My hometown Gabes a fabulous city

Gabès is a wonderful city of the south of Tunisia that is originally my hometown and that I like especially in the whole country for its amazing characteristics and unique charm that attract anyone to visit it and spend amazing times in its crystalline beaches and wonderful landscapes, In fact the city is a bit far from the capital Tunis as we can use either the common taxis for a duration of about four to five hours with a distance superior to 450 km, people can use their personal cars or by bus also that we can take also from the station Beb Alioua in the heart of the capital. I consider it my town my home my everything and i am so proud of it on all the richness and beauty that she could emerge.

1- The port

The city is also very famous by its port that had from the past a huge maritime activities especially the transport of merchandise through the little boats and also a great fishing activity, we can find many types of fishes such as tuna sardines, also very little fiches that are sold in the common souks organized every weekend. The most amazing characteristic is also the fishing of shrimp, very commonly found in the costal deep waters around the city, the shrimp of Gabès is industrialized and commercialized, the greatest restaurants offers it freshly cooked and ready to be presented accompanied by rice and white sauce or with potatoes and some pasta. The port is the main characteristic in which stands the economy of that region since the south is normally located in a more deserted area than the capital that is more crowded and more mixed. The city is also characterized by the multiple oasis it has that make people be so impressed by the view of palm trees everywhere inside the dense vegetation and inside a natural source of water overflowing through a canal and that people can taste and find it is so sweet water. The port is also localized in very strategic position that could even allow international transfers between the Tunisian south and the Italian one and this mainly due to its location very near to Europe. The grenade is also the special fruit of the city; very known through the county for their best quality they are harvested in the bay of palm trees and then commercialized, even in the capital people always seek to buy the grenades from Gabes because they are famous for their big shapes and very red color and characterized with the sweet flavor of its fruits that are even exported to Europe countries exactly like the dates that are also known to have the best quality and sugar flavor. In my personal point of view the port is the most beautiful location of the city and many newly constructed restaurants can be found nowadays near the port side where people can have amazing dishes with seafood.

2- Use of dried palm leaves

The dried palm leaves are also used by the locals for the manual creation of hats to protect themselves from the sun used mainly by the farmers who must protect themselves during their work from the rays of the sun, these locals also use the texture of the palm tree to create several bags used by women mainly to put their goods such as fruits and vegetables, but also palm leaves can be used to create carpets of very good quality, they can allow a fairly cold soil in summer and the people can use them for several reasons according to their personal will. This characteristic is also used to increase the economy of this region because these manually created good are all sold then in the local market and people have generate good revenue from them.

I was really amazed one time when I went to the city to see a farmer while working and creating its masterpiece, they usually do small nodes exactly like the tissues made from sheep wool and then they put them in very organized way to form in the final very beautifully designed bags and also of very strong quality comparing to actual bags, then they decorate it with sheep wool file in multiple color red and blue and can even write some Arabic inscription in them to make them more beautiful to people that want to buy them, I remember very well that my grandmother had a bag that lasted for more than ten years just because it was created from palm leaves.

3- Henna

The Henna in arabic words means the amazing vegetal used mainly as a dye to the hair, to the hands or the feet of brides during their ceremony of marriage but also have so amazing medical virtues very famous mainly in cities of the Maghreb such as Algeria or morocco that use usually a lot this type of plants ; its used mainly by most of the girls outside the capital in the hands during marriage because it’s a tradional fact but also because it bring the benediction to the couple and the prosperity, the henna is used on the hair for one morning or two people can do face mask by it, then their hair although it will not exactly give the same consequences and it does not really use the chemicals commercialized products, its smell is wonderful and it offers mainly magnificent therapies to the body in different areas. Some people even say that inside the amazing city Gabes, there is also buried the man that used to the hair dresser of the last prophet Mohamed was actually there and people consider he was a very kind person and very religious so they start to say it’s a good place and very tempting to to find the peace of soul by prayers and very amazing state of the architecture.

4- The industrial region

The city Gabès was in the first very beautiful and conserved city with its richness and natural beauty but I want to talk here in a very important subject that affected us a lot and also locals which is the creation and construction of a huge industrial area characterized by a huge chemical complex, of multiple factories mainly used to the treatment of phosphates, this new industrial complex is all new it dates of only several years ago. The problem is that these factories are extracting chemical substances in the air and smoke originated from chemical treatment that people would inhale in their lungs and that led in the past years to the increase of cancer lungs among the population mainly due to this lethal factor that had pejorative consequences on the health of these kind people. The worse problem is that the location of these factories are so near of human habitations, of animal rural areas also and the port even fishes were contaminated and I could see several times the killed fishing due the pollution of water as well, in fact these factories diverse their chemical waste inside sea water causing by this fact to the contamination of the fishes and sea food as well, the city now suffers huge problems of pollution that we need to arise the importance of treating this problem for once and all. Pollution caused in this city huge disasters the air full of chemicals had huge impacts on vegetations as well that became of very bad quality,contaminated and most of it died, the animals also suffered from the pollution of the air, many birds were found dead and little families of birds separated and the nests of birds have been destroyed thus causing tremendous adverse effects on man and the nature around him. This is why the solution to this problem and to all the prejudices the city is suffering is to move the industrial zone away from the housing zone so that industries releasing chemicals into the air and cement plants releasing sulfur that damages the respiratory system can be relocated and removed by increasing advertising campaigns, awareness-raising in relation to this major problem and the radical solutions that will solve this problem.

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