A minuscule brain dead bug made its way across the rather immense, grassy lawn. The astute insect was emaciated and knew exactly what it coveted deep within its buggy brain. It scanned the grounds, perhaps looking for that ill-star victim so that it may delve its fangs deep into the abode of his prey and appease the hunger pangs which tortured him. The diminutive bug spotted its victim and moved into a position ready to pounce. It shook its lilliputian extremity. One. . .two. . .
I walked over to the Transtour bus and lingered for a moment until every maculate person adulterated with multitudinous pieces of refuse known to man (and woman) got on the bus (whether the now deceased bug was dirtier was a question I had yet to ponder). I followed the hideous two-eyed monsters, took my seat (at least they told me it was a seat for looked like a green mushroom), and awaited the beginning of the end of the hellish journey. I was forced to place my tush by the Jeffer and he immediately engaged in a lackluster conversation of which I quickly told him to shut his yap so I could read my captivating new book Massacre at Waco, Texas. I got lost in an impeccable journey so grand that they utter brilliance of the story confounded me to a point where I could no longer be confounded. So effulgent was the biography that I was into a world where any knowledge of a future in a Tunisian school I may or may not have had was no longer in my inescapable clutches.
Reality, sadly, would soon spread its enormous wings over me as we arrived at Lycee Montfleury, much to the disappointment of my fans, who begged me to read more of the enthralling David Koresh/Branch Davidian biography, partly (all right, the whole kit-and-caboodle) because they didn't want to hear me brag about my ever-lasting coolness that I so loved to discuss.
I dragged myself ever-so-gingerly off the bus and subjected myself to the unqueestioned and genuine custom of the land. Somewhere, at sometime, one of the founders of that small African country must have written that it is law to stare uncontrollably and with reckless abandon at every foreigner who enters their unflappable gazes. Trying our best, my fellow ACST'ers (a peabody at ACST) and I, to ignore their stares, moseyed on over to the leviathan entrance of the school, where we were greeted by several law breaking (oh the humanity!) Tunisians who decided at some point in their last five seconds of life that they had better things to do than stare, to the delight of my joyous French teacher, Monsieur Reichert, who started yodeling his version of Frere Jacques.
"Bonjourno," they declared in their Arabian accents as the designated Montfleury teachers led my colleagues/friends to a library that was filled with approximately three books by authors no one, with the possible exception of the authors themselves, had ever heard of.
There were a few seats placed in the middle of the room and I sat down next to the Mr. Bill look alike Robbie Sayer, who turned and told me a cruel, culturally insensitive joke (tee hee). "Why did Lycee Montfleury close the library? Because they forgot to bring back the book! Hoo hee ha ha ha ha ha hoo hee ha!" Don and Robbie exploded into tedious laughter, gaining the attention of several teachers, who reminded them they were in a place where respect was demanded (and, essentially, to shut up or face dire cconsequences).
After chuckling silently at Don and Robbie, I decided that my attention would be used more wisely if I diverted it to a different area. No sooner than the birth of those magical thoughts did I hear the Montfleury teachers howl, spit spewing from the crooked mouths of the abominable beasts, "now that you reside here for the time being, you will do whatever we say! Hoo hee haaa haaa!" Maybe these weren't their exact words, but through a series of lengthy and pointless foreign interpretations, those words could have possibly been derived from their dim-witted lecture.
When that fatuous discussion ended, the tenth grade sauntered over to the English room, which measured to be colder than the South Pole, its board slovenly filled with patriarchal chalk erasings, and the wallks in the room, and the actual calling of those 'things' walls was being extraordinarily generous, were like that of the color of some taco regurgitation. It wouldn't have surprised me at all to find out that the substance holding up the walls was that of the paint and the carcasses of the very termites that used to feed upon the walls so luxuriously.
To even say this was a room was a mild exaggeration in itself. A better word to describe it was "box." The box contained absolutely no (none, zip, zilch) electricity whatsoever and it possessed little to improve learning. The only thingamabob found to be laudable about their class was their English. It was exemplary.
Words cannot be found about the amazement I experienced from my little visit to their English room. Whereas I had been expecting the Tunisians to stutter frequently (because quite frankly, that's what we did in our foreign language classes) in their never-ending pursuit of perfection, they did not. Several students performed the task of reading at random a well written essay from their textbook. They may not have been reading Chuck Dickens, but rest assured, they weren't reading those "challenging" Dick and Jane stories (See Spot run. Run Spot Run. Go Dick go!) that so dominate the younger generation of America.
Amazinglu, despite all the handicaps the Tunisians endured, they managed to succeed without any major problems in learning. Here, I had been taking French for three years, and I was nowhere near their fluency in a foreign language. It was a strong possibility that their worst student spoke better English than I did French, even though I, realistically, had a better learning environment, not to mention, a longer period of training. Ouch.
That momentary trip may done little to boost my already stupendous ego, but it changed the views - the stereotypical views - I had earlier formulated about or of the Tunisians. I realized that not all Tunisians were the monsters that had ganged up on an itsy-bitsy and his Japanese pal and stolen their basketball and hats, but people - people with feelings, with a striving for excellence, and a desire to succeed - like me.