T u n i s i a
Tunisia is the northernmost country in Africa. It is an Arab Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area is almost 165,000 square kilometres (64,000 sq mi), with an estimated population of just under 10.7 million. Its name is derived from the capital Tunis located in the northeast.
It is the smallest of the nations situated along the Atlas mountain range. The south of the country is composed of the Sahara desert, with much of the remainder consisting of particularly fertile soil and 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) of coastline.
The Atlas mountains and the Sahara desert both played a prominent role in ancient times, first with the famous Punic city of Carthage, then as the Roman province of Africa, which was known as the "bread basket" of Rome. Later, Tunisia was occupied by Vandals during the 5th century, Byzantines in the 6th century, and Arabs in the 8th century. Under the Ottoman Empire, Tunisia was known as "Regency of Tunis". It passed under French protectorate in 1881.
After obtaining independence in 1956 the country took the official name of the "Kingdom
of Tunisia" at the end of the reign of Lamine Bey and the Husainid Dynasty. With the proclamation of the Tunisian Republic on July 25, 1957, the nationalist leader Habib Bourguiba became its first president. The country was led by the authoritarian government of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from 1987 to 2011 before he fled during the Tunisian revolution. Tunisia now finds itself as an export-oriented country in the process of liberalizing and privatizing an economy that, while averaging 5% GDP growth since the early 1990s, has suffered from corruption benefiting politically connected elites.
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Tunisia has relations with both the European Union—with whom it has an association agreement—and the Arab world. Tunisia is also a member of the Arab Maghreb Union, the Arab League, and the African Union. Tunisia has established close relations with France in particular, through economic cooperation, industrial modernization, and privatisation programs.
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Museums in Tunisia
Many thanks to Fiona Jack who spent her time and put all museums in Tunisia on an excel spreadsheet. I have forwarded Fiona's museum spreadsheet to all members in my previous Newsletter. To make it convenient for everyone, I publish the link here to share it with you.
If you are interested in visiting different museums in Tunisia, please follow Fiona's spreadsheet.
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A true story.......
I would like to share with you a true life story which happened to me some days ago in Tunis.
June 7th, Thursday, I lost some of my important personal documents incidentally on the taxi back to home. I was anxiously asking for help and seeking for solution. Lamia Temimi kindly forwarded me the telephone number of "mosaiq FM" for me to make a radio announcement. I did and hoped that taxi driver would listen to the radio.
Friday afternoon, somebody rang my doorbell. I opened door, an Asian couple standing in front of me. The lady introduced herself that her name was Yukie Kan, also IWG member living not far from me. Then she told me that a taxi driver stopped her in the street, showing her my personal documents and asking if she knew by chance where I lived. At this time, I saw the taxi driver waving to me from his car and he was holding my documents in hand....... I all of sudden became speechless. I was almost hopeless to think about my lost documents. Now, they were in front of me! I only remembered I said thousand times "thank you" to the taxi driver. I also saw a pinch of sunshine on his smiling face - he is a true gentleman!
Tunisian people are kind people. I wish them all well!
Meng Zhang
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