The Day My Husband Nearly Sold Me

When we were still in our twenties, we couldn't care less where we ended up during the summer vacations as long as it was warm there. We spend the whole dark and cold winter with a stack of brochures of exotic far away places. In every picture there was a palm tree, an aqua sea and friendly locals with warm smiles, who would cater for our every need, albeit for sufficient payment. Fancy cocktails made of pineapples with little umbrella's were featured a lot too. All these places looked definitely interesting to us, pale and exhausted as we were. We should have looked at a map, where we would be ending up, but we didn't. And that year it proved to be a bit stupid, that we didn't. There was not a lot to pack, but I did it anyway. I remember even packing the iron and my warm slippers. I usually ended up with 3 suit-cases, my husband with a small plastic bag from the supermarket.

Normally, when we ended up at a foreign airport, we did notice that the locals were speaking a different language. And sometimes there were soldiers with big machine-guns, so it was better to leave for the hotel quickly and toward the pineapple-drinks with umbrellas. Once there it was safer to stay there and leave the local culture well alone; not leave the hotel-grounds altogether actually. But that is another story.

This time, to our surprise, the locals were even darker than in the other places and were clad in long robes. As we sped by in the rattling mini-van, we did see the odd palm-tree, but it kind of looked desert-like. When we arrived at the hotel, it looked like a fairy-tale castle, complete with turrets, it became clear: we had ended up in Tunisia. This is located in North Africa, and a Muslim country. All those years ago we didn't know a lot about the Muslim-customs, and probably offended a lot of people there.But we were on vacation, the sun was shining and there were palm-trees around the hotel.

After 2 days it became clear: just walking down the street became impossible for me. We had ended up in a small town and Western woman were not a common sight. At first I felt like a movie-star: people followed me everywhere, but also touched my hair and arms. This quickly became annoying and so, since we hooked up with an English couple the four of us went out together, to protect one another from all this touching. In the evening we looked for pubs. There were no pubs, drinking was prohibited, since it was a Muslim country. My husband was not to be consoled. The English guy could not believe that he was stuck there for 2 weeks without beer.

After a couple of early nights we heard music and laughter. So there was fun to be had after all! We rushed toward the music. In the hotel-bar about a hundred local men were having a merry time, all of them with a glass in their hands. We asked the bartender what the occasion was and he replied that this was always so on that day. I asked him about the no-drinking, but he shrugged his shoulders. My husband couldn't care less, within seconds he was having a cold beer in his hands.

In the aforementioned hotel bar the locals became friendlier by the minute. A man started a conversation with my husband, about this man's life. This was done in half English half french, which hubby doesn't speak. So half of the conversation was completely lost on him. But the gist of it was that the man had an orchard and camels. I'm not terribly interested in either of the subjects and being the only woman around my mind started wandering and not paying attention to the conversation.This was a mistake. I heard the man asking me if I wanted to see his orchard, and I declined. Then the conversation went on about this man's camels again.

I suddenly woke up from my day-dreaming when my husband said to me: "he's trying to swap you for a camel". I stared at my husband. "A camel, as those things we see in the zoo?" I replied. "Yes, but he finds you a bit skinny and so according to him you're not worth more than 1 camel". my husband said. I could not believe my ears. "And how many wives does he have already ?" I asked my husband. "Oh, a couple, so you don't have to do all the work." said hubby. The man looked at us expectantly. Was his offer a good deal or what? I looked around me. All these highly excited and very drunk men was a very explosive situation, if my husband took it any further.

Time to take hubby aside and have a Talk, before we ended up in a Tunisian jail. "Are you out of your mind?" I hissed. "You see this as a joke, but to him it's for real, in a moment he'll come with his drooling, spitting camel, and what are you going to do then?" My husband looked around him. Although he's big and strong, he didn't feel like taking on half of the population of Tunisia, to defend his wife. We hastily retreated to our room, and locked the door. "What were you going to do with that camel at home, put it on the balcony, provided you got it on the plane?" I asked hubby. He had no answer. But we had a good laugh about it. My advise is for all of you who want to go to exotic places: check out the local customs, and stay away from camels.