My Experience in a Tunisian Taxi: Frarabic, Facebook, and Will.i.am

Taxi rides are by far one of the most adventurous parts of my day. Today was no exception.

As a bit of background: driving rules are quite different in Tunisia. Thanks to the French, the preferred method of roads intersecting is in a “rond-point,” where all the roads feed into a circule and cars in the middle of the circle fight to get out and cars in incoming streets fight to get in. Unlike clearly articulated right of way rules in the US, the rule here seems to be “go – and whoever gets there first has the right of way”

So after work yesterday, I took a taxi back home, like always. The driver was young, probably about 25, and had American hip hop music playing on the radio. Now most taxi drivers are daring, but it was clear when he made a U turn into oncoming traffic to pick me up on the other side of the street that he was particularly daring. He started talking to me when I got in the car, but I couldn’t really understand – which I initially blamed on my poor French skills. The North African French accent is much different than the Parisian French I learned in school, so it takes me a few minutes to adjust.

Even though I wasn’t responding, my driver kept talking. Gesturing at his mouth with his hands and every so often laughing hysterically. For about every French word, he was saying five Arabic words. True frarabic. It was clear I didn’t understand. (Generally if I’m not talking at this point taxi drivers see a confused look on my face, stop talking, and the ride continues in silence. Not this taxi driver.) He really wanted me to understand something. So, as we are driving in the highway, zipping in between the other cars, frequently crossing the median and driving head-on into oncoming traffic so we can pass other cars, and my taxi driver decides that increasing the volume of his voice and gesturing wildly will help me understand Arabic. Oncoming traffic is changing lanes so we don’t hit them, and I’m not understanding any better.

My taxi driver finally sees that I’m not getting it. So as we are soaring down the highway at 60 miles an hour he decides to call his friend and proceeds to yelling something in Arabic over the phone, pass the phone to me as I try and listen to his friend shout in French, all the time looking at me more than the road and driving with one hand. But I can’t understand his friend. Its windy, its noisy, people are honking at us (rightfully so). I try and tell him to hang up the phone, but he’s still yelling in Arabic and holding the phone by my ear. Then, I hear a word I understand.

Facebook. My taxi driver has endangered my life because he wants to facebook friend me. Seriously.

Hoping that the madness will stop, I get out a piece of paper, write out my name, and hand it to my taxi driver. He smiles and says facebook along with a lot of Arab words.

I’m safe. Or so I think. In relief, I nod my head a little bit to the beat of the song that has just come on the radio, the new “O.M.G” by Will.I.am and Usher. My taxi driver sees me, nods, and then proceeds to release the break to the beat of the music as we head into the intersection, one of the biggest rond-ponts in Tunis. The next three minutes we are jolting back and forth across the road to the beat of Usher.

I finally got home. The whole trip took about 20 minutes, twice as long as normal (we definitely missed a turn somewhere).

But who knows, maybe Ill have a new facebook friend tonight?