It's 4:30 in the morning, but I still cannot sleep. Maybe

it was the "Shark" energy drink from the party. I'm

in Walid's using a pirated dialup line to check email,

post entries on the wiki, and let folks know that I'm

still alive. It's been an amazing and exciting day; this

is nothing like the tourists get to see. Using Hospitality

Club was a good idea. If you can, it's the absolute best

way to travel; tourist travel separates the place from the

people, encapsulating a place much in the same way you

would for, say, an interactive museum of a place. You're

safe, you see a few highlights, you do some sports (like

scuba, or riding a camel) and you sleep in a hotel that's

just like every other hotel. After a while, the pictures

are good enough and the local restaurant is easier to get

to and tastes good enough and you stop needing to travel.

But it feels like a very different thing to be staying in

someone's home and to connect with people, to make fast

friendships and get in debates. To meet someone's friends,

ride in the back of packed cars swerving through insane

suburban traffic. (Boston drivers look like Kansas drivers

next to these guys.) I thank God that I can speak some

French, even not very well, because I really would be

absolutely dead in the water without it; I was right in

supposing that Jamil is one of a very few educated folks

who speak English proficiently. Amazingly enough, Jamil

is entirely self-taught in English. He just decided he

needed to know it, went to the British COuncil library

and started reading English. Incredible. This guy is sharp

as a tack, but can't even get books unless folks visiting

him bring them with them. He has to steal Internet access

by exchanging pirated usernames and passwords from the

local ISP. And he STILL spends a THIRD of his income on

Net access. He asks me pleadingly for access to Stanford's

eBook collection so he can read and learn. I tell him I

don't think my alumni account works anymore for that, and

he tries to mask his disappointment. I explain to him and

Walid why there aren't any new books available legally

online, that Disney has pushed copyright back indefinitely

so that anything after 1920 can't be legally republished

online and that all he will be able to read are very old

(and often disproven) books. My heart is breaking for this.

Few things get me mad as quickly as seeing smart people

denied opportunities. I tell him to tell me all the books

he wants when I get back to the US and that I will find a

way to get them to him.

He also asks about ways around proxies, so he can access

information currently blocked by the Tunisian government.

This includes everything from the obvious porn sites to

sites that discuss and are critical of the Tunisian

government. I tell him about the EFF's Tor project and

hope it's enough.

I still can't fathom the hospitality of the people. I

think American English doesn't have a word for it, really,

because hospitality in the USA implies letting a close

friend sleep at your place or maybe cooking a meal for

someone, or giving them a ride somewhere. Or maybe it's

just making sure that everyone at a party has a drink in

their hand and is having a good time. But in Tunisia, it

means taking a total stranger off of the Internet and

focusing all of one's energies and attentions on them,

showing them everything, baring everything sacred and

profane and insisting on attending to their every need.

There's just too much to go into now about what's been

happening, and it's 5:42am. I will try to write more

during another moment of quiet. But here's a short list

of some of the things I did today:

• drank sweet almond milk
• Attended the first and second parts of a fiancai (a traditional engagement party where the two families meet and get to know each other amongst much dancing, eating, and drinking.) and danced(!)
• Had a long discussion with Jamil about Quakerism, boundaries, Islam, Objectivism, and society.
• Spoke more French than I have in years.
• Ate lots of tasty, sweet things
• Watched the Tunisia-Egypt soccer game, apparently one of the finals, where half of the bar was cheering Egypt! (since the Tunisian team comes from a different part of Tunisia - Souse)
• Watched Walid's 12 year old cousin get drunk. (He's as big as me!)
• Survived some really crazy-ass driving (and decided not to rent a car)
• Watched two separate fistfights in the streets (no weapons)
• Saw Jamil's place and met his mom, brother, and sister and found out more about his background and passions (to teach philosophy)

Technical Notes

Pingtimes are 300-400ms to the US backbone. Not bad!

Doing some traceroutes, it looks like the first 150ms

are from the modem (48kbps connection - not bad at all),

another 40ms are to get to the SeaBone connection, then

a quick 20ms swim to France CIX, about 220ms away.

Alternately, it's also about 220ms to UK AboveNet; a

60ms hop under the Atlantic to DC, and another 120ms

to make it through Chicago to San Jose.

Yet another route is 260ms to FLAG Telecom in the UK.