The End
No, it definitely was not my favorite day today.
For the third time in a row, I could not fall asleep right away (which meas: For about two hours, shortening my nap down to three hours in length). I first tried to fall asleep using my AM Radio - I wonder if those thingies are forbidden in Tunisia, since it was actually easy to catch true world news featuring everything the country would probably have prefered not to be broadcasted (Sorry President Ben Ali).
But it was not my radio making me close my ears; it was The Twain Reader, which is one of my very favorite podcasts. They are reading The adventures of Tom Sawyer right now and although the chapters are posted in a rather slow frequency, I urge you to check it out- especially if you can’t sleep in Tunisia!
It is the phone waking me up at 4:10 AM, some minutes before my alarm clock would have tried doing the same. A single, unfriendly “Good Morning” is what the guy has to say, then, he hangs up; some seconds later, I hear the phone ringing in the neighbouring room, where another team member is placed. The conclusion I draw from that makes me rather mad: “Someone from my team must have had the great idea to wake us up by phone; but no one told me about that. A thought enters my brain and refuses to leave: “Yes, it is time to end this trip!”
I get up, offer my guide dog some weird smelling water from the sink - he doesn’t drink, which I can understand. The next moments I spend putting everything that seems like belonging to me, including the hotel soap and shower gel, into my suitcase. About 25 minutes too early, I am standing in the lobby, approaching the reception desk to check out. Before the trip, we were inform that everyone was responsible to pay for their hotels on their own and that we would get the money refunded some day. So I check out and hand my master card over to the receptionist. “You don’t pay, do you?”, he says; “of course I do”, I reply, and “Didn’t expect the poor blind could handle his credit card, did you” I think. After a few minutes of making calls and doing some stuff with all kinds of paper, the receptionist says “No it is OK, somebody else did pay for you”. “ah yeah?” - I say; obviously the team member did the job for us all and again, I didn’t know anything; feeling more stupid than before, this thought I mentioned before says: “See, I was right”, and pushes itself more into the foreground of my brain.
While we are waiting for the Consul to arrive, another receptionist greets me and my guide dog, which makes my mood better again. Great to see that some of the Tunisian people are actually more open and normal towards my dog than at the beginning - obviously it was worth it having Leo with me.
The airport is not too much of a pleasure. Due to me being tired, I’m just not into those “Oh, what a cute dog do you have here! What’s his name? Can I touch him? Oh, you’re-such-A-Good-Boy” conversations; but it seems that exactly today, the whole airport staff and all passengers seem to be here just to have talks like that; I get them in at least four different languages, every two minutes on average, and am about to shout some words which I better don’t quote here, when finally entering the plane.
At the same time, there are two great surprises as well. First, we hear that the airplane will fly to Zurich directly, not doing any stop in Geneva. This means that I might be home about one or two hours earlier than I expected. TWO HOURS MORE SLEEP - ain’t that a blessing or what?
The other surprise is revealed slep by step which we get closer to this plane. Nobody, except us, seem to think of Leo having to wear a muzzle today. I did try to put the Gentle Leader on him shortly before going through security. But after noticing how much my guide dog refuses having it on, I was asked by the Consul to put it back off and just take it out when requested.
Well - nobody requests it this moring. The seat I got placed in is absolutely uncomfortable for both, Leo and me, but somehow we manage to fit in there and although my seat neighbour kept on telling that my guide dog was constantly moving, I guess that he did get some sleep.
I, by the way, slept too, until another of the Swiss Delegation Members, who certainly meant no harm, came along the isle to ask “So - where Is Leo Now?”
And then - we finally landed at Zurich Unique Airport, Home, Switzerland.
“Good! Finally! Let’s just run off, take a train and… Oh NOPE! Where is Leo’s Badge? Can somebody please get it from the airplane?”
Yes, somebody can and my world gets back into some kind of harmony.
Because a team member wants to film René and Leo once more, I am asked to not hold on to anybody’s arm. I am also asked to push the non-braille buttons in the elevators and am not answered my question about which floor we have to go to at all - must probably be funy, at least if you are not tired.
Later, when Leo makes a misstake and I give him an training impact, I hear a comment like “Oh, animal lovers will hate to watch that scene”; this is the point I decide to question the movie.
After me having to get a ticket which I don’t need from a ticket vending machine which I can’t use, we sit down in a café and discuss the issue.
It seemed to me as if Access For All, which I went with to the WSIS 2005 selected Leo, my guide dog, and me, his handler, to be the most important figures in their filmed documentation of the event. One or two days ago, I also discovered A German Press Release originally posted by Access For All and announcing that Leo, the guide dog, would report live and daily from WSIS in Tunis on Access For All’s web page. Now both, us being in published films and on web pages, would be all right with me - if we get informed about it in advance. Unfortunately, this did not happen; an internet search engine, not an Access For All Staff Member, told me about my dog sending daily reports, including a bit more than a few ‘remarks’ on delicate topics, such as the Human Rights Situation in Tunisia. Also, “Leo’s” reports on his own treatment were kinda limited to the rather difficult moments - you do, for example, not find a word about the Tunisians actually approaching and playing with him. All of this and the fact that I felt tired and kept busy for some projects I did not have a clue about, caused a very important, though short and at least something like settling talk. We agreed on me being informed before anything would be done with the filmed material. I pray that my words were not hurting anybody, but just being as honest as I was supposd to be when I signed the employment contract with this company.
Then, I am being brought to the train. We don’t make a picture of Leo on the Scale at a check-in desk - obviously everybody noticed my tiredness meanwhile.
Sitting in the train home, I suddenly hear people talking about us: “See? HE has a guide dog. HE assists HIM because HE cannot see. HE tells HIM when and how to leave the train… Blah Bblah Bblah”; nobody approaches me to actually ask - instead, they just talk.
immediately, the thought from this morning leaves. Instead, another thought enters my brain: “Welcome To Switzerland!”; and wondering if I should prefer stupid-talking Switzerland or terribly-scared Tunisia, I troubedly fall asleep.
At home: I unpack my suitcase and check mail, which isn’t much surprising - at least, I got my Open University Student Card, which reminds me of being a student.
Then, I let Leo have his run in the forest. Yes, we are back home!
“Rainin’ You”
OK, let’s try to summarize it like this:
| This Day |
I most disliked |
And I most liked |
| Monday |
TunisAir |
Writing an email to my girlfriend at night |
| Tuesday |
Bus passengers screaming when Leo entered |
The waiter playing with my guide dog |
| Wednesday |
Finding a squashed tangerine in my bag at night, 6 hours too late |
finding some comments from visitors on my blog!!! |
| Thursday |
The heavy rain in the morning |
Meeting Ben Segal, who later sent us a taxi, which brought us home part of the way from Sidi Bou Saïd |
| Friday |
Thinking about Saturday |
My guide dog smelling like shampoo, not like dirt |
| Saturday |
Well - Almost Everything |
Leo, getting to run my home town’s forest |
Well, yes. It was definitely worth going to Tunisia. It also was worth it going with this company, this delegation and for this country. There is stuff left to do and I hope, me, my Labrador and the rest of the world will be able to let this summit be a step forward - and so on, and so on, and so on.
To end, I thought I would let you know the song that, for some reason, was spinning around in my weird mind throughout the week. It does not have anything to do with the WSIS 2005, neither with the , my country, my Company, not even with TunisAir…
It is a song by my favorite country artist, Brad Paisley, taken from his newest album “Time Well Wasted” and is called “Rainin’ You” (I hope this link takes you to its lyrics). Although I cannot actually associate it with anything summit-specific, it is still a greatest song. I hope you like it as much as I do; and as much as I liked making Tunisia sick.
