JaunsCorner.com Blog

There is not too much to say about yesterday I guess, but let’s see what we find.
The morning, the time before getting to the exhibition halls, was extremely chaotic. To hotel staff kept communicating about every story from “The bus will leave in five minutes” to “there has never been a bus planed for today”; the only thing all their announcements had in common was that the whole mess was not only because of the heavy traffic this morning, but also “Due To Security Reasons…..”.

Now, since not only buses did not seem to show up but neither the hall manager who was supposed to bring Leo and me to our stand, even I tried to be something like nervous. Well, it then happened after waiting much too long that still one of those buses made it to our hotel at all and since nobody knew how long the hall manager would take to show up, we took this bus - YEP, and this time, it worked fine. Of course, the bus driver and some passengers almost died when they saw my funny Labrador, wearing his brand new badge, but I guess everybody survived and we made it safely to the Kram Park.

At the WSIS 2005 gates, we found like the longest lines ever, but still made it in within an acceptable time.
The reason why especially the Swiss people were supposed to be exactly on time was the visit of the president of our confederation, Samuel Schmid. Throughout the morning, until he finally did show up, everybody, including me, seemed to be in this stupid “Let’s kind of plan every move that he and us are going to make and every word to say” mood; and of course, when he actually came to the Access For All/OFCOM/Design For All stand (90 minutes or more delayed), nothing was put into action as planed
At least I was able to notify him about the fact that Leo was most intelligent, about some mistakes on his web site and about me finding it nice to meet him and stuff.

Before visiting us, by the way, he held one of the opening speeches to the summit, in which he addressed Tunisia and once more the whole Human Rights Scandals going on day by day. He expressed his expectations that it should be possible to have freedom of speech and freedom of press within and outside of the summit areas. That this was definitely not the case, I found out when trying to access the Swiss Info web site, which probably reports some facts that the Tunisian Government rather would not like its people to know about - The site has been inaccessible for multiple days; and the error message (which is absolutely not typical for Swissinfo) is displayed in French only (which is what they speak here), but in no other language.

Well, the rest of the day was indeed rather boring. We had some cool guests though, including some blind ones from Tunisia and Chile, and sighted ones from a couple other countries, such as France or Liechtenstein.
Leo was being cuddled from time to time. He had a better day in general, at least during the summit; it is now easier to enter the hall with him and moving around.

In the hotel, on the other hand, there still seem to be skeptical glances thrown at us when we are hanging around with the animal. The other part of the staff is opening up slowly. And the rest of Tunisia I would say is still the same.

The dinner was just normal; I got a bunch of fish tonight and a Strawberry called but like apricot tasting juice.

Tomorrow, we might get visited by another high Minister of the Swiss government, who, as I was told, should have more time to spend with us than the president himself
I generally hope that tomorrow will be different than today, like more fun or whatever, at least something more than just famous and boring.

PS: Oh yep, for those who do speak more French than I do, check out this Article from the Le Temps Newspaper featuring, among other stuff, our stand and a very certain dog…

We just got visited by Samuel Schmid, who is this year’s President of the Swiss Confederation.

Mr. Schmid, after greeting me and my dog (asking how well he could adapt to the crowds and being astonished about the fact that the people had more problems with him than the other way round), told me that he had seen aiding technology for the blind in action when visiting the School for the blind in the city of Zug (Which, by the way, doesn’t exist - he must have meant the one in the city of Bar I guess) the other day. I then explained to him what my job was (checking web sites on their accessibility for those aids and their users) and showed him a small sample of what his own web site sounded like to users of Speech Synthetic Software.
He then called me one of his employees, asked for a business card, promised to send me something and encouraged me to inform his team of any inaccessibilities to be found on his web site.

Then, shaking hands and cuddling Leo once more, he left us.

Besides, we had another coupple of clients, mostly from Tunisia and mostly challenging my terrible French Knowledge

OK, here is the summary of our second day, which is over in about 25 minutes at the time of me writing this.

It started with a great breakfast buffet, which we were served in a special Access For All” -Team-Only-Room; this of course was done because there was still “this Dog” with us and there would have been too many people to ask for permission in the official breakfast room. Before arriving there, while we were waiting in the lobby for everybody to arrive, a receptionist had approached me, asking if I got all ‘installed’ in my room and if everything would be all right. Maybe because I am an idiot who doesn’t know how to not talk about cultural issues, I pored out my heart to her about the whole Leo business, including my sad feelings about scaring whole Tunisia away from us. She, which was good, seemed to understand and was not acting like offended, but who knows how much of the rest of the day was influenced by that little conversation.
Well, to finish the whole breakfast thing: Mine consisted of a Yoghurt, a kind of croissant, two huge peaces of unfortunately dry cake, which reminded me of my flights with Ethiopian Airlines, a plate of fruits, a huge seeming jug of hot chocolate, two glasses of pineapple juice, - well and maybe some other stuff, I don’t remember anymore.

After breakfast, as unhealthy as it is, I got to try out the swimming pool located on the roof of the hotel. The pool is rather small and is being cleaned and disinfected with a bottle of beautiful blue liquidity twice a day. So far, we haven’t noticed anyone using it except people from our team - but no, let’s not think about why it is like that. It was a hot day (even hotter than in Ensenada, Mexico), but the water was still pretty cold.

On the way back into my room, the miracle finally happened: A hotel staff member (it could have been the receptionist I talked to), approached us and made some of these kinda-kissing noises to attract Leo’s attention. Slowly, she came closer and closer to him and finally caressed his head. Leo, on the other hand was just Leo and started licking her hand joyfully. She then, saying something in Arabic (it didn’t sound bad though), left us, and for the first time since arriving it felt more like being welcome, not just accepted.

The whole thing then changed back into crap when we tried to get to the Kram Exhibition Park and to the WSIS area. After leaving the hotel (this time being told by the receptionist how much she admired my dog - this one must have definitely be the one I talked to), we were refused from entering the bus, even after the driver called his boss to ask for special permission. This caused a huge discussion between the bus driver, who did not want to take Leo, and the security people, wanting the opposite. But since even the driver’s boss wouldn’t accept Leo, the bus left without us. To get us to the exhibition park as fast as possible (not to say: To get rid of us), the security agents stopped a taxi which just passed us. Mighty as they were, they ordered the passengers inside the taxi to get off immediately; then, the driver was - erm - asked to bring us to Kram Park. On the way he told us that dogs actually aren’t allowed in taxis as well, but since he didn’t want to get into conflicts with the local police, he would fulfill their request.

We didn’t get far though: After arriving at the Kram Park, we were supposed to take an Exhibition Bus. It took about 20 minutes until we could board it, as soon as we entered, one woman jumped out of the bus with one of those screams I only know from movies I don’t like listening to.
Then, finally, at the entry to the actual WSIS Exhibition Hall, the Confirmation Documents, stating that Leo was allowed to accompany me inside, were not accepted as being official. It was I guess only thanks to the Swiss Consul just showing up in that moment, bringing an Arabic friend and a lot of good ‘connections’ that we finally made it inside.

As soon as we arrived at the Swiss Pavilion, things suddenly went extremely fast:
First, a very comfortable Posto (consisting of a Basket and a blanket) was given to Leo so he wouldn’t have to lay on the floor; then, a bowl of water was brought by a hostess. After that, a few more or less important and mighty people gathered around us, talking something about “scandalous”, “Have To Change”, “Differently From Tomorrow On” and “United Nation’s Security Centre”. Then, while Our FIRST CLIENT showed up and asked me to introduce him to Internet Accessibility Stuff, a lot of phone calls must have been made and emails sent. The result was, that a few hours later, Leo was confirmed to receive his very own batch, making him one of the official Team Members of the Swiss WSIS Delegation and giving him the permission to enter and exit the hall as frequently and normal as any human. Although they said that now, even entering buses shouldn’t be a problem anymore, we also got scheduled to be driven to the Exhibition tomorrow morning by the Hall Manager and in his very own car, which might make things slightly easier I hope.

The badge arrived just before we left the Exhibition Centre. There would have been an invitation of the Tunisian Premier Minister for any kind of dinner or whatever, but since the whole Swiss Delegation kindly decided not to go (you know - “Human Rights And Stuff…”), we got our dinner in the hotel.

The waiter was pretty surprised when we ordered Camel On The Spit. Camel Meat, he had to inform us, was hardly available in the whole city of Tunis and was actually only a South Tunisian Specialty; then, he offered us the Fish of the day, which was (what a surprise) the most expensive item on the menu card. I ended up eating kind of normal chicken. So far, the most special thing I ate was this meat we named Donkey Salami, which was part of our Monday Evening Snack. We are still not sure if it really was donkey though, because neither the French nor the Arabic words of the label were listed in our dictionaries. But whatever it was, it didn’t actually taste too bad; and I hope that one day we get to enter another of those Tunisian food stores and stuff ourselves with more - well - whatever…

The last great blessing of this night was one waiter serving our dinner, who managed to connect with Leo in a wonderful way. While his coworkers still spent minutes staring at Leo with this “See How Far We Already Are” faces, this other guy not only introduced the dog to everybody around, but also regularly came to our table, caressing and cuddling Leo. He then told us that he had two dogs and four cats at home himself and then even offered some left-overs to Leo, which I unfortunately wasn’t allowed to accept.
But he must be one of the reasons that now, when I sit here typing this, I have this feeling of:
Yes, There Is Hope, Even For Dogs In Tunisia…

After having lots and lots and lots and lots of trouble entering the WSIS exhibition area, an old and funny idea was picked up by the OFCOM, which we are representing here; Leo, the most intelligent Dog in the world, is going to receive an official WSIS Member BADGE.

This also means that Leo is now an official member of the Swiss WSIS Delegation, which consists only of humans besides him.

We got promised that this should solve any problems; tomorrow I will let you know if it really did…

Yes, I am finally able to tell everybody in the world that I have been to Tunisia. We arrived here yesterday shortly after lunch time, got picked up by some Swiss Embassy People, received one of those heavy WSIS badges to “always have with you wherever you go because it will solve all your problems” and did feel way more important than at home already.

The hotel I’m staying at is stuffed with security guards, carrying around their headsets and machine guns. One of them is located almost directly under my balcony, but there are also a few of them in the corridor, at all corners in the streets and wherever else you would like them. The reason they are all here is (no, it is not because of us, but) because my hotel is kind of close to the Tunisian President’s Home Residence, which has to be protected against all possible attacks. These security guys obviously make a very - ehm - unique impact on the actually pretty Tunisian landscape. To me though, they are completely invisible, except somebody mentions them. Since they spend most of their time here just hanging around silently, they just don’t exist at all to my ears - Thank Goodness.

The main problem I ran into so far was my dog Leo. It is obviously true that the Tunisian people don’t seem to be into liking dogs at all. It started in Geneva already, where I was requested to either put on a muzzle on Leo (which I don’t have) or not to fly TunisAir at all. So far, all airlines I flew (and I flew a lot of them) with Leo understood the fact that putting a muzzle on a dog who never had one before would more likely cause problems than being any good for security. But TunisAir does not understand. In the end, they were satisfied with me putting the Gentle Leader Training Collar on Leo, although this is not a muzzle at all. In the aircraft, noticing that Leo indeed was very nervous and uncomfortable wearing it, I took the Gentle Leader off again and spent the rest of the flight trying to hide Leo from the airline Staff so they would not notice.

Then, the day went on like that: From buses not wanting to let us board with the dog, to a crowd of security guards gathering when Leo would run around freely and relieve himself; or from the super market with the huge “No dogs” sign to the bar with four waiters, all of them just hanging around and none of them actually serving us for minutes and minutes. They are all communicating the same it seems: “Dogs Scare Us, Including Yours”.
Although we are obviously accepted here at the hotel itself, the ‘normal’ people indeed do have problems with dogs. I heard that in the Muslim Religion, which is what they have here, dogs are seen as impure animals - I don’t know the details though, so if someone knows where and how this is written exactly, I’d be glad for a note about it. But anyways: The result is that I keep feeling like the trouble maker wherever I go and whatever I do. this dog at my side is causing people to either run away or to gather within safe 40 feet distance and watch every move we make. It feels like impossible to connect with the people like this and I can only pray that they are slowly changing and maybe one day will dare to approach and overcome their feelings.

Well, Day Two will be different I guess. We are going to hang out in the exhibition park, surrounded by an international bunch of people. I heard that the security checks will be way more annoying than at an airport, but I haven’t been there yet so we will see….