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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| Ghardaia |
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