Originally Posted by
yiffzer
No, Tunisia is not a third world country. However, Tunisian roads are known to be driven by some of the worst/craziest drivers. I'm not sure how I will survive that. How do you manage to deal with the boys throwing rocks? I know some Arabic so I could try talking to the boys and asking why they even throw rocks. I will be CouchSurfing across the country and meeting people everywhere hopefully.
I didn't find Tunisian drivers to be particularly bad. As for boys throwing rocks or blocking us in the road, sometimes we were able to anticipate their behavior. There was a group of boys in one village who were playing soccer. The moment they saw us they suddenly stopped and came running toward us. When they saw that we saw them, we were able to caution them and they didn't throw the rocks they had picked up. More often, that didn't work. If there was a local adult around, the boys would behave if the adult yelled at them. I speak French and the entire population (including children) is bilingual Arabic/French-speaking, so I was able to communicate without problems.
In most towns we had no problems at all, but the problem with boys did occur in various parts of the country.