Taxi!!

What an interesting morning! The girls and I decided to take a trip out of our area and see some more of Tunis. It was nothing new, just Carrefour (the closest mall) but it was still an adventure. We wandered out to the main road in front of the house and hailed a taxi. They are all over the place here so we didn't have to wait long. In French, I negotiated a ride for 5 Dinar, down from the offered 10. The driver understood where we wanted to go and so we were headed in the right direction. The girls both sat so still and just watched. I realized afterwards that the taxi ride was a first for both of them! Part way to Carrefour Hunter whispered to me, "I hope we can take a taxi home again too." I asked her if she was having fun and she whispered again, "And we aren't even wearing seat belts!" Also a first for her. Yes, I know, bad bad, but I didn't actually see any seat belts. Along the way the driver and I chatted in three different languages. Me in English, gesturing to explain myself and the driver doing the same in Arabic and French. He taught me, "J'espere apprendre..." (I hope to learn... French and Arabic) And I very likely have the grammar and spelling wrong but at least I have the pronunciation down. Also I was able to explain to him that we moved here for my husband's work. At least I think he understood. I think he was a bit shocked that I was here and didn't speak either of the country's languages.

He dropped us off and all was well. We shopped around the mall for a couple hours and had some fries in honour of St. Patrick's Day. I tried on some clothes, but the girls weren't wanting to stay in the change room with me. Who decided it was a good idea to put curtains on change rooms anyway??? And I was able to buy minutes for my new cell phone. I know, not too exciting but if anyone actually understands me, I get excited.

Which brings me to our ride home.... I figured it would be as easy to get a taxi home as it was to get to Carrefour. So with 4 bags of groceries and 2 tired girls we found a taxi. I asked if he would take 5 Dinars and right away he said yes. I figured we were on our way so we jumped in the back. It turns out the driver doesn't speak a lick of English and couldn't understand any of my French. I even wrote down our address and that didn't seem to help. Meanwhile, I realized that Elliot STUNK in the hot car. Lovely. So the driver and I went back and forth trying to understand each other. Then he took off and I prayed he was going to go in kind of the right direction because I don't know Tunis at all. Luckily I had my new cell phone minutes!! ;) So we started driving and fortunately he headed in the right direction. I was recognizing the route so was very happy about that. I'm pretty excited that we made it home actually as I wasn't sure the ancient driver was going to make it that long. And I thought I may have felt a wobbly wheel. And Elliot was pretty excited to point out all the rips in the seats. And I definitely noticed there were no available seat belts in this car. But we made it to the house and as I was pulling all the bags and girls out of the car and trying to find my money, the poor driver looked terrified that, after all that, he wasn't going to get his money. I will be more careful which taxis we hop in from now on, but it really was an amusing experience. I almost started giggling on the way home thinking about our day. It was a little frustrating and scary not knowing if we would get home but all in all it was another fun adventure! And the girls sure had fun!!!