Mum 14 June 1925 - 25 May 2011

It came as a huge shock when my Mum passed away after a mercifully quick and painless illness on 25 May 2011.....just a few weeks before we were due to go and visit.  I wasn't able to go to her funeral but instead I wrote the following and my brother very kindly read it out for me in the church.

Mum never fitted into any label, she was so full of contradictions – she was a typical traditional Irish Catholic mother…. except that she had no qualms about challenging the status quo within the hierarchy of the church, asking a priest once what did he know about marriage problems when he had never been married.  She was always at home when we came in from school, always had a cooked meal and the house was always clean and our clothes washed and ironed… and yet she was often not there emotionally, but off in a world of her own where the Holy Spirit reigned supreme. 

She loved reading, mostly religious articles, but also she had an interest in the world beyond Ireland.  She would often write down, on the backs of used envelopes, quotes she had read or heard on the radio, and while some captured her imagination with their spiritually uplifting views on life, others fascinated her for the beautiful way that the words were put together.  This for the woman who, at 14, begged her mother not to send her to the new girl’s secondary school because she didn’t think she would be good enough for it.  She had a wonderful grasp of the English language and often used it to good effect in her talking…. And oh how she loved talking!  She was extremely reluctant to get the phone in, but once it was installed you couldn’t get away from her, so much so that Dad always talked first because he knew he wouldn’t get a word in edge ways if he left it.  But she would so often spend so much of the time on the phone feeling guilty for…. talking so much!  Which was strange considering how reclusive she could be, at one stage not having stepped outside the house for 15 years.

She always said that she would never die in a boating or airplane accident because she never wanted to travel.  Instead the world came to her.  All through my childhood we had people from all corners of the earth and different religions come through our home through connections with my aunt first, and then in more recent years through my brothers and sisters.  And all were served piping hot cups of tea in her matching set of china cups and saucers, along with a plate of freshly baked scones and buns.

She loved us all in her own way and worried about us all the time, in equal measures. Whenever I rang her she would say “You won’t believe it, but I was just thinking about you”. Which was nice to be told, except I knew that there was a one in five chance she was thinking about any one of us. Whenever I had to leave to return back to England or Algeria after a trip home, I would ring her when I arrived only to find her exhausted and miserable because she had, in her head, traveled every step of the way with us, and inevitably always had a much worse journey than we did. She loved all of her grandchildren equally as had my Dad, and always had time for them, and was interested in what they were doing, even if she didn’t always understand it.

Her happiest moments were sitting in the armchair in the corner watching us all laugh and joke together and getting on – she hated any arguments that lead to a falling out between us, and was always so happy when people made up.  She had a wonderful sense of humour and it was always great to see her laughing, like the time she tried to blow out the candles on her birthday cake only for them to relight over and over again.  She laughed so much that her teeth fell out, and laughed again so much on the phone while relaying it all back to me. 

When her hearing deteriorated in her later years, she told me once on the phone that she had borrowed her sister Peggy’s hearing aid and exclaimed ‘it was so weird to hear the sound of my own voice again’ to which I told her now she could hear what we had to listen to.

One of my fondest childhood memories is that of my mum and her two sisters, Peggy and Nancy sitting around after dinner, when everyone had left the table, and they would drink endless cups of tea and discuss every thing under the sun, from the neighbours, the new improvements to Adare, her hometown, politics and the latest government’s blunders, the previous week’s ‘Late Late Show’ to world affairs and cooking or gardening tips.  They never finished until the whole world was put to rights.  I never realized until much later in life that, children come and go along with their spouses and their children, but siblings are always there for you.

A few months ago I was looking up her number on my mobile to ring her and stared at the number to figure out why it looked wrong – I had looked up ‘home’ instead of ‘Mum’.  When one of my daughters asked me why I still called it home, especially as it wasn’t the home I had grown up in, now that Mum lived on Dad’s vegetable patch… in a beautiful house I hasten to add, I had to think for a minute.  Then I told her that wherever Mum was, was home to me, and always would be.

My eldest daughter, Sarah, (carrying on Mum’s name) once exclaimed, ‘Oh My God, Granny!’  I looked at her in puzzlement and asked ‘where?’ to which she replied, ‘YOU’.  I had that same look of concentration that she had, with the tip of her tongue out to the side.  At other times I know that I purse my lips in the same way as she did, and often, when feeling overwhelmed I have been known to stand in the middle of the kitchen floor with my head in my hands…. Just the same way she did.  I told her once that it was scary how much I was turning into her.  To which she replied ‘you should be honoured’.  And I am.

When Vincent was small he used to kiss her every night and tell her ‘you’re the best mother I’ve ever had’ to which she would always answer, ‘and how many mothers have you had then?’  We only had the one, but she was ….the best one….. we’ve ever had.

Algeria - a Third World Country?

A tram in Algiers

I have heard it said many a time in reference to Algeria that it is a ‘third world country’, and I finally decided to look up the term and found to my surprise that this is an outdated description.  During the Cold War era the First World consisted of those countries that aligned with NATO such as those in Europe, United States etc, The Second World countries were those that sided with the Communist Bloc like the Soviet Union, China, Cuba etc and The Third World were the rest of the world!  A lot of these countries had a colonial past such as those in Africa, Asia and Latin America.  Nowadays the term Third World has been replaced with the more politically correct ‘Developing Country’ or ‘Less Developed Country’.

It may surprise some to note that Algeria is considered to be a ‘High Human Development’ country under the Human Development Index (HDI) which according to Wikipedia ‘is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living, and quality of life for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare. It is used to distinguish whether the country is a developed, a developing or an underdeveloped country, and also to measure the impact of economic policies on quality of life.’  According to the World Bank ‘Algeria is classified as an upper middle income country’ (Wikipedia).

I don’t blame people (which is very nice of me I think!) who come from highly developed countries such as Europe, Canada, United States, Australia etc. for thinking that Algeria is a poor country.  To all outward appearances it may seem so.  For me whenever I return to England and Ireland I am immediately struck by the apparent affluence that I see everywhere.  The one thing that always hits me is the way so many of the streets are so nicely organised with rows upon rows of nice neat houses, all exactly the same height, same architecture, same distance from the street, same front and back gardens, with pavements that are smooth and unobstructed.  In contrast to Algeria where it looks as if some lunatic got a position in town planning and just went berserk.  Someone will start to build a house beside a road, then someone else buys a plot on the same road and builds a completely different kind of house.  As time goes by more and more people buy plots, build a structure according to their financial ability, so that in time you have a street with some houses one story, others have moved up a few floors, some are finished, others not, some have a nice façade and others still have cement and brickwork showing.  While all this building has been going on, the road has deteriorated immensely what with the vast quantities of lorries rumbling up and down with loads of cement and bricks and metalwork, and the digging up of the road to insert pipes for water etc. not once, but several times. The pavement, if there was one to begin with, has all but disappeared under mounds of sand and cement, or piles of bricks.  I have often thought that Algiers is just one immense building site, because in addition to new building blocks and houses, and other amenities there are new roads being built and the construction of the tramway.  There is dust and dirt everywhere and nowhere looks neat and clean.  Even in old established parts of the city such as Bab El Oued, Haraach, etc. the buildings have been so overcrowded that buildings have been added on to the top, the sides, or wherever there is a space to plonk a room, so the once neat white buildings with their light blue shutters and balconies look like they are sprouting in all directions.

When I first came to Algeria in 1987 there was a lot of frustration among the younger generation who lived in cramped accommodation with their parents and several siblings, and who often had to wait for the older ones to get married before they themselves could consider it.  And, even then, often there was no hope for them to do so as there was nowhere for them live with a new wife or husband.  Families converted balconies into rooms and built rooms on the terraces, but it just wasn’t enough.  Since then houses and streets have erupted from land where there once were orange and lemon orchards, and there seems to have been an explosion of building works everywhere, so much so that nowadays many couples opt to rent an apartment at the beginning of their married life.  It’s still very common for the new wife to live with her husband and his family, but more and more are choosing to live apart from their families. 

Over 10 years ago it was quite easy to buy a plot of land and build a home exactly the way you wanted to for a reasonable price, but since we arrived the prices have sky rocketed and the cost of building has also increased.  At the same time more couples are choosing to continue working even after parenthood in order to get on the property ladder, or are living in apartments adjacent to their inlaws. The time of the terrorism in the 90s, the  big flood in Bab El Oued in 2001and the earthquake in 2003 meant that a lot of people had to be put into temporary housing, euphemistically called ‘chalets’ and you would think that these people crammed into a tiny space would be ecstatic at being rehoused, but usually the military has had to oversee rehousing of these estates because so many people refuse to move, or protest against it as they are unhappy with the area where they are being rehoused or the type of accommodation.  10 years ago across from the car park in front of the apartment block where we lived, there was a ramshackle shanty town comprised of brickwork and corrugated iron, which had grown up without any official permission, and when these people were being rehoused a lot of them refused to move because they didn’t want to live in a high rise apartment after being accustomed to a small outdoor space where they could raise livestock or grow vegetables.

In some areas just outside Algiers you will still see children sitting at the side of the road selling homemade produce such as the Algerian bread or vegetables or fruit, or walking along the beaches selling homemade doughnuts or mint tea.  This is more common during the summer when the school is on holidays, but child labour like this is not something you see in developed countries in the West, not nowadays anyway.  At the same time, from what I have seen, Algerians are very ambitious for their children and education is very highly valued…..and free right up to and including University level.

There are areas where people live in homes with no running water, gas connection or phone lines, but often these homes were built in isolated parts of the country where these amenities had not reached as yet.  At the vast rate of building expanse these homes are not isolated for very long and before you know it there is a whole town of housing which has sprung up without any kind of planning and all lacking these important amenities.  But that doesn’t mean that they have no water or gas or phone……A very common sight here is a small lorry with a small tank on the back with a long hose attached which will fill up a water cistern or other containers for a small fee.  Gas is very cheaply bought in gas bottles and attached to cookers and even heating systems.  And even some children here now have mobile phones, they have become so common.  And somehow…..everyone has electricity, although in some areas this can come and go at an alarming regularity.  But then when you see how many people have hooked their electricity supply illegally to one source it’s not surprising that the demand often exceeds supply and the system goes into overload.

When you think of a third world country you don’t associate it with a tramway, trains, or even a metro, all of which Algeria has now.  Admittedly the distance that the metro reaches is very short at the moment and the tramway is still in the process of spreading its tentacles’, although the progress so far has made a huge difference to the quality of travel in and around the city of Algiers, and for an affordable fee.  When we arrived in the country 10 years ago, both the metro and the tramway seemed a pipe dream, and people would not even consider using the train lines between the capital and it’s second and third cities on either end along the coastline, Oran and Constantine, because during the 90s and for a long time after there was a danger of the train being hijacked.  Nowadays people travel by train without a second thought.

There is a free health care system here too, with a local free clinic within walking distance of most people.  It’s true that this free clinic is basic, but it can be useful as a first port of call for minor injuries and illnesses.

Stock in most shops here are very limited in variety in comparison to the West, and a lot of foreign foods sold in the few supermarkets here are expensive.  I found myself staring at a pre-packaged meal in one of the supermarkets here and wondering to myself, who on earth would buy that kind of thing here in Algeria …..a meal like that wouldn’t go very far in the average home here, and most people would look down their noses at something not cooked from scratch at home anyway.  But they are sold here, so someone must be buying them….someone with money.

I suppose what I’m trying to say, in the most long winded fashion ever, that Algeria, for all its faults and idiosyncrasies is not the backward country that the title ‘Third World Country’ brings to mind for me at any rate.  I think it’s true to say that if you compare the worst of Algeria with the best of a Western country, then Algeria doesn’t fare too well.  But then, I tend more to compare Algeria to how it was when I first came in 1987, and, even more recently to how it was 10 years ago when we first moved here, and I can see how it has progressed in leaps and bounds.  It has a long way to go still, but then it only has had its independence for 50 years and is only now, finally, making up for lost time.

I don’t think that there are many Third World, Underdeveloped or Developing countries where I could have good enough internet access to maintain a blog!  But then…..in some minds….that might be considered a blessing!

Finally, forget everything else, my definition of a fully developed country is one that sells Cadbury’s chocolate.  Guess what I found the other day in a tiny local supermarket???

CADBURYS!!!

When a shopping list becomes an embarrassment

A small local shop

I thought I was being quite revolutionary carrying a shopping list with me whenever I did my weekly shopping here in Algeria, but little did I realise that this would, one day, jump up and bite me on my derriere.   My husband has become accustomed to me and my infernal lists, but it’s only in recent months that my eldest son, at 21, has been introduced to their wonders.  After a couple of shopping trips after which we’ve had the following type of conversation ‘What on earth is ‘Tam?’ (Jam)  and ‘That IS NOT an ‘S!!!!!’, he started to become familiar with my own inimitable style of writing (the results of a hen walking across a piece of paper after scratching in the dirt kind of describes it fairly accurately), and so I could confidently send him off into the wide world of….local shops and markets in the certain confidence that he would return with everything I requested. 

If you know anything at all about Algerian men then it’s that they do very little on their own…..they always have to have someone with them whether it’s to fix something, go somewhere, or perform any kind of task at all.  So it didn’t surprise me when my son roped in his friend to go shopping with him.  Then the other day he casually mentioned that his friend asked him what ‘ris’ was, and he told him it was ‘rice’.  When I asked him why his friend asked this peculiar question, he casually said ‘oh because he was reading your shopping list when we did the shopping’.  And then he added ‘he was at one end of the shop and I was at the other and he had to shout it to me’.  Then he went on to explain their shopping strategy:  His friend looks at the list and says ‘what’s sweetcorn?  ah, ok, ‘Maizena!‘ Next he sees ‘tuna’ no problem, ‘thon’ but when he gets to ‘chicken pate’ he’s wondering what’s this new kind of pastry (it isn’t, it should read ‘pâté’….it’s chicken type salami). ‘Toilet paper?  Ah, of course, Papier de Toilette’ but then he was flummoxed by ‘ Kitchen Paper’.  My son explained with his hands….toilet paper is this size and then Kitchen paper is twice the size.  All this in full view and earshot of the shopkeeper and other customers.  In the market it’s no problem as so many vegetables such as potatoes, onions, carrots are all similar to the French, until they get towards the end.  ‘What is this?’ and my son replies ‘Peppers’.  ‘That’s not a ‘P!’  Great.  So now, the whole world and his mother knows that my writing is appalling…..in addition to his friend actually reading it.  When my face had faded slightly from puce to pink, I asked him why his friend was reading the shopping list in the first place, he told me that he wanted to, that he actually enjoyed reading it and it made shopping fun!   This is what happens when you let two Algerian 21 year old young men loose with a shopping list.

Now my disclaimer…..I did learn to write…..properly…..honest.  But years of typing away on a keyboard has made my writing deteriorate to a woeful level.  And that’s my excuse….and I’m sticking to it.  I would type out the shopping list except I know I would then take all the fun out of shopping for my son and his friend, and when that happens….I’d end up having to do the shopping myself.  So I’m off to do something I thought I had left behind a long time ago in primary school…..practise my writing.

A small local shop

Being an oddball has its merits

The beach at the end of our road

When people, Algerians and ex-pats alike, ask me if I’m happy here in Algeria, sometimes I almost feel as if I have to apologise and explain why I am, indeed, very happy and content in my life here in Algeria.  With some women, especially those whom I meet for the first time, and who may have only just moved here and are still in the shell shocked state, I do try to make an effort to be gentle and considerate of their fragile mental state.  I don’t want anyone going away from an encounter with me thinking ‘why can’t I be like her? (Not something anyone in their right mind would usually assume in relation to me) What’s wrong with me that I can’t be happy here?’ or any other negative comparisons.  So I usually begin with the fact that, I’ve always been a bit strange or odd, not that you have to be so to be happy here, but it sure helps.

Just as in marriage, nobody moves to Algeria without a lot of baggage, and I’m not talking about the kind that fits in boxes and suitcases, but the stuff that makes up our psyche, a lot of which we are totally unaware of until something out of the norm brings it to the fore.  And, in Algeria, there are a LOT of things that are unusual to put it politely, bizarre to put it truthfully and, during those happy times when it’s easier to be positive about the country, you might even consider things to be quirky and amusing.

Your reasons for moving to Algeria are very important, dare I say it, even crucial to the success and happiness of your move.  Before you make the move to live here it’s good to remember the hadith (authentic saying of the Prophet Muhammed, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) in Imam Nawai’s book on 40 hadith: From the Amir al-Muminin Abu Hafs 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, radiya'llahu 'anhu, that he said, "I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, saying, 'Actions are only by intentions, and every man has only that which he intended. Whoever's emigration is for Allah and His Messenger then his emigration is for Allah and His Messenger. Whoever's emigration is for some worldly gain which he can acquire or a woman he will marry then his emigration is for that for which he emigrated'."  Similarly if you move here to please your husband or for the sake of  your children, then your reward will be in having pleased your husband or enabled your children to learn Arabic and live in a Muslim society.  But is that enough and…what about you?

Ok, let’s face it, very few, if any, of us grew up with a childhood dream of living in Algeria.  A lot of us probably would have been hard pushed to say where exactly the country is situated, if asked, before we totally lost our sanity and fell in love with an Algerian man. Similarly I don’t know if I would have shown such an deep interest in Islam if I wasn’t married to a Muslim.  But although I may have been influenced by him to read into Islam so as to understand him better, I didn’t convert to the religion to please him.  In the same way I didn’t move to Algeria purely for him or our children, I moved here also for me.  Which is a strange thing to say I suppose because then you might wonder….what is there in Algeria for an Irish lunatic like me.

It’s true that, at first, I was not exactly enamoured with the idea of moving here, but after a lot of thought, introspection and prayer, I made up my mind to make this move, to please Allah first and foremost, and, somehow, I just knew and believed that this move, as a result of this intention would also be of benefit to me.  It went without saying that it would benefit my husband to be near his family again and back in his own country where he was, to all intents and purposes accepted for who he was without any stereotyping or discrimination.  And it would certainly benefit our children to have a life where Islam was at the core, to learn and become fluent in the language of the Qur’an, to learn how to live in an extended family (not mine unfortunately but some family is better than none), with all the difficulties and blessings that can bring. It is also a life where the basics are not taken for granted and where children have a lot of the freedoms with which I grew up and which are lost for various reasons in a Western society nowadays.

The thing you have to remember about me is that I left home many, many years ago, not for a husband, or children, but….just to leave home.  I didn’t get very far, but London for me was just a stepping stone to an adventure that was just waiting around the corner for me.  The fact that it took me 20 years to get off the bloomin’ stepping stone is neither here nor there.  That sense of adventure and longing for something completely different to that with which I had grown up, is one of the reasons why I love it so much in Algeria.  Where other women are genuinely bewildered and lost by the contrast that Algeria provides to anything they’ve known before, for me it’s all an adventure.  But for so many women here, they left behind their families, their close friends, their security, to live an isolated life, made even more lonely by virtue of the fact that it’s in stark contrast to their husband’s life back in the bosom of his loving family.

Once Allah guided me to Islam Alhamdulilah, I met many different women from many different parts of the world, with very different cultures and traditions, and I had become accustomed to eating food from one dish on the floors (yes…… we did have dishes and a table cloth!) of friend’s bedrooms or various different mosques, trying to eat rice with my fingers (not very successfully….I could never get enough into my mouth so that I usually felt more like I was nibbling than actually eating.), and eating foods I, myself, would never have put together on the same plate, never mind the fact that I was sometimes surrounded by women with whom I could not communicate with anything other than a smile and a gesture.  In a way this was all preparation for the contrast of life in Algeria which so many women find difficult and which only adds to their feelings of being alone, isolated and strange.

Most of the ex-pat women I meet here in Algeria say that the first few years here were really difficult for them, that they felt very isolated and lonely, and some have even said that they grieved for their old life back in the country in which they grew up. I found the first 10 months here very difficult, but this was because I wasn’t in my own home, I was cooped up in a flat with no outside space in which to sit in the sunshine, the water and the electricity went off regularly, and I was so cold…..well for the first 7 months anyway.  I remember one Friday when the water had been gone for a couple of days and the washing was piling up, and the house was a tip.  My husband came swanning in from Friday prayer, lovely and clean (he’d been to the bath house for a wash) in his pristine white camis, full of high Iman having been to the mosque and listened to the khutbah, and full of the joys of life.  The contrast was just too much and I was so tired and low that I was in tears.  My husband said to me ‘well….do you want to go back then?’ and without hesitation I said ‘no, I just want better than this.’

One of the first things my husband did when we moved into the flat was to get the internet in….at a time when it was unheard of in the home, and we had to pay per minute.  But it meant that I could email my family and friends and this was wonderful for me.  When I remember back to when I moved to England I used to write to my family and friends in Ireland regularly, and I realise that this was my way of coping with being away from all I loved and missed.  It was a time before digital cameras, Facebook, and it was my way of sharing my life with those I had left behind.  It was therapy for me. 

So, I never grieved for the life I’d left behind at either time period in my life, nor did I feel lonely or isolated.   But then that’s probably because….I’m an oddball!  Once I feel at home IN my home, I’m quite happy to stay there….alone if needs be, although with a husband and 5 children all of whom are either nearing adulthood or already adults and still living at home, this alone time doesn’t come very often and is always appreciated when it does.  I’m an introvert and so quite content and happy in my own company (well the way I look at it…someone has to be!) and don’t experience the stir-crazy emotions that other women may experience here due to long periods of enforced isolation. 

However there were times when being away from home was very difficult and two occasions in particular when I experienced real grief and loneliness that were so strong they are embedded in my memory, and I will write about these another time inshallah.  I bet you can’t wait…….!!!!!

The view from the beach at the end of our road....who couldn't be happy here?

A lovely day out.....with a difference

A couple of weeks ago the children had their end of term holidays and I wrote down all the places they wanted to go, bearing in mind that not all of them wanted to go to the same place.  One of the firm favourites with everyone was the beach, and so one morning everyone got up to get ready for a barbeque on the beach.  But we live in Algeria….and we have workmen……in the house….when they turn up that is…..so there’s even less chance of anything actually going to plan.  And this day was no exception.  My husband and I left early to buy turkey, and also to get my temporary residency paper stamped for the umpteenth time at the police station, so that by the time we got home and had the workmen, who surprise, surprise did turn up, sorted it was around 1.00pm before we left home.  But having lived in Algeria for as long as I have, if I have learnt anything, it’s to grab any opportunity with both hands and run with it.

I love driving through the country roads to the beach with the fields on either side full of flourishing vegetables, past shops selling the most beautiful fruit and vegetables in all their glorious colours, and passing by hedges of bamboo that seem to stand to attention on either side of the road.  During the summer we usually frequent a beach that’s quite off the beaten track and therefore a lot quieter than the popular beaches, but this day we decided to go to one of the latter and were pleasantly surprised to see that it was almost totally deserted.  We were able to park quite close to a lovely spot on the beach where a fire was still smouldering away after its previous occupants had left it.  The boys went foraging for firewood and prepared the barbeque and the girls and I …..just sat and enjoyed the view.  I realised, as I sat there and felt myself unwind, that I have totally underestimated the importance of just sitting and being still.

The sea air gave the simple food the most wonderful taste, and wandering around the beach picking up shells and comparing ‘finds’ made the day a magical one Alhamdulilah.  As we were leaving I thought to myself,I hope nothing happens to spoil the beauty of the day. Almost…as if I had known……

As we were driving back I took some photos, and we came to a part of the road we had driven the previous day, where I had seen a glimpse of land jutting out to the sea.  As my husband’s idea of slowing down for me to take a photo sometimes means lifting his foot marginally off the accelerator and, as my camera is a simple point-in-the-direction-and-press-a-button kind, I decided I would be very clever and have my camera ready in my hand out the passenger window to take the ‘Perfect Picture’.  Suddenly my husband and the children in the car shouted, almost in unison, ‘The Camera!’  And I said, ‘what about the camera?’  Then I heard them all shout ‘The Policeman!’ I honestly didn’t know what they were going on about as my husband slowed the car to a halt and I looked at them all in amazement.   ‘WHAT policeman!  WHERE?’ I asked.  ‘The one outside the police station!’ they all shouted at me as if I was an imbecile.  WHAT police station!!!!  Honestly I didn’t have a clue for a minute until I looked back, out the window and saw a policeman come up to the car.  This is where my heart dropped to my feet, because one of the very first things my husband impressed upon me when we came to Algeria on holiday in 1987 that first time, was to NEVER take any photos of the police or navy, or any of their buildings.  And I’ve always been so careful to comply, but this time I was so busy waiting for the view to come in sight, with getting the right picture, I never even saw the policeman or the station, or realised that I was practically waving the thing in his face.  I handed over the camera and thought to myself that it was ok, as I hadn’t taken any pictures of them anyway, so they would see that for themselves wouldn’t they??????

The policeman was very polite and courteous and walked around the car to speak to my husband, but standing to one side, without actually looking in the car.  I have found this to often be the case when we’re stopped as a family, or even when it’s just me and my husband…..the police, out of respect do not want to encroach on our privacy and will usually stand to one side to talk to my husband.  On this occasion my husband got out of the car, and the policeman first asked if there were family photos on the camera (again this is out of respect as he didn’t want to offend my husband by looking at pictures of the women in the family, especially if there was a possibility that they weren’t wearing hijab), but my husband told him that there weren’t any…..just views of our day out.  Alhamdulilah I was so grateful for the fact that I don’t take any photos of people, and this day was no exception.

As he looked through the photos my daughter, who was watching surreptitiously from her vantage point in the back seat, suddenly exclaimed ‘They’ve found something!  They’re going back to the police station!’ As soon as she said it I remembered……that morning when we’d been chasing after my paperwork, I had taken what I thought was a nice photo of a general view with the new tramway……and…….a police station plonked right in the middle.  It was in the distance, but the unique blue and white colour made it stand out, and while I didn’t think anything of it at the time, the policeman, unfortunately, didn’t share my view. My daughter wailed ‘WHY did you take a photo of the police station?’

What I didn’t realise until my husband told me afterwards, was that the policeman actually said to him ‘let’s go into the police station where we’ll be more comfortable.’  If I had known this I would have had images of the whole spy story, cold war type ‘comfortable’…..the kind that brought up visions of chains and hands being hammered to old wooden tables with rusty nails.

We waited in the car and I sank into a pit of guilt, feeling so stupid and awful for spoiling such a lovely day, and also knowing that my husband was dog tired and really didn’t need all this hassle.  The children decided that they would watch for my husband to leave the police station to gauge whether he was mad or not – if he came straight out fast and didn’t say a word to the policeman who stopped him then he WAS mad and we would just all put our heads down and suffer the onslaught.  He did come out and came straight up to my window, handed me the camera and asked me to delete the photos I took of the police station.  My husband knows his way around a computer like nobody’s business but my humble digital camera totally defeated him and he couldn’t figure out how to delete them himself.  Then he asked ‘WHY did you take a photo of the police station’, and my reply didn’t sound any more sensible second time round.

He went back, and shortly after came back out, spoke to the policeman and then got into the car saying, ‘no more pictures of police stations, ok?’  There was nothing he could say to me that would have made me feel worse than I did at that very moment anyway.  It turns out that when he went into the police station he had to speak with the man in charge, who took one look at him and said ‘I know you’.  My husband didn’t recognise him at all, even when it transpired that they both came from the same area.  He was very polite and apologised for all the fuss but said that, with the Presidential elections only a couple of weeks away they were all being extra cautious (or, in my words, ‘jittery’).  He asked him a few questions, checked that I had deleted the photos (just looked at the number of photos on the camera), and then said to him that if there was anything he ever needed any help with, not to hesitate to come and ask him, and then he asked him ‘What was she trying to take a picture of anyway?’  My husband told him the particular view I was aiming for, and the policeman replied ‘But she can’t take a photo of that either…it’s owned by the military!’ 

I think it’s going to take a while for me to live this down…... if ever.

An Irish love story

My Mum had two sisters, her only siblings, who played a big part in my childhood and growing up, and who were always there for me even after my marriage and my becoming a mother.  Every trip home was not complete without either a visit from or to them.  The summer of 2008 was no different, and my Aunty Peggy came to visit me for a family dinner and get-together hosted, as always, in my brother’s home by my long suffering sister-in-law, their home being the very one in which I had grown up.  My Aunty Peggy had brought a dessert she had made, a berry crumble served with fresh cream, with berries she had picked from her own garden…no mean feat for a woman in her 80s who was in constant pain with the osteoporosis that deprived her of 7 inches from her spine. After dinner almost everyone went off to walk the dogs, or rather to be walked by the dogs, and my Mum and Aunty Peggy along with my sister-in-law sat on the comfy sofas drinking cups of tea and coffee, and I asked my Aunt to tell us, once again, the story of how she met Uncle Gus and ended up living in Kenya.

It was the spring of 1950 and while my parents were away in England on honeymoon her two sisters, Nancy and Peggy (Anastasia and Margaret to be precise and formal, although my Mum always called them Nance, and Peg), travelled up from their native Limerick to Cork to prepare the caravan, which was to be my parents’ home for the first 10 years of their married life while they built their home, for their return.  Irish families, being like Algerian families who seem to go on forever, my maternal grand uncle was married to a Cork girl whose mother insisted that any time any of the family came up from Limerick they should come to her home for a meal.  Somehow, without any help of the internet, telephone, mobile phone or any technology whatsoever she got wind of the fact that my aunts were in Cork and quickly dispatched her son to invite them for a meal.  While there her son asked if they would like to come with him to visit his brother who was convalescing from TB in hospital, and so that is how Aunty Peggy came to first meet Uncle Gus.  As she used to laughingly tell her children in later years ‘the first time I met your Dad he was in bed!’  He had been a teacher for the Jesuits but once he contracted TB they no longer would employ him so he was working as a rates collector. 

As time went on and she would visit my Mum in Cork she would see him in his mother’s house whenever she went to visit.  He finally got a teaching job, and a year later saw in the newspaper an advertisement for a job in the Aga Khan High School in Kenya for which he applied and was accepted. So he packed up and went, but not without first getting permission to write to Peggy.  At this point in the story my Mum interjected ‘you know….he kissed me before he ever kissed you!’  I cannot describe the look of total disbelief and yes, jealousy, on my Aunt’s face, or the smugness on my Mum’s, until she relented and said, with a laugh, ‘As he was leaving he kissed me on the cheek and said “Pass that on to Peg for me”!’

He corresponded regularly and was a wonderful letter writer but unfortunately Peggy wasn’t, and used to have my Grandmother constantly nagging her to reply. Gus eventually proposed to Peggy via letter and she accepted. Granny often said afterwards that she couldn’t believe she had ever let her go so far away and alone. I think that, at that time, my aunt was in her early 30s, and this was the 1950s and perhaps my Grandmother thought this was her last opportunity to get married. My aunt herself on the other hand would never get married unless it was the right person.   Uncle Gus then organised her whole trip

.

In February/March 1955 Peggy set off from Limerick to travel the breadth of Ireland to Dublin where she got the ferry to London. There she stayed for 1 night in a lodging house arranged by Gus, until his cousin came and brought her back to her home where she stayed until it was time to take the boat.

She sailed from London stopping off for a few hours in Gibraltar where the lady with whom she was sharing her cabin disembarked, so she had the cabin to herself for the rest of the voyage. They then stopped at Marseille and she was able to go ashore for a while and subsequently they stopped at Genoa, Ayman and travelled through the Suez Canal to Kenya. En route they went out in glass bottomed boats and saw the marine life beneath them. And in every port there was a letter from Gus.

She finally arrived in Kenya in early March and she and Gus travelled around and explored. Needless to say everything was very proper and she did not stay in Gus’ home.  They were married in Mombasa on 27 April, 1955 and I was always amused when I saw their wedding photos and it was raining!  To go all the way from Ireland to Kenya and still have it raining on your wedding day!!!  Not that it bothered Aunty Peggy one little bit… she was far too happy.  They went for their honeymoon to Nairobi, where there had been floods – so the honeymoon consisted of days out to different convents and monasteries!  They traveled up the mountains and fried eggs on the bare rocks, and she always claimed they were the nicest eggs she ever ate.

After their first son was born they returned to Ireland via England in 1956/57, but due to the Suez Crisis in 1956 they were unable to return taking the route Peggy had taken, but instead had to travel the much longer route South and around the Cape of Good Hope. In Cape town Gus had flu and Michael had an ear infection but there was a doctor on board to see to them and another of Gus’s cousins visited them there.

They were married for almost 14 years and had 4 children and a very happy life in Kenya where Uncle Gus became the headmaster of the Aga Khan High School in Mombasa. But in 1968 Uncle Gus was diagnosed with liver cancer and flown home to Ireland where he was brought straight from the airplane to the hospital. He had a whole line of seats to himself on the plane as he also had a nurse and medical equipment who traveled with him, and of course his family, who now included a little bird, an African Seed eater, who had fallen out of a nest and whom my aunt, who could never ignore a stray anything, be it bird, animal or human, kept wrapped in a towel on the journey and whose first few days in cold Ireland were spent in the airing cupboard.

I remember so clearly being woken up in the middle of the night to push over to let my cousin into the bed.  My memories of that time as a six year old were ones of deep disappointment….I had told all my friends in our local primary school that my cousin (the youngest was a week younger than me and was the only one who counted as far as I was concerned) was coming from Africa, and we all assumed….. as one does of course, being born in Africa…that she would be black!  But…instead she was fairer than me, being blonde and blue-eyed!  Oh the disappointment of it!  Her only redeeming feature was that she had her ears pierced…..so, at least, that was something exotic!  Aunty Peggy spent every day of the next 6 weeks going in and out to the hospital until Uncle Gus finally passed away.  The African Seed eater was named Twiggy and he lived for many, many years bringing much joy to my Aunt and her family.

My aunty Peggy loved Uncle Gus to the day she died and often, when his name was mentioned, she would have a tear in her eye. She, herself, passed away a few months after telling us her story, and, as my brother wrote in a text to me, ’Family gatherings will never be the same again.’

Workmen in the house

Our terrace/construction site

We have workmen in the house….yet again.  As I have mentioned previously our house is a work in progress, and in addition like any property needs constant maintenance.  As a result of our living so close to the sea the humidity and probably also the salty sea air can wreak havoc with the outside of the house and eat away at the cement and, more importantly, the metal rods inserted within the walls and floors which are supposed to strengthen the walls, but if eroded could actually weaken the structure.  So finally after putting it off and then not being able to find someone with an affordable quote to come and do it for us, we found someone who started work during the last week of December.  This entailed knocking down and rebuilding non-supporting walls on the terrace and on one balcony for a start.

We have neighbours on either side of us and one is absolutely wonderful and helpful and always has been from the day we moved in, and the other one…isn’t. As the walls that needed rebuilding adjoin the latter’s house, my husband, in the interests of good neighbourliness (in other words to avoid the endless whining and nagging he knows would result otherwise) decided to build another wall against the existing one so as not to have any rubble (or even a pebble, and this is no exaggeration) falling onto the person’s property.  The next stage of the work was to put a protective surface on all the outside walls that would protect them from the elements.  There are various ways of doing this but the best, according to my husband who did his research, is to put a thin surface of pebble sand, from the beach, onto the wall, and this can be done with a decorative effect.

Beach....on the wall!

Work started off very promisingly as often does here in Algeria and then came to a shuddering halt.  First it was because it was extremely windy, then it was because of the rain.  Then one day the sun was shining and there wasn’t even so much as a breeze rustling through the leaves of the trees… and still no workmen.  But there were the heaps of sand and cement, stacks of bricks and bags of beach sand stacked up all over the place to remind us of them.

After about a week they returned, full of apologies, and said they had been called back to another painting job they had done for the army and who weren’t happy with the colour so they had to redo it.  No harm done, off they started again, only for it to rain the following Saturday, the first day of the week for them and then they didn’t return for a few days.  This time it was another small inside job they had undertaken thinking it wouldn’t take them long and they would finish by the time the weather improved.  They worked for a few days and then started coming in much later in the morning and leaving early, because one of them had a workman of his own in HIS house.  Then OUR workman said that he needed to do a quicker job, one for which he would get paid, so HE could pay the workman in HIS house.  This is where I started to feel like I was bang in the middle of a set of falling dominoes

.

To give them their due and to be absolutely fair, they did keep coming back and when they did turn up they worked very hard, even to the point of doing extra things that the job threw at them at times.  They have also done a superb job so far and the finish is even better than I expected, and they have put finishing touches that weren’t in the original plan.  They have said that they like working for my husband because he doesn’t nag them, hang over them while they work, and is easy going when things don’t always go to plan – qualities I’ve been criticising my husband for because I’m afraid they are taking advantage of his patience.  In my mind it’s ok for ME to take advantage of his patience…after all he acquired it in the first place after years of living with me, so I think it’s my right at this stage!

The 'before' picture.....

The whole experience has brought out the split personality which I never knew existed within myself.  On one hand I want to absolutely murder them once and for all and bury them IN the wall, and on the other I want to placate them and treat them well so they will finish the job and clear up the mess.  I feel like an abandoned child when they don’t turn up and then so gleeful when I hear the work going on when they do.  At other times,  I feel like a hostage to their whims and wonder if this is a bit like the Stockholm syndrome:  I want them to stay and finish the work and I want them to go so I can be FREE!!!! On second thoughts it looks like I have more than one split personality.

To make the whole experience even more interesting, we have had our water cut off 4 times in the past few months with no warning whatsoever, due to the fact that the powers that be are putting in new underground pipes in our area and someone somewhere keeps breaking or bursting a pipe so the whole area is without water for a few days.  We have a water cistern on the terrace for such eventualities, but the first time the water went it was empty because the workmen had to move it to do the wall behind it.  The second time it was full but we had to use the water sparingly because although, everyone knows where I shop, what I buy and how much I pay for it,  nobody seems to know anything as important as when the water might return.  The third time it went we had water in the cistern but it only lasted less than two days as there must have been air in it so it wasn’t full to begin with.  My husband brought plastic barrels of water to the house to keep us going and especially for the workmen.  At one stage we had that surreal moment when we had no water in the taps but the living room was flooded….from the workmen pouring water down the walls outside it.  Only in Algeria could you have drought and flooding at the same time.  What with workmen outside the house cutting off the water, and workmen inside the house making the mother of all messes, I’m trying my very level best not to become paranoid and think someone is out to get me….or at least the last vestiges of my sanity.

The Algerian version of the mafia 'cement shoes' perhaps?  I promise......there was no leg attached to this shoe!

At this moment in time the balcony outside my bedroom, the front courtyard and the rooftop terrace are a white cement hell with heaps of rubble, cement, sand, rubbish etc.  But the good news is that they have finished the middle courtyard and have actually cleaned up after themselves and done a really good job mashaAllah! Now they are going to start on the back courtyard which entails going back and forth through the kitchen which makes me think that the worst is still to come…….

I am extremely conscious that I am very fortunate to have a roof over my head to worry about in the first place Alhamdulilah, and although I am happy that we are finally getting around to doing this work, I know also, that nothing lasts forever, so I have to keep it all in perspective...a bit difficult at times when you're picking flecks of white cement out of your hair.

....and 'After;