Tunisia, my home by Siwar Terboubi, Tunisia – Photo Essay –

Here you will find pictures of Tunisia and some of its traditions. What can I possibly tell you about the country I’m proud to call HOME? Most of us dress like in Europe, we do, however, have a lot of beautiful traditional clothes that we wear on special occasions.  We have, what I can judge to be a great cuisine! During each celebration we cook a specific meal. Tunisians as all mu slims fast from dawn to dark during the month of Ramadan. Sweet and colorful dishes symbolize religious holidays, usually in addition to couscous. Sheep are slaughtered for religious gatherings, and the meat is shared among the participants as a way of symbolizing the togetherness. On another celebrations, there are always family gatherings and kids are always wearing new clothes and gets new toys/ And of course,  everyone enjoys sweets ! It sickens me that considering  that I am a Tunisian Arab living in a Muslim community I’m often misidentified, misjudged and misunderstood. Whenever I reveal my identity to foreigners I always get a skeptical look as if they were suspecting me of terrorism, some people might even pity me! We might be poor, we might face a huge terrorist threat, we might be encountering too many problems , but we’re much more than that , and I, call me optimist or naive, strongly believe that we will get through this !

This is just one example of the important work produced YaLa’s citizen journalists, a program funded by the European Union’s Peacebuilding Initiative in order to enable young leaders from across the Middle East and North Africa to document and share their experiences of the region.