On the TGM train from Carthage

Hello everyone. I am sure you've heard the saying, it's not the destination but the journey that matters - today I'm going to tell you about a journey I took in Tunisia that was as memorable as the destination itself. Now most tourists who go to Tunisia will visit Carthage - it is one of the most fascinating archaeological sites in all of North Africa. Most tourists will make their way there in chartered, air-conditioned buses, but I chose to make my way there by train on public transport. There is a train (known as the TGM) which links Tunis town centre to Carthage and beyond. My journey into Carthage from Tunis was fairly uneventful, I even had a seat and managed to doze off for about ten or fifteen minutes as I was that comfortable. But it was my train journey back into Tunis that was memorable for all the wrong reasons.

The TGM Train at the Tunis Marine station 

As I got on the train at Carthage Présidence station, there was a group of young men who were probably about 15 - 18 years old on the platform. They were playful, boisterous but not in a way that was threatening. I just ignored them as they played amongst themselves, chasing each other down the platform, wrestling each other. As the train arrived, they got into the same carriage as me and I thought, okay, let's hope they behave in the train. But no, they didn't - and this is when I have to introduce you to the concept of train surfing. According to Wikipedia, train surfing is defined as: 

Train surfing (also known as train hopping or train hitching) is the act of hitching a ride on the outside of a moving train, tram or another rail transport.

Now, I had a quick look on Youtube and actually found a Tunisian news report on train surfing on precisely this line: 

As he train pulled out of the station, these boys forced the train doors open (without much difficulty) and hung out of the train door, even climbing to the exterior of the train carriage as the train was moving. At first, I was horrified - these teenage boys were going to get themselves hurt, they clearly had no sense of self-preservation and were completely oblivious to the amount of danger they were putting themselves in by behaving like that. I looked around the crowded carriage, waiting for some sensible adult to tell these teenagers to stop behaving like that, but no one even bat and eyelid. Everyone just ignored the teenagers as if this was something that happened all the time of the train. Maybe they knew that telling the teenage boys anything would have been a fruitless exercise. Or maybe they just didn't care. 

Limpeh in Sidi Bou Said near Carthage

Did the train driver stop the train because of these teenagers climbing out of the carriage? No. Did the train have some kind of automatic brake kick in because of the doors being jammed open by the teenagers? No. The rather crowded train was chugging along, with the doors open and teenage boys hanging on to the outside of the train. This didn't seem to faze any of the locals - as if this happened all the time. Only the few tourists on the train looked concerned and worried. I have seen some crazy public transport around the world, but this was pretty extreme. 

Now if this had happened in the UK or Singapore, no doubt some of the passengers would have said something because of the imminent danger that the teenagers were putting themselves in or to prevent an accident from happening. Or at least they would do so out of self-interest, worried that an accident caused by these teenagers would delay their journey. But oh no, not here in Tunisia. These teenagers were clearly having fun, it looked like, some kind of rite of passage to prove their manhood in the face of danger. I did think about taking a photo or even filming these teenagers, just to show you just how dangerous it was, but they were already taking photos of each other on their phones and I didn't want to encourage them to pose for me. If they were going to fall out of that train that evening, I wanted to be no part of it. 

Limpeh in Carthage

As a gymnast and diver, I am not averse to high risk sports. I suppose I have a rather bourgeois approach to the issue. Let me explain my rationale: when I was a teenager, I trained very hard as a gymnast and often injured myself. But I knew that if I managed to learn a far more difficult routine, then I would beat the rest of the competition and win the gold medal - I would only take risks that came with a reward. As a stunt performer today, I do get injured sometimes on set when performing high risk wire work - but I get paid very good money for the dangerous stunts I perform. I certainly would not perform these stunts for free, just for the thrill of it, given the risks it involves.

I failed to see what kind of reward these teenagers were getting from train surfing: pleasure? Fun? Respect from their peers? Is that really worth endangering your life like that? From a risk evaluation perspective, that's a pretty poor reward for the amount of risk they were putting themselves at. Falling out of a moving train could result in serious injuries, even death.  Then I wondered, well, if you had something to live for, then you would not be risking your life like that for a cheap thrill - you would want to stay alive and healthy for the things in life that matter to you. Maybe I am jumping to conclusions by assuming that these teenagers had so little to live for that they would risk their lives like that for a cheap thrill train surfing, but the amount of poverty in Tunisia is staggering and one can't help but draw a correlation between the poverty and the teenagers' behaviour on this train. Along with this misplaced sense of adventure of a blatant disregard for authority and rules - did these teenagers know that train surfing was wrong? Probably. Did they care? No. 

Limpeh in Carthage

As the train made its way back to Tunis, I witnessed a terrible accident on the main coastal road that ran parallel to the train tracks - there was a bus on its side and I saw some men lying on the road. From the moving train, I couldn't tell if they were alive or not, but it was a very gruesome indeed. There was broken glass and blood on the road, there was a huge traffic jam as a result. Did witnessing such a scary sight jolt some common sense into the teenage boys and made them behave in a more responsible manner? No, it didn't. The sight didn't even provoke much of a reaction out of them - as if this was something they came across all the time in Tunisia.

You know, when one talks about traveling through poor countries and witnessing poverty, this cavalier attitude towards the value of life is one such effect of poverty. Poverty isn't just about people living in flimsy wooden huts or earning very little money - it takes witnessing an incident like that to see and understand the more profound implications of poverty on the mindset of young people in a place like Tunisia. As the train finally approached the terminus at Tunis Marine station, the teenagers jumped out of the train which had slowed down somewhat (but had not completely stopped) and ran across the tracks, possibly to evade any ticket inspectors who may have been waiting at the station's exit.

Tunisia had been memorable in many ways

Good grief. That ticket costs just 0.7 TND, that's £0.24 or S$0.50. For that little money, these guys would gladly jump out of a moving train.  I watched them run across the tracks, scale a fence and then disappear across a busy street, wondering where they were headed in Tunis, what they would get up to in town that night. What kind of lives did they lead? That's it from me on this issue. Have you ever witnessed the impact of poverty on the attitudes of young people? What are some of your experiences? Please do leave a comment below, many thanks for reading, merci, shoukran!