Monday 28 October 2013

Postcards from Algeria Part 3

Ghardaia
We took a bus from Laghouat and went the three hours further to Ghardaia, where we had the luxury of staying in a hotel.  I remember being absolutely fascinated by the fact that there was constant water in the taps, and even the trees along the streets were watered, when there were water stoppages in Algiers… right on the Mediterranean Sea! The merchants of Ghardaia are well known for their selling ability and I witnessed this talent first hand.  In Algiers, shopkeepers never seemed to care much if you bought their produce or not, and they certainly weren’t going to go out of their way for you if they could avoid it.  Many of them worked for other people and their jobs were secure.  In Ghardaia however the shopkeepers had a pride in what they sold and I remember one explaining, in great detail, the meanings of the symbols on the intricate pattern of a beautiful rug.  We arrived back to the hotel one evening and saw a tuareg man sitting on the wall outside, who we discovered was waiting for us as he had heard that my husband was interested in buying an ornamental leather sheathed sword, which my husband did buy from him.
Ghardaia
The women fascinated me, and the feeling was obviously mutual.  In Algiers some women wore hijab, others wore ordinary western clothing but it was always modest, and then there were the women, usually the older generation who wore the ‘haik’.  I always thought this was so aptly named as it was a large cream shapeless cloak that the women wore over the top of the their head which fell to their feet, and was totally open at the front so the women usually ‘hiked’ it up under one arm.  To me it seemed to cover everything and nothing.  Some also wore a very small face veil, often edged with lace, which always reminded me of a doily.  One evening, for a laugh, I dressed up in my mother-in-law’s haik and my sister-in-law’s veil, but her face was so obviously a lot more petite than my Irish peasant one, and it was tight so I could only wear it if I held my breath….not the most practical dress for a chatterbox like me.
Ghardaia
In Ghardaia, however, the women were covered from top to toe except for one eye through which they peered at the world… and me…..with a very fixed stare, and they had to turn their whole body to do so, so I would walk past and stare at them and they would stop and turn their body totally to stare back, and so the mutual staring society was in progress.  Again I remember my sister telling me of the time she was walking through the market in Nairobi, Kenya and she saw, coming towards her, one of the strangest sights she had ever seen – a man wearing all the tribal paraphernalia including, much to her bemusement, huge earrings that hung from his earlobes.  Not wanting to be impolite she decided not to stare, but to walk past and then turn around and have a good luck, which she did and found…. him staring back at her!
Ghardaia
Every afternoon everything shut and people went and had a siesta, much to my frustration as I wanted to be out and about.  My husband explained that it was too hot outside at that hour, and I was reminded of the song ‘mad dogs and English men go out in the midday sun.’ While he and our daughter would go for a sleep I would pace up down the hotel room itching to be outside.  My husband suggested I go and sit by the hotel swimming pool, but I lost my nerve when I realized I would be the only person out there alone.
Ghardaia
We visited a beautiful settlement nearby which was totally walled in and could only be accessed through one gate.  I was told that, in days gone by, the men all left the village in the morning to go to work and the gate was closed and the women were free to come and go from their homes without having to wear hijab. 
Ghardaia
I loved Ghardaia and we spent a wonderful few days there, but we couldn’t face the car journey back so we decided to go for the option of flying, until we hit a snag when, as soon as the travel agent saw my foreign passport he said that I would have to pay for my flight in foreign currency!  Yeah…. as if I was likely to bring English sterling to the Sahara.  Despondently we left the agency only to bump into someone my husband  knew from Algiers, and before we knew it…. we were on a flight back to Algiers!
Ghardaia

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