Author: Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Faces of Terrorism

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

My thoughts have been mostly with Norway this past weekend. The horrific terrorist attack that left 93 people dead on Friday felt to me like a surreal cross between Columbine and Oklahoma City. Although the wreckage from the bomb was impressive, most of the dead were teenagers at a summer camp miles away, hunted down like animals by a lone gunman. The young people on Utøya had come from all over Norway, so I can imagine that in each community there must be collective shock and sorrow, but private, individual grief as well. I hope they know that the whole world stands with them in this anguished moment.… Read more

Going Anonymous on Google+

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I’ve had an enjoyable time playing around on Google+ for the past few days, and I think I’m ready to talk about my impressions. First, here’s a little recap of my social(networking) life so far: I never got in on Myspace. I’ve only ever tweeted for work. My Linked-In profile is still only halfway filled out, I think. I don’t do anything more social than watching science videos with my kids on Youtube. Mysterious concepts like Orkut, Foursquare, Hi5, and all the rest, just haven’t even hit my radar. And as you know, I have a “like”-hate relationship with Facebook.

Although I’ve been a loyal Gmail user since early in the Gmail beta days, I only dinked around for about five minutes total with Google Buzz.… Read more

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Captain Khobza!

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

It’s been awhile since I gave you an update on the political and security situation here in Tunisia. Things are getting a bit exciting here again. I just hope they don’t get TOO exciting in the wrong way.

Six months after the revolution, the economy is (understandably) worse than ever. Unemployment is projected to reach 20 percent this year, compared to an already depressing 13 percent last year, pre-revolution. Beji Caid Essebsi, the current Prime Minister, blames the state of the economy on continued strikes and sit-ins, both on the street and at major firms and manufacturing plants.

There’s no doubt that the demonstrations, both in January and since, have affected the economy.… Read more

Our Latest Cultural Blooper

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Before I let you gasp in horror over what we did last night, let me give you some background on our side of the story. Before we moved to Tunisia, I read someone’s list of things she liked and disliked about living here. I can’t remember most of them, but one of the things she said she disliked was the “garbage everywhere.” I just laughed, certain she must be exaggerating. Living among the ultra-tidy Piemontese, I had nearly forgotten that the world was not one big well-tended, immaculate garden. In the part of Italy where we lived, there was barely a dirt clod out of place.… Read more

Discovering our Tunisian roof

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

One of the first things I noticed when we moved to Tunisia was that the houses don’t have roofs! Or at least they look like they don’t.

This was a bit startling after having lived in Ireland, where the most obvious feature on a typical house might be its tall, peaked roof, designed to let the copious rain roll off easily.

Even in Italy, where the rain is less abundant and the roof angles are correspondingly less acute, at least all the houses obviously have them.

Here in Tunisia, there are a few places like Luke Skywalker’s house, which really are roofless.… Read more

The Dangerous Art of Diplomacy

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

The Water-wheels in Hama, Syria

The foreign service usually seems like a somewhat safer place than the military. But U.S. pilots flying NATO missions in Libya might be safer than Ambassador Robert Ford in Syria at the moment. Last Thursday, he and his French counterpart, Eric Chevallier, made a symbolic visit to Hama, site of the infamous 1982 Syrian massacre, and recent target of a crackdown by the Syrian government. They stayed into Friday, traditionally the most active day for protests. Demonstrators greeted them with smiles and roses, and they spent the day shaking hands and visiting hospitals in an expression of solidarity with the Syrian uprising.… Read more

More Cool Recipes for Hot Days

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

One of my favorite hot weather dishes is hummus. I first became addicted to hummus in Syria, where it was served as an appetizer at every restaurant. In fact, I used to blame hummus for the twenty pounds I gained during my four month study abroad there, but I’ve since admitted that the more likely offender was the copious quantities of baklava I devoured during our lengthy bus rides.

Hummus is one of those felicitously simple combinations that sounds weird (garbanzo beans + tahini [sesame seed paste] + garlic + lemon juice + blender) but is actually delicious. It also has just the right overtones of hip, exotic, and healthy to end up in the salad bar at La Jolla Whole Foods in six different permutations (red pepper, roasted garlic, green herb, etc.).… Read more

Blogging About Blogging

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

An expat blogger friend of mine remarked the other day that she’s still not sure blogging from America isn’t pretentious. I’d have to agree. In fact, I’d expand it to say that blogging from anywhere is fairly pretentious. I mean, who am I to think that my journal would make interesting reading for acquaintances, or even friends? Let alone strangers!

The blogs that stick to one topic, like recipes, fashion, or politics, make more sense. They’re kind of like books published in serial form. That’s normal. Even Dickens made it big publishing serially. But what about those of us like me, who are more or less publishing our memoirs as they happen?… Read more

Summertime and the cookin’ is easy

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Tunisia is pretty hot in the summer. Not as hot as some places, like Death Valley or Arizona or the Arabian desert, but hot enough to want to go to the beach every day. Which fortunately, we can. In fact, remember that one time I blogged about Rambo? I saw him today at the beach, and he was tickled pink that someone had told him they read about him on my blog. So if my blog doesn’t bring me fame, at least it brings fame to Rambo. Which is almost as good, right?

Along with helping us not miss a day at the beach, the warm weather gives me a serious disinclination to make some of the heartier standbys from my cooking repertoire; things like vegetarian baked beans or Jamie Oliver’s beef stew, or slow-cooked Moroccan tagine.… Read more

Long Distance Grandparenting 2.0

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Shortly after we moved overseas, we started using google chat (and sometimes Skype) to video chat with the grandparents. At first, it was a little weird and awkward. Video chat is somewhere in between talking on the phone (which can be difficult for toddlers to conceptualize and enjoy) and being there in person. Sometimes it’s hard to think of good conversation topics. But they eventually got the hang of it, and soon they were taking advantage of the video component by showing drawings and special toys to the grandmas, singing them songs, or even playing games like peek-a-boo and hide-and-seek after they figured out exactly where the webcam was located.… Read more