Not only 'mad dogs and English men go out in the midday sun'

The view from the end of our road

Over the years we have had various guests from abroad who have bravely ignored all the dire warnings about the dangers of travel to Algeria, and have come and stayed with us and created some very happy memories with us. 

One group who came to stay with us for 8 days were of Pakistani origin but born and brought up in Kenya, after which they moved to UK from where a few of them moved on to Canada.  The only man in the group was a very good friend of my husband in England and he and his English wife had shown us a lot of kindness and support throughout the years we lived near them.  He brought along his two sisters, one of whom travelled from her home in Canada along with her 16 year old daughter.

One of my favourite views coming into Algiers Center from 'our  side

The morning after they arrived the two sisters were up on the terrace supposedly admiring the view of the sea but instead looking down into our neighbour’s back garden and shouting down ‘Asalaam Alaykum’ to them at the top of their voices…..neighbours we had very little to do with up to this point.  Soon after they went out to go down to the sea but somehow managed to wangle themselves an invite into the very same neighbour’s home which was in the opposite direction, bringing back home a plate of goodies. This was just the first morning and I started to wonder if our fragile relationship with our neighbours was going to survive their visit.

Their enthusiasm for soaking up as much as they could of the unique atmosphere of Algeria was, admittedly infectious and rather endearing, and they had a wonderful sense of humour which meant a lot of laughter echoed throughout the house.  The two sisters were older than me and, like all sisters, bickered which sometimes bordered on the point of a full-blown row, in the middle of which they would often stop and invite me to sit between them and relax.  I stared at them disbelievingly and told them I’d be safer sitting in a war zone!  They often chatted away in Urdu and then would turn to one of us and ask ‘what do you think?’  I dared not tell them.

Everything seemed to remind them of somewhere else…Dubai, Saudi, Kenya…etc.  Funnily enough nothing reminded them of Pakistan because contrary to their outward appearance and obvious Pakistani cultural preferences…none of them had ever set foot in Pakistan.  A few times it was on the tip of my tongue to say it all reminded me of Algeria but I kept quiet, and had my revenge when a few years later they returned to Kenya after many years absence and drove their brother mad by saying how much everything reminded them of…..Algeria!!!! 

Ketchaoua Mosque, Algiers

They loved everything and, to be honest even though they were exhausting in their wish to see most of Algeria (we are talking about a country 9.8 times the size of mainland UK) in 8 days, they were easy to please.  As fast as I chopped carrots for the dinner, they ate them exclaiming with every bite how they hadn’t tasted carrots like that in years.  The ate everything I put in front of them….as long as it was accompanied by a dish of rice and they were very much hands on in helping with the cooking and the washing up.

There were many times when we were outside and I was so grateful for wearing a niqab…for all the wrong reasons.  They totally ignored the fact that English and Urdu are not universally spoken or understood here in Algeria and just chatted away to every shopkeeper and vendor nevertheless.  They decided that they just HAD to make ‘mandazi’s, something my sister had introduced us to years ago, which were the Aisan version of a doughnut, but whereas my sister’s recipe did not include coconut it was essential in their recipe.  So off we went hunting down the crucial and very elusive coconut milk.  They would walk into a shop and ask for ‘halib’ and be shown the long-life milk cartons and then they would say ‘no, no…..we want COCONUT halib’ which invariably elicited a blank stare from the poor beleaguered shop-keeper.  Eventually it occurred to me to point to a Bounty bar and ask them for ‘halib’ made with that…and hope they didn’t bring out a chocolate milk carton.  Oh no…they didn’t have that kind of milk, but wait here a minute and they would go down the road and ask in the next shop if they had any.  So many times it went like that….the Algerian shop-keepers were so eager to please the foreigners and find them what they wanted.  We never  did find the coconut milk and they had to make the wretched things without them, which tasted fine to me.  Of course they couldn’t just make them with anything I had in my kitchen…..no….they needed a ‘tawa’ or griddle which they just had to borrow……… from the neighbours.

The Port of Algiers

They were very vehement in their desire to see the Sahara – coming to Algeria and not going to the Sahara was like going to Mecca and not visiting the Kaaba….their comparison….not mine.  So they piled into our car in the very early hours of the morning along with my daughter (and the flamin’ mandazis), and my husband drove them the 10 hours drive to the Sahara.  While my husband collapsed in a heap and slept for a while they spent their time walking around the beautiful sand dunes and taking pictures of themselves and the camels and picking up Desert Roses, which are natural formations of sand in the shape of roses.  They ate at the home of someone who was a friend of a friend of my husband, because, in Algeria everyone is a friend of someone.  They were offered a place to stay for the night but our guests were adamant that they wanted to return ‘home’.  So my husband drove them 10 hours journey back to our home, stopping once for a little rest on the way.  Our guests soon felt the full force of the lyrics of a song ‘mad dogs and English men go out in the midday sun’, when they became really ill on the journey home suffering from sun stroke and dehydration.

They recovered quickly to attempt to see the rest of Algeria in the remaining time of their holiday and when they did leave, we all collectively collapsed in a heap.  But…..to be honest…..I would have them all back again tomorrow because, simply, they loved it here, they appreciated our efforts and they were very good fun, which is all I ever ask of a guest.

Port of Algiers

Ants!

I am not in the least bit squeamish about most creepy crawlies apart from cockroaches, or ‘grillos’ as they are called here in Algeria.  I used to be absolutely petrified of spiders when I was younger and could not go to sleep once I knew there was one in my bedroom no matter how small.  As soon as my Mum heard me call her in that frantic tone she knew immediately ‘it’s a spider’.  There’s nothing like moving to a country where there are cockroaches and geckos to help see spiders in a rather harmless and kind of mind-their-own-business frame of mind…I might even go so far as to say that they almost seem nostalgic.

I have never minded ants…..actually I’ve always rather liked them.  They are hardworking and industrious and mind their own business…..until now.  Now……they are driving me, literally, up the walls.  We’ve had them in the kitchen and the bathrooms in previous years and they were annoying but not to the point where they drove me crazy…..until this year…..when they, in their hordes of millions, decided to make numerous homes in the brickwork behind my kitchen walls and around my kitchen counters.  At first it was a case of clearing a few off the kitchen counter between the cooker and the sink…the one I use the most.  I used to spray them with a mixture of bleach and water, but after a few incidents where one of my daughter’s favourite tops had a red, discoloured line where it came into contact with the counter top, I switched to vinegar and water which was a lot kinder on my family’s clothes, but had the same effect on the ants….although unfortunately only a temporary one.  They obviously went off and regrouped and started to come out in their hundreds…..they were on two of the counters, the cooker top and the sink. 

Now I must admit to feeling a bit guilty about my absolute wish to totally annihilate every ant in my home.  But it did start to feel as if these little creatures were taking over my whole life.  In my Aqeedah class we were studying the Prophets and our homework was to research one of the Prophets.  I chose Solomon and found myself even here immersed in ………. ants...... because in the Qur’an, in Surah An-Naml  Allah tells us about the Prophet Solomon (May Allah’s blessing be upon him) who had the ability to communicate with the animals and birds.  He was travelling through a valley with his army of soldiers and he overheard an ant warning all the other ants to return fast to their homes in case Solomon and his men would tread on them by accident.  So of course I felt like a big giant ogre battling tiny armies of ants and I felt bad. 

One of my friends suggested talking to the ants.  Yes….tallking….to….the……ants and asking them nicely to leave my home.  She told me that her husband had done that and that it had worked for them.  Well…..I decided to do my whole ant whisperer thing and I asked the ants, nicely, to leave my house….I asked in English, I asked in derja, I asked nicely, and I asked firmly and then I threatened…..and the ants totally ignored me and continued on their merry way taking over my kitchen.  Another friend suggested I do what she does and just sweep them up in a dustpan and throw them out into the garden.  I had visions of me telling my family that there was no food cooked because I was too busy ushering hordes and hordes of ants out into the garden.   I would come downstairs in the morning and the first thing I had to do was to do battle with the ants – they were all over the sink, all over the counter and the cooker top. Everything seemed clear until I started chopping up meat for dinner or one of the children left a jammy knife lying around and suddenly my chopping board or the knife was totally covered in ants that appeared to come out of nowhere.  Who knew that ants loved raw chicken, turkey and meat?  I always thought it was only sweet things that attracted them.

So I sprayed and sprayed and then got crafty and, after doing some online research I placed little mounds of icing sugar mixed with equal portions of bicarbonate of soda to entice them to eat the latter and bring it back to the nest and kill the lot of them.   I waited and waited for it to work, and I watched as crowds of ants happily dived in probably thinking all their birthdays had come at once.  Then I began to have a sneaking suspicion that slowly but surely became a certainty, that these ants were having a laugh at me.  I could almost swear that I saw them waving at me from the mounds of white goodies I had so generously donated to them and I’m sure if I had Solomon’s (may Allah’s blessings be upon him) gift of being able to hear them, I would hear them shouting  ‘PARTAAAAAAAAAY!’

Having done my research and watched them for hours (at least it felt like hours) and learning more than I ever wanted to know about them, I will be honest and say that they are really amazing creatures, mashAllah.  Their power of smell must be phenomenal as they have proved to me so many times.  One day I was chopping meat for the freezer and did it on the table which, with no connections to any counter or worktop is the one place I feel I can put food with the security that ants won’t be able to get at it.  I could not believe my eyes when I suddenly noticed a crowd of them on the corner of the table.  When I investigated I saw that they had traveled across the kitchen floor, up the chair, and from there, climbed up the tablecloth the end of which was just barely touching it, and up onto the table.  Another time they climbed across the kitchen floor, up the side of the freezer and across the top to reach a small opened container I had left there with some of my icing sugan/bicarbonate conconction……how ironic.....now I KNEW they were having a laugh!

So then I decided to go back to the source and I started to really study them and try to find out their exit holes.  Do you have any idea of how long it takes an ant to find its home! These creatures that  are so super-efficient in so many ways take an enormous amount of time wandering around looking for the entrance to their home.  If I didn’t know better I might almost think these ants were wandering around trying to throw me off the scent so that I would give up and go away and not discover  their little hidey holes….but they’re not that clever…..are they???.Or it could just be that they are like Algerian men…..unable to go from A to B without going via Z e.g. I send my 13 year old son out for milk from the shop that is 5 minutes’ walk away and he returns 2 hours later. He says, ‘I went to see my friend,’   who, of course, lives much further away than the shop. After quite a lot of time watching the ants I discovered them emerging from behind the tap over the sink, from three holes  beneath two of the counter worktops, along the gas pipe down onto the cooker, from a teensy weensy hole on the window sill over the sink and from the bottom of the wooden frame of the kitchen door.  Do you have any idea of how many woman-hours it took of me watching them to discover these little holes?

I then rolled up my sleeves and started mixing cement in a little box to cover up all the holes, and, in the process learnt all I never wanted to know about mixing cement….at first it seems like liquid which is great for doing the fiddly jobs like around the back of the tap over the sink, then it becomes drier and clings together a bit better which is great for bridging gaps in the cupboards under the counter.   The latter sounds easier than in actual practice because it’s very difficult to reach in under the counter worktop unless I remove the shelves and actually lie in the cupboard….with all the excess cement falling on top of me.  The only alternative was a mirror, my mobile phone, a tin of mushrooms and a tin of tuna.  I put the mirror on the shelf pointing up at the hole, I put the flashlight on in my phone and faced it too towards the hole and propped it up with a can of mushrooms on its side against a tin of tuna to stop it sliding off…..I think a tin of any kind would probably do the trick!  Then I started to fill in the holes all along the underside of the worktop, and in the other holes around the kitchen including following the gas pipe up the wall and across the top until I found where it was screwed to the wall and where the ants were emerging in their hundreds. I even went outside the kitchen into the back garden and covered up any holes I could find there from where they could enter the house.  It’s an exhausting and time consuming process and the song ’99 miles from LA’ kept coming into my head except in my case it was ’99 miles of counters and walls’.

I felt a great sense of satisfaction once I’d finished as I felt as if I’d reclaimed my kitchen, and was so happy to get up in the morning and find my kitchen ant-free.  But then…….I realised……the ants were just lulling me into a false sense of security because slowly but surely they all started to emerge again!  When I stopped pulling my hair out and screaming like a banshee I  looked and discovered that they had just moved along and found other holes from which to emerge and torment me.  So again I got out my cement and….well you know the drill.  Whenever any of the kids came into the kitchen all they saw was me either hunched down staring underneath the counter or standing in the middle of the kitchen floor staring up at the pipework at the top of the walls.  At other times I started to relay all the new cubby holes I had found or my new plan of extermination to the point that my daughter told me I was becoming extremely boring….my only topic of conversation was ants.  And when she caught me shouting ‘THERE!  TAKE THAT!  I GOT YA!’ at my miniscule adversaries she started to really worry about my sanity. 

When I found that they were emerging from the top of the wall all along the other side of the kitchen where three pipes came out of the wall at the same point I nearly cried.  They were using the pipes as some kind of super-highway where they careened along at neck-breaking speed all along three walls to climb down the gas pipe onto the cooker top (no matter how clean I kept it).  I might have found their resilience and ingenuity amazing….if only they weren’t in MY house!  I felt utterly and totally defeated because there wasn’t any way I could get my pudgy fingers into the holes between the pipes.  I also discovered something new about ants….they can excavate as I would find new holes right beside the ones I had blocked up.

So now I feel that I have no recourse left to me other than to go out and buy a gun.  Now……before you all write me off as a total lunatic with visions of me in my kitchen taking pot shots at my walls trying to shoot every ant in sight,(although I must admit it’s a very appealing thought in my ant-obsessed mind) I will elaborate and say a silicone or caulk gun and hope that this will reach into areas where no human has been before.  It’s either that or go with one of my sons’ suggestions and just blow the whole kitchen up and start again…..extreme as it sounds don’t think I haven’t considered it….in one of my manic moments.  Throughout all this battle there is one tune that keeps coming into my head ‘I WILL SURVIVE!’  But I’m not sure that’s my own battle cry….or just the ants getting inside my head…….

Oran

One of the unforeseen disadvantages of moving to Algeria is that I have seen less of the country than I did when I came here on holiday.  Somehow, the settling down process has taken every ounce of our strength and every minute of our time, and when we do get a chance to go and explore we have no money…or we have the money but work and school and University and exams all get in the way.

So when my husband suggested a fool-proof means of visiting and staying in Oran I jumped at the chance.  He had a friend (don’t they all?) whose wife was from there and her in-laws had an empty flat beside their own one and we could stay there, just a short distance outside Oran.  My eldest son, allergic to the idea of travelling that distance with his siblings and parents in the confined space of a car, decided he had more interesting things to do like catching up on his sleep and hanging out with his friends.  The two girls took some persuasion, but after explaining that no, we were not going to stay with strangers, we were going to stay beside them, and we would have a chance to explore Oran, they decided to be adventurous and come with us.  The two youngest boys needed no persuasion – a road trip to Oran?  Yipee!

When I asked my husband to ask the brother what we needed to pack in the way of kitchen or bedding equipment I was told not to bother, and so I clamped down the tiny voice of doubt in my mind by reminding myself we were only going for 2 days…what could go wrong?

A unique way of growing trees!

The day came and we were packed and ready for just after lunch time as we were to follow the brother who was going to travel down with us in a separate car to collect his wife and children who had been staying there on holiday.  So we waited for his call to say he was ready, and we waited, and we waited. We prayed Asr prayer, and when it came to Maghrib the girls and I decided we were no longer going to go because it was just too rude to land in on a family of complete strangers at midnight or maybe even later.  My husband who had been out all day returned home to a mutiny with us women unpacking and planning a nice quiet weekend without him or the boys.  When he told the brother, HE rang back and said, honestly it was no problem…we were all welcome and we must come.  After quite a bit of back and forth phone calls and heated discussions between us women and my husband, my husband informed me that the brother’s family absolutely insisted that we come.  I knew my husband really wanted me to go with him so I relented, purely to please him, but I really wasn’t happy about arriving in a strange house with  strange people in the middle of the night. The girls really didn’t want to go at this stage and I persuaded my husband to let them stay behind.  When all the children realised that I was going without either of the girls each of their reaction, from all five of them and my husband, was ‘how are you going to manage?  You can’t speak the language. How are you going to communicate with your hostesses?  You need at least one of the girls with you!’  I told them all that I was a bit on the old side to need babysitting and if this family absolutely insisted on me coming….then THEY could put up with the consequences….ME!

The Basilica of Santa Cruz

As we set off at 8’0 Clock at night I sat in the car and prayed to Allah ‘You know this is such a daft thing to do…it’s rude and I’m sorry but it’s not up to me.  I really don’t want to do this but I’m doing it purely for Your Sake.  Just help me get through it.’  My husband was full of the joys of spring on the journey down and Allah answered my dua and I managed to be civil to him the whole way!

Inside the Basilica of  Santa Cruz

We arrived in at midnight and my husband and second youngest son disappeared off into a room, and I was ushered into another room with my youngest son.  The brother’s wife and her sister both greeted me and then brought in a complete meal…chorba, main meal, bread, salad…the works.  I barely touched anything as it was late and I was tired….and extremely embarrassed.  They wanted to know where the girls were and I told them that they had stayed behind because it was too late…and was greeted with puzzled stares.  Anyway, somehow, I got through the next hour and they showed me to the bathroom and when I returned they had made a bed up for me on the canopy.  So much for staying in the flat next door!  They had made another bed for my son, and then there was a third bed made up on the floor where the hostess settled down for the night, and I realised that this was out of courtesy to me.  When I came to Algeria on holiday once, without my husband, I went and stayed with his brother and his wife and when it came to night time, for the first few nights she insisted on sleeping in the same room as me.  I found it all very odd but it was Algeria and peculiarity and abnormality was part and parcel of my observations here so I never remarked on it.  It wasn’t until sometime later, either on a forum or Facebook that someone made a similar comment and I discovered that  this was considered to be part of a hostess’s duty in ensuring the comfort of her guests, because it was considered discourteous to leave them sleep on their own in a strange house!

Inside the Basilica of Santa Cruz

The next morning I tried to communicate with my hostess and I remember so well, as she made way for me to go to the bathroom she muttered to herself ‘ma famt waloou’ (I don’t understand anything), and I burst out laughing.  She looked behind at me and when she realised that I had understood her she also started laughing and from there on in everything was fine.

I met her married daughter, her parents and we all had breakfast and then my husband, the boys and I went to look around Oran.  It was winter and the day was quite foggy so the pictures I took were not all that brilliant, but we had a good look around and bought a take-away, before returning to the house for the evening meal at our host’s insistence.

My youngest son had deserted me in favour of a much younger playmate and I was left to fend for myself, communication wise.  By the time I left the next morning, somehow,  I had managed to learn the whole family history and we had all become good friends.  That’s the thing about being Irish….we never let a little thing like a language barrier get in the way of a good story...... or getting all the 'sca' (Irish slang for gossip).

I think we caught him on a bad day!

The life of a revolving door

One of the nicer selections of patisserie cakes

When we were still in England, before we moved to Algeria I really believed that one of the big advantages for me in moving to Algeria would be all the free time I would have to myself.  Time was slower there; at least whenever I was on holiday it certainly seemed the case.

My husband told me that if I didn’t feel like cooking or baking I wouldn’t have to as there was plenty of cooked food to be bought and the patisseries shop cakes were wonderful and very cheap.  I don’t know who got more of a shock on that score, him or me, but after a few ‘take-out’s’ consisting of: overcooked roast chicken, ‘frite omelette’ which consisted of exactly that – chips and omelette in a baguette, or what they euphemistically  called a pizza, but which was, in fact, a pizza base slathered with tomato puree with a sprinkling of plastic cheese that wouldn’t melt even if you cooked the base to a cinder, or else had cream cheese dotted around it, that idea went totally out the window .  The patisserie shops usually only sold small tartlettes, sometimes with pastry that tasted of cardboard, and ‘mille feuille’ which was actually about three sheets of cardboard sandwiched together with grey custard all served up in a nice neat rectangle. Admittedly we lived outside the centre of Algiers in a place which, although a new development, was still quite conservative in many ways, and where ready-made food sold outside the home was in short supply and rather inadequate.  There were some wonderful restaurants and patisserie shops in Algiers centre and its suburbs and I had THE most delicious melt-in-the-mouth ‘mille feuille’ once when my husband’s sister-in-law treated me to one in one of the posher areas of Algiers.

 But in the area in which I lived there was very little to be had so I had to cook and bake almost every day…..and…..from scratch.  No easy shortcuts here.  If I wanted a pizza I had to make the base as well, no defrosting one from the freezer and putting my own toppings on it.  Ready-made chips were unheard of so it was a case of peeling, chipping and cooking them, no mean feat if there’s no water and the electricity has gone.  All the recipes I had from the UK seemed to have one vital ingredient missing that I couldn’t acquire here and so my daily moan became ‘what on earth will/can I cook today?’  Of course the best thing would have been to imitate the Algerians in what they cooked but my family, including my Algerian husband, didn’t like a lot of their food, which was, in many ways a blessing because some of the things they cooked were time consuming and labour intensive.  Fine, if you have daughter and sister-in-laws to help, but a real chore when it’s just one person cooking for a company of hungry gannets.

Little by little I managed to adapt, thinking ahead and planning meals, and we moved to a different area of Algiers where foodstuffs were better quality and more varied, if a bit on the expensive side.  The children were out in school or University and I got on with my busy day, and, as they grew older they helped as much as they could so life became easier…for a while.  I didn’t realise it then, but that was the best period, at least in terms of more time for me,  up to now in this whole adventure of living in Algeria.

  

The children grew older (and therefore bigger which means they ate more!) and somehow, from what seems like nowhere, they developed lives of their own.  At an age when they could all be helping me a lot more and therefore my life should be drifting off to that nice easier stage I had dreamt of, they are all really busy with school, University (whether travelling to and from or actually studying), Qur’an classes, teaching English, crafting sessions, football, going to the gym etc. etc. and I am left with the brunt of the work which has actually increased because now I am feeding an army of grown-up gannets where patisserie cakes go nowhere in satisfying that afternoon ‘sugar fix’ and a take-away costs a fortune and still leaves everyone wanting more.

The family car is now in demand from three drivers and, although we are all considerate of each other in this matter, it often means that my aspirations for a social life come second to more pressing matters.  It’s difficult for me anyway to try and plan any kind of social engagement because there is always something or someone to scupper my plans – with one going out the door, another coming in, I feel it’s easier to just stop still in one place and let everyone move around me.  I feel as if  I’m standing still like a door while everyone goes in and out, but at the same time moving around in never-ending circles like a headless chicken, which is where my eldest daughter, Sarah, and I came up with the perfect metaphor for my life just now….…..a revolving door.

If it seems as if I’m complaining then please understand I am most definitely not – in many ways staying at home and, by so doing, enabling my husband and children to live their lives may seem difficult, and for some people I’m sure it most certainly would be,  but for me…..it suits me just fine Alhamdulilah.  So….I’m not complaining…..I’m explaining why it is I don’t have as much time as I thought I would have, because let’s face it really - the only way I would have more time to myself here in Algeria than I did when I lived in England is if I left my husband and children behind!

One of our regular treats - summer AND winter!

My daughter's Thesis Defence for her Masters

My eldest child, Sarah, achieved her Master’s Degree in Islamic Theology on Wednesday, 3^rd December in the College of Islamic Sciences, Kharouba, here in Algiers.  It’s been a long time coming, through no fault of her own.  She was supposed to defend her thesis last May but it was cancelled at the last minute.  To get to this stage she had to first finish her four year degree in Aqeedah, then pass the entrance exam for the Master’s for which there are only 10 places.  Then after a year of classes she chose a subject for her thesis and submitted a brief outline for acceptance. The title of her outline was ‘Islamic Fundamentalism in Orientalist Writings in the English Language Between 1990 and 2010’. Once her thesis proposal was accepted she began work on researching and writing the full thesis which had to be 150-200 pages long. Then she got it printed and bound and submitted 5 copies to the University. Three copies were given to the panel of professors who were nominated to sit on her thesis defence committee and who had to then read the thesis and submit a report to the University’s administration.  She was very fortunate to have an excellent Thesis Adviser (who was one of the three professors on the committee) who encouraged her and helped her along the way, may Allah bless him for all his efforts on her behalf. It’s difficult to keep the momentum going on a project as long term as a thesis, and there was a time when she just couldn’t work on it at all and even considered giving up on it altogether.  With a lot of dua and help from Allah, and encouragement and pointers from her Thesis Adviser and a Life Coach recommended to her by a friend she found the energy and enthusiasm to continue Alhamdulilah.

Kharouba

The Thesis Defence itself was a rather gruelling affair: she had to give a short presentation, dressed in a black graduation robe, on her thesis, which she did using a power point presentation, and then she was questioned on it by the panel. This was a difficult ordeal especially considering that it had been over a year since she originally wrote the thesis, and the fact that the whole thing was a public affair in the library of the University where anyone could drop by and sit in and listen.  When she first talked about this impending event a couple of years ago, we thought how wonderful it would be to have family and friends at such a special occasion.  However, by the time the day rolled around, Sarah only wanted immediate family members to come as she was so nervous and had waited so long she just wanted to get it over and done with and Alhamdulilah those of her friends who knew her well understood this.  But she still had quite a big audience with some of her own students dropping by to listen in.    The 3 professors on the panel were diligent and thorough in their questioning and critique.  Sarah seemed, to all outward appearances very calm and collected, even when she was told that it might not be possible to get the projector equipment for her presentation.  Alhamdulilah she did get it and I have to say that the assistants who work to make sure that everything runs smoothly – including getting her the equipment she needed and telling her and the family how everything normally goes –were really wonderful and helpful mashAllah, may Allah bless them also for all their efforts, because it meant a lot to all of us as a family at such a stressful time. 

As a mother, I could tell that she was nervous the whole time, even though she dealt with it really well Allahibarek.  It is such a nerve wracking experience and not everyone can deal with it so well – Sarah told me about one student who collapsed in tears just before her Thesis Defence and the assistants had to help to calm her down before she went on to defend her thesis and receive a very good mark Allahibarek.

Once the three professors stopped grilling Sarah on her thesis, they retired to a room to discuss her mark – a mark below 12 out of 20 would have meant that she would not be eligible to  continue to do a PhD if she so wished.  They were gone only a matter of minutes, much to all our surprise, and when they returned we all had to stand up while they announced her graduation and the mark that they awarded her, which was very good Alhamdulilah.  I felt like I was standing in a courtroom, especially with the professors and Sarah in their black robes, waiting for a guilty or not guilty verdict, but this was necessary as this legalised her Masters Degree.  Once she has made the necessary corrections to her Thesis she will get it reprinted, rebound and submit copies to the University after which a copy will be registered both in the University library and in the National Library.

I had plenty of time to think as I sat there not understanding very much of the proceedings, given that it was obviously all in Arabic, and I must admit to becoming rather teary eyed.  I remembered Sarah’s first 7 years of life with a non-Muslim Mum, and how Allah protected her and kept her on the Straight Path, and guided me to it also, almost despite myself, Allahibarek, Alhamdulilah.  I remembered my one big wish for all my children was that they would have a good grounding in their religion and in the Arabic language.  I especially didn’t want the girls to go through the same experience as me, being a wife and mother, with a child on the hip, stirring a saucepan and trying to learn ‘Alif, Ba, Ta’.  I wanted them to have the whole of the religion at their fingertips, where they could look up anything they wanted in the original beautiful language of Arabic, to be able to understand Allah’s Own Words exactly as He revealed them so that nobody could misguide them or lead them astray.  Also I feel that higher education for my daughters is a valuable asset for their futures as one can never tell what the future holds for them and this can provide a measure of security  As I sat there and watched my daughter, I thought of how He answered my dua…..and then some!

So many of us, when we move to Algeria worry about the education system here and whether it will be good enough for our children.  Her achievement has shown me the possibilities and opportunities both in this country and abroad.  To my immense surprise I have discovered that many Algerian university graduates end up continuing their studies or finding jobs abroad, contributing to what is called the Brain Drain in developing countries.

As I sat there last Wednesday afternoon I was reminded of John F Kennedy’s famous words ‘ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’    Along with all the dua I regularly say for all of my children is one asking that they will have a positive influence in the development of this wonderful country.  This has started in a small way, with Sarah teaching Aqeedah in English to a group of my friends and me.  She started with about 6 students 3 years ago and now has 13 which are as much as she can cope with, considering our short concentration span and varying degrees of corpus mentis!  There are more who would love to join but she has neither the time at the moment to hold another class or the ability to travel the distance it would take to reach other women eager to learn.  Her classes have opened up my world, boosted my Iman, and brought me closer to my Creator, with a totally new comprehension and wonder at His awesome Mercy and Abilities.  She also teaches English both at home and at the University that educated her in her deen in the first place, Kharouba.

After four years studying in Kharouba for a degree, and then  the additional years of study for her Masters, when I ask her what is the most important thing that she has learned, she answers ‘I have learnt that I know absolutely nothing…..in comparison to all the knowledge that’s out there’. 

May her thesis be a benefit to others in this life and to her in the Akhirah.

View of Algiers from Kharouba

A seagull in the kitchen

But our guest of honour has to be the seagull that arrived in our back yard one blustery morning in late August.  My youngest sons couldn’t believe that it was still a young bird because it was so big, but it still had its brown feathers.  It was handicapped due to the fact that one foot was missing, but it had obviously been treated previously as it had a bandage around the bottom of the leg which was still intact, so it was able to hobble about.  It transpired that it had been rescued from some children who were treating it cruelly at the sea and brought home by some boys who were visiting for the summer, but they had obviously left and it must somehow have managed to fly from their balcony down to our backyard with the aid of the wind.  At first we were afraid that the cats would attack it at night so we used to bring it in through the kitchen to the middle courtyard and had to move Jack the tortoise into a box for the night, which he took very well until  morning when all you could hear was scratching and scraping and thumping – for such a small rock he can make a lot of noise. 

The seagull was named Moriarty after the villain in Sherlock Holmes, but my sister said he should be named Jonathan after Jonathan Livingston Seagull and my nephew considered Steven Seagal (which I considered an insult seeing as ‘our’ seagull was a far better actor which isn’t saying much – Jack the tortoise was a better actor).  We finally had a willing customer for my youngest son’s fishing sprees, and when he skedaddled off for a week, his friend came and supplied us with food for it and with my husband buying sardines it was the best fed seagull on this side of the Mediterranean coast.  It wasn’t long before we realised he could definitely hold his own with any of the cats that had the courage to stray into our backyard while he was there – all he had to do was flap his enormous wings and they all flew up the fig trees, so we left him in the backyard.  We brought in a vet (who was visiting the cat across the road!) who said there wasn’t much more we could do, and after looking up as much as we could on the good old internet, we learnt that he would eventually fly off himself when he was ready.  In the meantime he practised trying to fly which was always fine, but his landing was a bit awkward.  However I was comforted by the fact that seagulls seem to spend a lot of time standing on one leg anyway so he wouldn’t be too inconvenienced by his handicap.  Every now and again he came to the back door into the kitchen and walked right in so then I had to gently guide him back out again.  Then one morning about a month later he was gone, off to the seagull world up in the sky, and I still find myself looking up when one flies overhead and wonder if it’s him. 

A week later it was pouring rain and my youngest son told me about a little kitten that was outside the front of our house and who seemed to be an orphan.  I’ve become really good at becoming deaf to these kind of stories over the years – there are so many kittens around the neighbourhood that there’s no way we could see to all of them.  The next day I was out and when I returned home this teensy weensy little kitten was sitting by our door, but my daughter persuaded me to leave it.  However later my second youngest son asked my husband and me to let it in so we did, and that is how Kitty (I know…..SO inventive) came to stay.  She settled down into a box in the garage and was quite sickly at first but then seemed to pick up.  But to be honest, despite all the cooked chicken livers and other innards, cheese and even dried cat food donated by our neighbour, a visit to the vet,  baths and cuddles she received she never really thrived.  Five weeks later she died in her sleep, and yes, I bawled my eyes out as did my youngest.  Funny how such a small defenceless little thing can make such a big impact.

Kitty

In addition to various animal guests we have also had the odd insect guest with the emphasis on ‘odd’.   There was the wasp who decided to start work on a nest just above the living room window, and who had to be removed.

 We’ve had geckos which, to my eyes, are quite cute…..until they leave their tails behind.  Then there was the night when everyone was asleep and I was in my living room minding my own business when I saw what seemed to be a big moth flying around.  It flew at me and so totally overcome by my beauty was it that it promptly fell down in a heap on the sofa.  At closer inspection it proved not to be a moth at all but a praying mantis.  It recovered from its ordeal and I sent it on its way into the night.

A mouse in the house

One morning we heard squealing from the back garden and found a lovely black and white bunny rabbit, who was so nervous and twitchy.  We think she may have been caught by a big cat, and we brought her inside, put her in a cardboard box with some lettuce and carrots and she thanked us by keeling over and dying overnight.

Another time we chased a cat out of the house who had obviously entered through the terrace door, and about a day later we heard a squealing sound from the shoe and coat cupboard under the stairs and found a little kitten.  I guessed immediately that this was why the cat had been in the house in the first place so we placed the kitten on the terrace and moved away to a distance and watched as the mother cat came and claimed her young.  She had two other kittens and we fed her and them on the terrace for a while although she would not let us anywhere near her or them, and then one day they disappeared.

Not all our guests were the feline variety – we also have had the occasional mouse that has decided to move in.  I don’t mind mice generally but really don’t like to have them in the kitchen or anywhere in the vicinity of food, and, although there are various poisons on the market not all of them are humane – one of them is a kind of glue that literally glues the mouse to the spot which I think is very cruel.  Another is a bag of tiny grains which you put on food around the kitchen and this has worked with varying success.  I have had the odd mouse that, I suspect, has peered out at me from behind or underneath a kitchen appliance and laughed at my naivety in expecting him to fall for that trick, because the food stays around….and so does the mouse.  We had one that was locked in a cupboard and we left it for days and days without food and it just would not die – I hated the thought that it was dying a slow death, and my husband decided to put it out of its misery and kill it with a broom.  Far from killing the wretched thing, the mouse escaped and my husband broke a hole in the tile at the back of the cupboard.  So much for putting it out of its misery!

There have been times when my husband and children (bearing in mind they are almost all adults now) have decided to deal with the mouse problem with military precision and everyone takes up position beside a potential bolt-hole armed to the teeth with a broom or other cleaning utensil.  The furniture is moved carefully to coax the mouse out of its hiding place and then…..all hell breaks loose.  There’s a lot of shouting and accusations flying through the air while all the furniture is hurled around, the mouse flees for its life and vanishes into thin air and lives to terrorise us another day, while my living room and kitchen look like a tornado has hit them.

And then there’s Jack….the tortoise who is just one step up from a rock.  We acquired him from a friend whose dog had attacked it.  We had to move him out of his home in the front courtyard  when the builders came and he has been reigning supreme in the middle courtyard ever since.  He belongs to my eldest daughter and many is the time she has exclaimed at how happy or sad he is, but in all honesty to me he has the same gormless expression on his face no matter what befalls him.  We finally saw something of his personality when my nephew came on holiday and spent a lot of time in Jack’s courtyard, whereupon Jack decided to claim his dominance and rammed any foot that entered said courtyard – fine if you remembered he was there but a bit of a shock when you forgot and suddenly found your foot being gnawed off.

Jack - picture courtesy of my nephew, hence the superior photography!