September 1998

I began to discover the world more fully at school, though my very first teacher had been my own mother. Still, I was learning to interact with those around me, and to stir up trouble. My earliest mischief took shape when I sat beside Hamed Yousfi, a close childhood friend. In the neighborhood he was known for his brilliance in mathematics, though his school record never reflected it. Hamed grew angry because my elbow brushed against his as we practiced our first writing lessons. Being children, we never thought to complain to the teacher (my mother) nor did we realize how simple it would have been to swap seats. The quarrel turned into something of a brawl that ended with both of us leaving school at midday. Outside, I hurled a small stone that struck Hamed’s lower lip, splitting it open. Blood streamed down. The sight terrified me, and I sprinted home. Not long after, Hamed arrived with his father to lodge a complaint. His father took him to the clinic, while my mother thrashed me soundly. I wept for hours.

It was not the first time I had seen blood. At five years old, I was sitting by the back entrance of our house when our dog, Poochi, crept up from behind and nipped my ear. I suppose she only meant to play. I felt no pain, yet my mother scooped me up in her arms while my brother Ahmed pointed at my ear and cried, “Blood!”
That was the first time I ever heard the word blood. I touched my ear, felt the smooth trickle of something viscous, and stared at the crimson stain on my hand. Then I broke into long, heaving sobs.

At school, recess was fifteen minutes at ten in the morning and another fifteen at three in the afternoon. My brother Ahmed was famous for his speed; he always won at the game “10-20.” A circle of children would gather. One slapped another’s palm and shouted “Ten!” The next did the same, adding ten more, and so on until the count reached one hundred. Whoever landed on “one hundred” became the chaser. A mere touch, or even tugging a strand of hair, was enough to capture someone, who would then join the pursuit. I was hopeless at the game. I wasn’t fast, nor was I built like Ahmed.

In our neighborhood, sport was the only escape from the heavy boredom. There was almost nothing else to do. Football above all, sometimes basketball or handball. That variety itself was exceptional compared to other quarters where boys played football and nothing else.

The neighbors often knocked on our door, and I would rush to open it; only to find they were always looking for Ahmed. He was needed for the football team, the gifted player. My chest filled with jealousy.

My refuge became the public library, a place where books could be read for free. My friend Nader Gamoudi told me about it, and that all I needed was a passport photo and one dinar to get a reading card. Asking my mother for a whole dinar was difficult. We were desperately poor: five children, no father – he had abandoned the family when I was eight. Yet my mother agreed, surprisingly. She opened her small round black purse, counted her few coins, and pressed a dinar into my palm. I walked to the “Model Library,” happiness flooding me.

At the desk, I explained I had no photo. The receptionist reluctantly agreed to give me a card, provided I bring a picture next time. The reading card was not the same as a subscription card, which allowed the borrowing of two books for two full weeks. Still, simply entering the reading hall was a revelation: books and magazines piled everywhere, short stories and novels waiting.

I plunged into whatever fell into my hands, but the section reserved for subscribers tempted me more. One day the librarian scolded me, forbidding me from even touching those books unless I paid two dinars for full membership.

I left the library brimming with images of all I had seen, but on my way home I got lost. I did not know the path back to our house on the far side of Sidi Bouzid, that small city. I ran, sobbing, until a woman stopped me.
— “I’m lost… I want to go home.”
— “Where do you live?”
— “Hay Ennour al-Gharbi.”

She pointed me forward, then told me to turn right toward the main street. Miraculously, I found my way back.

The topography of Sidi Bouzid was never complex. Its neighborhoods stretched along a single main street: Habib Bourguiba Avenue. First the banks and the commercial quarter, then the Rahma Mosque, then the taxi stations where Mohamed Bouazizi once tried to sell his vegetables, then the old governorate headquarters where he set himself ablaze, and finally the General Store.

I am certain the geography of the city has changed since. People tell me that new shops now sprawl over every corner: family restaurants, mixed cafés near the high schools on Maghreb al-Arabi Street, or by the university in the districts of Wouroud, Kawafel, and Rawabi. Pizza joints, shawarma shops, home delivery. A complete disappearance of the internet cafés where I had spent much of my adolescence. The thought unsettles me: to return one day to Sidi Bouzid and find not the city I left, but a distorted version of what my memory preserved, or worse, a blend of nostalgia that has added dreamlike colors to a city that, in truth, was always desolate.