either stripped bare by over-grazing and wood-cutting (who can blame them for trying to keep warm), but where given some kind of protection they are thickly forested with mostly cork-oak trees. Incidentally these are the only refuge for the Barbary Stag, the only species of deer in Africa and now very rare.
But one of the reasons SPANA is in the area is to help the mules that work in the woods, bringing down great loads of cork to the collecting points.
Yesterday, however, we took the mobile clinic to the souk in Bousalem town itself. Held every Thursday, it reminded me of a British boot-sale only most of the stuff was not stolen goods. Farmers and traders bring in all their produce, and a sea of tents and shelters springs up, selling everything from vegetables to shoes, buckets to shovels, cereals to spices – a vast assault on the senses – noise, colour and smell.
And of course there are animals in their thousands. From chickens (in truth, not destined probably to have a very good day), rabbits (likewise), sheep, goats, cattle and hundreds of horses, mules and donkeys – many carrying the goods for sale, and the people to buy them. It must have been a bit like that in Medieval Britain – I bet Robin Hood would have felt quite at home. We park the Landrover in a corner, where people park their animals, and treat a steady stream of sore feet, cuts and scratches, a bit of a cough, a touch of mange, an infected eye – all the usual complaints.
But then after the crowds have started to drift away about mid-day, we pack up and head up into the hills – a different village each afternoon. We arrive in a cluster of shabby stone houses and yards – it looks as if everyone has emigrated - but suddenly, almost out of the rocks and ground itself, animals start to appear.
Yesterday we drove up into the north-west of the country, almost up to the border with Algeria – the tail end of the Atlas mountains. Cold and bleak at this time of the year, it was also drizzling with rain.
The hills themselves are either stripped bare by over-grazing and wood-cutting (who can blame them for trying to keep warm), but where given some kind of protection they are thickly forested with mostly cork-oak trees. Incidentally these are the only refuge for the Barbary Stag, the only species of deer in Africa and now very rare.
But one of the reasons SPANA is in the area is to help the mules that work in the woods, bringing down great loads of cork to the collecting points.Yesterday, however, we took the mobile clinic to the souk in Bousalem town itself. Held every Thursday, it reminded me of a British boot-sale only most of the stuff was not stolen goods. Farmers and traders bring in all their produce, and a sea of tents and shelters springs up, selling everything from vegetables to shoes, buckets to shovels, cereals to spices – a vast assault on the senses – noise, colour and smell.
And of course there are animals in their thousands. From chickens (in truth, not destined probably to have a very good day), rabbits (likewise), sheep, goats, cattle and hundreds of horses, mules and donkeys – many carrying the goods for sale, and the people to buy them. It must have been a bit like that in Medieval Britain – I bet Robin Hood would have felt quite at home. We park the Landrover in a corner, where people park their animals, and treat a steady stream of sore feet, cuts and scratches, a bit of a cough, a touch of mange, an infected eye – all the usual complaints.
But then after the crowds have started to drift away about mid-day, we pack up and head up into the hills – a different village each afternoon. We arrive in a cluster of shabby stone houses and yards – it looks as if everyone has emigrated - but suddenly, almost out of the rocks and ground itself, animals start to appear.
Amazingly, after a mere ten minutes, there are thirty or so owners and their animals standing round the mobile clinic getting wormed, or feet trimmed, even anti-biotics for an infection. And here there is time to talk to the owners and tell them what is going wrong, and how to look after their livestock better.
That’s another myth – most visitors only see the rich coastal strip of the country, with its hotels, shops and bars, and the money that comes from the tourists. But twenty miles inland, it’s quite another story - another world in fact – where poverty is still rife, and people and their animals struggle to wrest a living from a hard country.
By this time we are frozen stiff, and grateful to climb into the Landrover, say ‘Goodbye’ to the team, and start the long drive back to Tunis.
November is a particularly poignant time to drive along that road, as it was the same road that the First Army fought their way along in the winter and spring of 1942/43. All along the road there are the green signs of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, marking the cemeteries that plot their route to the capital. In one, at Medjez-al-bab, there are nearly fifteen hundred graves, mostly of men killed in late April 1943, just a fortnight before the Germans finally surrendered in Tunis.
I say men, but most of them, as can be seen from the ages on their gravestones, are just boys. In the failing light and November drizzle, I put last week’s poppy on the grave of an unknown soldier of the Black Watch.
Perhaps it’s just that we were cold and tired, and working with another very basic sort of existence, but walking out of that tragic, lonely garden was a very sobering and humbling experience.
Jeremy Hulme
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