She is carrying her year-old baby in one arm, and laboriously dragging plastic chairs across the sand in the other. Naima is 30 years old, but she looks to be at least 40. “Just to go for a swim, it’s a struggle. I make the sacrifice for my son. The sea will be good for him,” the young woman tells us.
It is August 10, and the temperature is near 40 degrees. The air is thick with humidity, making it hard to breathe. And yet here we are on the beach in La Goulette (northern suburb of Tunis). It is 5pm, and people are still flooding the seashore. Some are leaving, others are patiently awaiting taxis, their faces gleaming with perspiration. They already seem to be missing the water.
A young boy makes his way through the crowd, headed toward his mother. Shoeless and with wet feet, she is weary of standing. The woman is in her seventies. “We arrived this morning from Denden (western suburb of the capital). It’s time to go home. My mother is starting to get tired,” says her 28-year-old son.
Equipped with food and drink and a tent, Naima is planning to spend the night on the beach. She lives in El Aouina (to the north of the capital) and cannot afford making the trip back and forth. So she wants to take advantage of being here. Naima doesn’t work; her husband does manual labor.
Like Naima, many families come to spend an entire day, and sometimes even more than a week, at the beach. The most well-equipped sleep in tents. Others rest beneath the shelter of umbrellas, surrounded on all sides by bed linens. Young and old carry tables, chairs, coolers, and even mattresses. Some are drying their clothes on a cord attached to an umbrella.
Today, the beach is overflowing with people. Umbrellas are crowded together, one after another along the beach. To get to the water, you have to watch out to not turn over a neighbor’s table or chair. Children are swimming insouciantly. Others are digging holes in the sand. Tables are covered with watermelon, pots and pans and sweets. Women sit chatting, men stand people-watching, sometimes with a far-off gaze. A few families are set up just beneath the wall along the boardwalk without chairs or umbrellas, their belongings spread across the sand.
Popcorn and doughnut vendors walk back and forth along the shore, watchful for potential customers. Most of them are young. Others are seated on rocks, cooling off at the water’s edge.
The beach in La Goulette today is not like the one depicted in postcard images from the seventies featuring nonchalant, lightly-clad men and women. Today, the scene is characterized by the austerity of beach-goers, and not just in terms of their dress-code. “Most of these people cannot afford to go any farther, not even to Gammarth. They come from working class neighborhoods in the capital,” says Latifa, co-manager of a beach café. Latifa herself is from the town of Sidi Hassine (western side of Tunis).
Although she rents out umbrellas to families for 20 dinars a day during the weekend, she shows compassion towards this population. “Some put money aside to be able to come swimming here. They can pack their own food. They can also get a sandwich for three dinars and a coffee for two. It’s still accessible compared with other places.”
She is not wrong. Chic areas in Bizerte or Hammamet are not accessible to everyone. Securing a spot in a beach restaurant in these areas costs about 80 dinars, and closer to 100 dinars or more per person in other bars along the water.
An entire economic system
A wall decorated by a mural separates beach from sidewalk. Merchants of all kinds are selling their goods and wares, from clay utensils to inner tubes. One woman has a mobile sandwich stand. Nearby, a young man is selling cactus fruit. He has piled them into the back of his Isuzu, parked just in front of him. Other young men—wearing fanny packs and, in some cases, no shoes—are managing the flow of traffic. They are collecting parking fees. “They are all from the same clan,” one local informs us.
There are also vendors selling chips, grilled corn on the cob, and cotton candy. Most of them are either quite young or very old. 17-year-old Anis is one of them. He comes from Ben Arous (southern suburb of the capital). He is grilling corn on the cob. With a rather jovial demeanor, he relates: “Here there are lots of vendors like me. Too many in fact, but we are not resentful of one another. After all, we’re all here working in the extreme heat for close to nothing. But alhamdulillah, I’m not complaining.”
Anis dropped out of school, but has a plan in mind. What exactly? His eyes light up as he nods his head towards the sea. “Soon, I will leave here and set out to sea. Two days ago, two friends arrived in Italy. They seem well, even though they told me how afraid they’d been of the depth of the sea during the journey across. I’m happy for them,” he says optimistically.
Not everyone is pleased with all this business around the beach. “Can I carry your cooler? Do you want an umbrella?” Every time a beach-goer steps onto the sand, he or she is met by insistent young men renting out umbrellas and chairs.
Naima’s nephew, 18-year-old Ahmed, declines the offer. One of the young men scowls at him. “That’s how they are, they are insistent, and sometimes harass people,” says Ahmed, exasperated. The cost of renting an umbrella is high for his family. “They ask 20 dinars on weekends, 10 during the week, and as little as five dinars when there aren’t many people,” notes Ahmed. His aunt adds,
It’s a public beach. They have the right to make a living. But we also want to enjoy the beach which is supposed to be free access to everyone.
Naima
Latifa, who runs the beach cafe with her husband Hatem, obtained an authorization from the Coastal Protection and Development Agency (APAL) to rent out ten umbrellas. In return, they pay the government a thousand dinars to operate on this part of the beach for two months. There are about a dozen like them who dispose of an authorization, Hatem indicates.
Others do not. Without naming names, Latifa alludes to the complicity of certain public officials. “They know who they are, but are complicit with them. They allow them to work,” she notes.
Contacted by Nawaat, the municipality of La Goulette assures us that it is doing its best to stop these kinds of violations. “The APAL issues authorizations but does not monitor them. So we are trying to intervene with the Coast Guard in order to regulate the sector. The chairs and umbrellas of unauthorized operators are confiscated,” affirms Houda Ben Salah, head of the municipality’s Sanitation and Health Department.
Pollution everywhere
A number of beach-goers laud the cleanliness of the water while complaining about the pollution which litters the beach. “Be careful not to step on shards of glass,” a mother warns her son. The sand is studded with pieces of glass. There are beer cans and plastic bags everywhere.
Garbage cans are set out along the beach, but are so full that piles of trash have accumulated around them. Next to umbrellas, too, one spots cartons of milk, diapers, and other debris.
“You see impeccably dressed, respectable-looking people. The same who don’t hesitate to leave their trash on the beach,” Latifa says angrily, adding, “We are the ones who clean up after them.”
Houda Ben Salah indicates that beyond its own sanitation team, the municipality works in collaboration with a waste collection company. Trucks drive through at least three times a day to pick up garbage. “On weekends, with the trash also left by merchants, it’s becoming out of control,” she relates.
Swimmers clean their feet with water in plastic bottles as they leave the beach. Some then throw the emptied bottles onto the sidewalk. Their trash is Hassine’s livelihood; the 70-something picks up the plastic bottles and stuffs them into his large bag.
Nevertheless, the sea here is relatively clean in comparison with other shores bordering the capital such as Hammam Lif and El Zahra. Today, we cross paths with a few residents of the southern suburb of Tunis. One of them is 38-year-old Sawssen from Ben Arous. She takes a taxi to and from the beach, which costs her about 40 dinars. So she doesn’t come often. To go home, she sometimes spends over an hour in search of a taxi.
“They often tell me that they won’t take us because our clothes are wet,” she recounts. But this doesn’t prevent her from coming back. “It’s for the kids. They have the right to get fresh air once school is out for the year. It’s good for them.”
Naima’s nephew doesn’t love the beach in La Goulette. Raised in a neighborhood of Sidi Hassine, Ahmed especially hates the bus ride over. “It’s packed full. Same for the TGM.” The TGM is the double train line connecting Tunis to La Marsa via La Goulette.
This summer, the Transport Agency of Tunis (Transtu) announced the introduction of 11 new lines serving the beach, including six towards La Goulette. But this does not seem to resolve the problem of transport. At 8pm, pedestrians are scattered across the neighborhood’s main street in search of taxis.
Ahmed is not going home tonight. He is going to keep an eye on his aunt and her child. Anything can happen at night. Scenes of verbal and physical violence are commonplace. A mere spark, and tension between those who have been drinking or simply looking for trouble can quickly escalate.
Locals are exasperated by the noise pollution. “In the morning, it feels as if they’re living with you. At night, we hear fights and insults,” recounts 60-something Najiba. She lives in an old building overlooking the sea.
Nostalgia for the good old days
Some families set chairs outside the front door of their homes where they sit and chat. “Former residents of La Goulette have left,” remarks 77-year-old Samira. Her children and grandchildren come from France to visit her in the summertime. But they don’t swim in La Goulette except sometimes very early in the morning. They prefer to head elsewhere.
Raised in La Goulette, Hatem pines for “the charming good old days” of his seaside neighborhood.
I was born close to the Spanish fort, Karaka. I know what I’m talking about. Before, people would also come and spend weeks here. Fathers would wake up in the morning for work and leave their wives and girls here without a second thought.
Hatem
But things have changed, Hatem says. “Umbrellas were rented out for a dinar, swimming trunks for two, and you’d leave your ID card as a guarantee. Life was more simple. And there was respect, even among thugs,” he recalls with nostalgia.
The pollution and lack of safety have made a number of locals leave, observes Hatem. We meet a young woman, about thirty years old, with her 5-year-old daughter. “I will never come back here. People are so close to each other, and there’s so much pollution,” she tells us. The woman lives in France; this is her first time to the beach in La Goulette.
“My mother insisted that we come. She is still attached to the La Goulette of her youth, even though she lives in Ben Arous.” Finally, her mother arrives, struggling to keep up with her daughter’s pace. “People have changed. But La Goulette is still La Goulette with its beach and famous restaurants,” says the old woman, provoking her daughter. Her ritual is to go for a swim in the sea after enjoying a seafood dish in one of the many restaurants along Franklin Roosevelt Avenue, parallel to the boardwalk.
For some Tunisians, La Goulette was a haven of peace and the coexistence of different communities: Muslim, Jewish, Italian immigrants, etc. Of this romantic image, precious little remains.
Over time, other populations have arrived, and with them, people from working class neighborhoods. Although the latter may brush shoulders with the clientele of restaurants and bars lining the beach, the two never mix. “You will never find a family from working class neighborhoods seated in one of these chic restaurants,” one local points out.
iThere are no comments
Add yours