The Job

For all of you that i spoke to about what I would be doing for my job here in tunisia, forget absolutely everything that I said!! I started work yesterday even though my boss wasnt there so I just did some administrative things and met people in the office. I will say that the first day was quite overwhelming and I found myself near tears at a few points with the language barriers and feeling out of place and not being able to get back home without my roommates. But, everyone from that office was SOO nice and a few people even came over to our place later that night as a welcome thing. lovely to say the least.
But, the real job started today; turns out that I am in a buiding next door to the main office that is quite nice although my coworkers in that office are much older than in the other office. So what I am actually doing: working in the Purchasing Department that is responsible for purchasing all the raw materials and packaging stuff that the company needs for their products in tunisia. I will actually be assisting the director of the department in a regional project that she is in charge of for finding cheap suppliers for a particular product. My job also includes helping with budget work for the department. Obviously. This means I work mainly with Excel spreadsheets, Lotus, internal databases, a ton of numbers and with a boss that was super nice to me but seems to put the fear of God into everyone else on the Team- outright cowering when people approah her. This might all be a shock for most of you- i hope Katie80 was sitting down to read this. So this is going to be more of a challenge then I expected, but I think i'm ready for it. Good news is that my boss wants her team to practice English so I will work mainly in English with people- at least I'm getting one break!
By the way, I don't know why it surprised me, but EVERYONE speaks a language combo of French and Arabic here. My new friends will usually remember to switch to just french when us foreigners are around, but I am definitely going to the embassy next week to try and find a cheap Arabic class around here.
Oh and I forgot to say that our apartment is super nice in a brand new building with air conditioning and our own balcony. Just no internet... yet! Time for my first weekend in Tunisia!!

Finding My Feet

Hello all! So i arrived safely and without any problems in Tunis 2 days ago. As I stood getting my baggage, tears came to my eyes imagining how different things would be from then on and how much I would miss friends and family. Fortunately, that moment of sadness was shortlived because I was soon greeted by three AIESEC members who began joking with me as if we were age old friends. Ahh AIESEC! Instead of going to my apartment, I was whisked to one of their home's for my first home cooked Tunisian meal: yum!! And how welcoming his mother and sisters were. Despite my exhaustion, it was a top notch reception.
Later in the evening, we went to my new apartment to meet my roommates and to settle in. My two roommates are great: 2 beautiful girls that both work at Henkel with me and that have already been here for a few months. Dana is Polish and Ceyda is Turkish. There was also a visitor from Korea for the night and a former trainee from the Czech Republic with us for the night: both hilarious. Although my roommates are great, it'll take a bit of getting used to the arrangements for me because my "room" is actually a pull out sofa (comfy though) in the common room so I have no personal or storage space aside from a little bit in the room the other girls share. For now, I'll make do but we'll have to see.
Yesterday, the AIESEC boys took me to a beach nearby and boy was it beautiful! The water was so blue, a perfect temperature, clean and a ton of fun with people everywhere playing various games. I even got my first shot at futball! It really was a great day with such a soothing effect from the ocean and meeting some great new people. Even got to try the national (aka only) beer of Tunisia which is called Celtia and is quite good. More beaches to visit!
Tunis so far is mostly what I expected aside from a few key things such as languages spoken (i'm kinda screwed), feel of the city and a few others i will address in my next post!

Traineeship Rocketship

The next adventure begins in T-minus 6 hours. Still need to finish packing, but I'll be on my way soon! Next post will be from Tunisia!