From Fulbrighter to Founder
By Pauline Eveillard, Fulbright U.S. Student
When I think about my first week as a Fulbrighter in Tunis in September 2005, it was not only the beginning of lifelong friendships and connections to Tunisia, but also an experience that awakened my entrepreneurial spirit. At the time, though, I had no clue that it would play such an important role in my career and life beyond the research project that brought me to Tunisia.
My independent research was focused on the visual representations in reception room mosaics during the Roman Empire. I traveled to remote archaeological sites to see mosaics in situ; audited art history classes; studied in the library of the Bardo Museum, which houses an enormous collection of Roman mosaics; visited museums across the country; and met with students and renowned Roman mosaics scholars. Two years later, I applied this research to my master’s thesis.
In addition to the research component, a centerpiece of the Fulbright Program is to promote mutual understanding between Americans and the peoples of other countries, and this includes your host country. The most important decision I made was to live with two Tunisians, Zina and Rihab, in La Marsa, near Carthage and the capital, Tunis. Doing so not only helped me to bridge a cultural boundary, but also created lifelong friendships. One memorable experience was celebrating Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, with Zina’s family in her hometown of Gabès.
My Fulbright year was filled with adventures with Tunisians, expats, and fellow Fulbrighters. Admittedly, the memories blur together, but I remember many nights ending in singing American and Tunisian songs with friends. The Fulbright experience was an entrepreneurial one, where I embraced any opportunity and navigated unfamiliar territory without much structure. By keeping an open mind and a willingness to adapt to the vicissitudes of a different country, I learned as much about myself as I learned about Tunisia.
Here I’d like to note that my relationship with Tunisia would never have happened without my Politics of Africa class professor, Dr. Peter Schraeder of Loyola University Chicago, whose encouragement and class trip to Tunisia led me to apply for a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award in Tunisia. Thank you.
Over 10 years after my Fulbright, I continue to foster mutual understanding through the Northern California Chapter of the Fulbright Association and my own business centered on Tunisia’s young creative movement. In 2010, I launched Fouta Lifestyle, importing and e-retailing Tunisian foutas to the U.S. market. When I would travel back to New York from Tunisia, I would bring foutas back with me as gifts. My friends back in the states loved them and their versatility, and kept asking for more. That’s the moment when I realized that foutas were the perfect Tunisian product to import. I pay homage to my Tunisian friends by naming the different styles after them.
This year, my business is expanding to offer access to home décor and fashion products from young entrepreneurs in Tunisia. There’s a burgeoning community of entrepreneurs in Tunisia ever since the Arab Spring and the website will provide a platform for these designers to share their Tunisian culture with the world. That feeling of vulnerability when living in a new place and adapting to different cultures is a feeling that I also felt when starting my own business. As a result of my Fulbright, I know that within that challenging place are new opportunities.
