Monastir Tunisia
I am spending a strange few days here in Hotel Monastir Centre, which advertises itself wildly optimistically as a 4-star establishment. I do not have the right to complain though since it is unbelievably cheap, has a decent room and a good pool. The food is not bad at all either. I sit in the shade by the pool wearing a black all-in-one swimming costume which marks me out as something of a curiosity amongst my fellow hotel guests, an assorted bunch of sun worshipping Europeans, none of whom seems to object to the elevator/soft rock music which is being played full blast all day and night around the pool area.
I observe things, feeling like an anthropologist.
It really is true that German tourists get up early and put towels on the deck chairs by the pool! Some guests on ‘all-inclusive’ status avail themselves rather too enthusiastically of the free bar, and by 4 o’clock they start falling over and have to be carried back to their rooms apparently.
But by that stage I have escaped to the beach which really is rather beautiful here. It has the finest white sand and a few coral rock formations jutting out into the sea
to climb on as well as an impressive fortress to look at in the distance.

At dinner the staff has placed me at a table with an elderly Belgian widower who has never been abroad before. They are probably matchmaking. I don’t really mind. I make some conversation before I escape to my room and BBC World.

And how long will strange existence carry on?

Keita is in Bamako now and will try and get here asap, even if the hospital where his treatment will be carried out is not ready for him yet. We are hoping for a few day’s holiday together. I will find a better place than this of course, but in the meantime I
wait and I rest and observe, with some amusement, my strange fellow Europeans….