At the early years of independence and precisely in the Sixties there were in Kairouan hardly ten coffees shops where people came to relax after a day of hard labor and particularly after the Friday prayer.

At the beginning of the century and due to the lack of radio emissions, people gather to hear the "FEDAOUI", a kind of narrator of stories and legends or rather and straight forwardly a storyteller who always began his accounts with the famous introduction "Kan ya Makan fi kdim zman" (once upon a time …) before starting, the narrator sits on a chair with a cane in one hand and starts with: Seyf Al yazal, Antar Ben chaddad, Al jazia helalia...

The story is a complete narrative technique that could be added to an art of the charming verb and hypnotic was of all time present in all the cultures and civilizations but with different logics because weaving an institutional link always the human local traditions..

Then the radio made its appearance in the fifties. One remembers all radio stations called formerly TSF or rather noisy boxes! who were also served as objects of ornament with electricity or with big battery placed underneath.

The most famous post radio in the fifties were "Philips" (French made) the "Marina" (Italian) and "almani" (German)

People were charmed and enchanted by emissions like the series "Haj klouf" during the month of Ramadan, "fi dar ammi si allala" or "Ikhtaber Dhakaek" (test your intelligence), "Oghniat likolli mustamaa" (a song for all the listeners which my mother did not miss in front of her weaving carpets in the early mornings).

The small children treated themselves by gathering every Sunday morning with the emission of Sayda Alya "jannet latfel" (children paradise).

A little later the fashion is at the posts transistors (portables ones of the era) which considered for a long time as precious tools of show off as to catch young people with their hair buckled with a long comb in the pocket where they like walking in the local market or “Bab Jelladine” while listening to songs in fashions as "Wachreh laha- Ich Lawnana" of which the conveyed message is more than evocative. Thus, entering with full speed to the acoustic eroticism. Leaving you to take care of fantasize without non-existent clip.

The young high-school students discover unexpectedly the European and American civilization (films and discs of blues, Folk, Rock, country, Pop, …etc).
They had a preference for Radio-Tunis emitting in French language then it become RTCI , they listened obviously at home or at their friends to a varieties of shows as "Michel Servet" and particularly "Faïka" (deceased 13.12.2003) where her true name “Dalila Mellouli” with her emission headlight "the concert of the listeners” broadcasted everyday around midday.

The dedications were in the majority of anonymous cases, people of opposite sex did not dare to be identified in public by decency and tradition. You recall (“foulen” with a friend who will recognize “foulen” with “foulana” at the time of its anniversary to know which it is…). One is still at the age of the vinyl (45 and 33 turns).

And it is only until 1966 that the most informed coffee shops owners started to obtain television sets in black and white assembled in Tunisia (Carthage brand) to offer to their customers the first occasion to follow directly the Wembley (England), the games of the world cup of football (soccer) so much to a point that some heard for the first time of the names of distant countries like Paraguay and Uruguay which they were not able any more the following day to pronounce them correctly but with a really comic lapse (Parazok- Rukway..).

Nowadays the coffee shops are everywhere in each corner of street and we have no possibility to count them.

Mohamed Rebai
info@kairouan.org

Following are the old and most famous coffee shops of the city of Kairouan :