Casual Corsair

Ça Gère l'Étagère!

2010-02-26T19:10:00.009+01:00

And now, Tipaza. A small town 70km from Algiers along the coast, known for ruins from the Roman period. Back in ye olde times it was a fairly extensive port town, crashing down the hills to the sea. The site, the ruins still there at Tipaza, was much larger and more beautiful than I expected. Here are some photos:

And just a short skip from Tipaza is the Mausoleum of the Mauritanian, also called The Tomb of the Christian. No one knows when it was built or why. It is a big circular pyramid. We climbed to the top of it, of course.

That last picture features Ahcène crouching, Hilary the woman in the back, Mounira the woman in the front, and of course myself, the range of mountains off to the left. They too are Glycinards. It was a great day of sight-seeing in Algeria, completely unexpected.

Then some asshole rear-ended us at a stop sign. As it was a rental car and this is Algeria, this was not what you would think of as routine. Turns out the guy's insurance somehow doesn't cover accidents, or some such thing. So we had to have him follow us back to Algiers to the rental agency, where they would go over the damage and figure out how he would pay. Ok. What we didn't count on was the dude's old pickup breaking down on the way. After poking around for quite a while in the engine (alas, my Civic training didn't get me very far) we managed to take some identity cards as collateral and went on our way. Sitting in the car behind the broken-down truck:

So five hours and 60km after we got hit we were back home. So I can recommend without hesitation visiting Tipaza, but not renting a car or driving in Algeria. Maybe you can chopper in.

Ça gère la fougère!

2010-02-26T16:49:00.004+01:00

Wow, how quickly a month goes by when you're not writing a blog. Amazing.

Went again to Oran, this time on the train. I do love to take the train to Oran, the countryside is beautifully green and varied here, with that iron-rich red dirt that we all love from Hawaii. At least I think it all comes from Hawaii. The visit was pretty standard: discos, cabarets, seafood, beer, with the addition this time of a nice program put on by an Algerian dance troupe in collaboration with the US Embassy. It was a blend of classical ballet-ish and hip-hop dancing, and was really cool. I met the two Americans, from a ballet (I think) troupe in New York called Battery. They were nice, and it was a great event. No pictures of it, though, but picture an old, small theater complete with deep red curtains and carved friezes and box seats. We sat in box seats. Here is a nice picture of the exterior:

And this is "Calentica:"

Calentica is essentially mashed chickpeas mixed with something else sticky and baked. Around 7:30am, when you're tired from a night of Cabaret-ing, you go to the working-class section of town and eat calentica in sandwich form, steaming hot and dripping all over. Oranis say it soaks up all the booze and lets you sleep when you would normally be getting up. It works, too. It is sold by an old man from a cart like this:

About five hours after eating the calentica, after a night at the cabaret listening to the best that the underground Rai world has to offer, we were on the train back to Algiers. Second class. First class is all of two dollars more expensive, but you're treated like a king. For essentially the same price, second class sucks. I slept all over the poor bastard who got crammed on the bench next to me.

Algiers has been more of the same. Some fun things: it was so windy the other day that a gust tore the vent/moon roof off of the bus I was on. You know that thing in the ceiling that is partially opened to allow some air through the bus. Right off, flew back into the street. Thankfully no one was behind us. We stopped and the money man jumped off, grabbed the thing, and just tossed it into the back. Ma lesh!

Also, I eat pizza or "covered pizza" from this little shop across the street from the Bibliotheque nearly every day, and have become pretty friendly with the dudes there. A slice of pizza or a square of the pastry/pizza/pie thing will run you about 30 cents, but you need to eat two or three, still the best deal in town and delicious. They put mayo on the pizza. I won't explain any further. The other day I was eating a bit late and there was no one in there, so I was chatting to the guy, and because I'm lazy I'll sum up by saying he was very disappointed that I won't be joining him in heaven, but remains open to helping me with the conversion process whenever I finally come to my senses.

Imbrications

2010-02-04T12:31:00.003+01:00

Things proceed as normal here in the White City, although it is perhaps more of a gray these days. A good scrubbing could really make these wall shine. Maybe some new white wash. A little blue paint here and there. If one could only redirect some of that oil money out of various private Swiss accounts...

I've been at the National Library, where I was warmly received by all but the new guy - doesn't he know that I have a special relationship with the library and don't need a card or justification for being there or an escort to the seats? I mean, really, asking for identification and permission to use the archives? Good thing my old buddies were hanging out and saw me at the door, haggling to get it. But the new security and I made up, I bought him a coffee at the little cafe, and he now waves me through like the good ol' days. Ah Algiers, where there's little a friendly demeanor, a couple of cigarettes, and the implicit threat of predator drone strikes for casual misunderstandings can't get you.

But the press is all in a tizzy right now, as the number of scandals continues to mount. I won't go into all the sordid details of Algeria's loss to Egypt in the semi-finals of the Africa's Cup tournament - I'll only say that the generalized Algerian loathing for the referee of that match seems to be justified, as the African Football association is investigating him on charges of match fixing. Try talking to a stranger about something other than football, you'll get nowhere unless you bring up...

...one of the other huge scandals rocking the elite here in Algeria: that of the new highway, where it seems that not only were contractors buying influence and winning contracts by giving gifts to the people in charge (something us Americans can relate to), and also the slightly larger scandal of Sonatrach, the national energy conglomerate (mostly oil and natural gas, but also now water desalinization plants and a number of other industries - they are well diversified). It seems that Sonatrach, the 11th largest oil company in the world and the largest in Africa, has been operating largely under the table as concerns contracts for everything from oil exploration to the construction of swimming pools. This is not surprising coming from the oil industry - the most corrupt industry on the planet? - but it is surprising that the press in Algeria has been going after the scandal so vigorously. We'll see if the coverage and popular discontent translate into anything like accountability or justice - few are holding out hopes: the oil industry essentially holds Algeria hostage, as the entire economy depends upon Sonatrach, so they largely dictate their terms. It is a national company, however, all the top brass are implicated, and there have already been new people appointed to leadership positions, so maybe there will be some kind of change. Probably not, though.

Sonatrach Scandal Fun for Americans can be found in the fact that one of the companies most implicated in the corruption is Brown, Root and Condor, a venture of Brown and Root company, which we all remember as a subsidiary of Halliburton, and part of Kellogg, Brown and Root. As we all remember, there are all kinds of scandals revolving around the BR label having to do with the Iraq war, when they won no-bid contracts and overcharged for oil and put in faulty wiring that killed a soldier in his shower.

It is also the company that tried to cover up the fact that a female employee had been gang-raped by her co-workers and then imprisoned in a shipping container. KBR somehow managed to lose the evidence and tried to deny the woman the opportunity to go to court because of the wording of her contract (they said it was "related to her employment" and thus covered by contract that stipulated she could not take them to court. Really). This was the case that led to Franken's amendment to withhold defense contracts from companies that don't allow their employees access to the courts for sexual assault and discrimination. The amendment was opposed by 30 Republican senators (including our buddy John Thune).

So that was the background to KBR and BR. KBR was also involved in a corruption scandal with Sonatrach here in Algeria in 2006, having to do with Natural Gas and price fixing. For their dealing with the oil sector of Sonatrach they dropped the Kellogg (the companies split when they split with Halliburton) and added the Condor, which indicated the Algerian partnership. And they again set about price fixing - exploiting loopholes in Sonatrach contract law, with the participation of the CEO and, allegedly, the Energy Minister who is in charge, along with a bunch of other guys.

In one of my favorite parts about the scandal, there was apparently a "consultant" who worked for a number of government agencies, who seems to have been involved in setting up the corrupt practices to begin with. This guy worked for a number of government agencies in the 1980s, was arrested and went to jail for 10 years (out of a 16 year sentence), and was immediately put in this "consulting" position to a number of agencies when he got out. No one said for sure, but it seems like this guy took the fall for a bunch of people in the government, and was rewarded for his discretion when he got out of the can. Now, he has a son who is the head of a financial services company in Switzerland, the same company that has allegedly been helping to launder the corrupt money into a variety of private Swiss accounts. The "consultant," upon the breaking of the scandal news, immediately fled to Switzerland. There has been no further word on if Algeria will try to extradite him to testify. Isn't it all too fun?

The Sonatrach logo also provides the press with any number of hand dollar-sign-like visual commentaries. Use your imagination.

If You Aint the Lead Dog...

2010-01-28T00:24:00.006+01:00

...the scenery never changes, says Lewis Grizzard.

The trip west, to Oran, while providing me with the chance to see a “real” Algerian cabaret* (unlike the poor facsimiles we have here in Algiers), also allowed me the opportunity to see some of the most beautiful scenery in the north. I have previously taken the train to Oran, and there are some very beautiful spots, but the new highway stretches along a slightly different route, a slightly more gorgeous route.

There is a mountain pass that needs climbing, and at the top, driving in either direction, you are treated to views of lazy green plains – planted with a variety of grains, the slightly red earth of fallow fields contrasting sharply with the colors of the crops. These plains are framed in nearly every direction by mountains, and the effect is spectacular. Especially on the way back east from Oran, looking over my shoulder as the sun started going down, setting gently between the peaks and illuminating the fields below, I was struck by the extreme natural beauty that lies in Algeria. There is the coast, with beaches and the Mediterranean and hills spilling into the sea. There is the desert, whether rocky desolation or the undulating waves of dunes, broken only by the occasional oasis. But I am more partial to the mountains of the north, to the way they underline the landscape and enclose the plains. I spend most of my time in cities here, have only gotten away to see the countryside a few time, but each time I am amazed.

What is also amazing is that on my way to the library today, stopping as I always do at the bus stop to wait ten minutes and then walk on, a bus actually appeared. The right bus! What a treat it was. And I got into the library just as it started to rain. Then it stopped long enough for me to walk home. I'm starting to get suspicious...

*Note to those of you who raised their eyebrows at the mention of a “cabaret”: in Algeria, the cabaret is essentially a big room where people sit at tables and bands play and there is a small dance floor. The singer walks around soliciting money to play the songs you want. It is for fancy people. There is only bottle service. Everywhere you look is another be-suited energy minister or director of transportation or military brass. No sexy/funny show. No Liza Minnelli. The only thing reminiscent of 1920s Berlin is the booze, cigarettes, and generalized political corruption.

La Victoire

2010-01-25T00:22:00.004+01:00

The country is again going crazy, as Algeria has just beaten Ivory Coast in their quarter-final match in the African Nations Cup. Ivory Coast was favored to win the whole thing, so it is quite an upset. For those poor souls out there who didn't get to see the match, it was quite dramatic, with Ivory Coast going ahead 2-1 with a few minutes to go, and Algeria tying it up to go to extra time in the final minute of regulation. Again, my photos are totally crummy, but here are a few short videos I shot of the turnabout right down the street about 15 minutes after the game. How many people do you think can fit into a two-door Renault? Don't forget about the trunk. Give up? The answer appears to be somewhere around 9...
...
Ok, the videos won't load, so you'll have to take my word for the craziness of the town at the moment, and I'll try the videos again tomorrow. 1, 2, 3 Viva l'Algérie!

C'era una Volta il West

2010-01-24T16:08:00.003+01:00

An hour into the trip we had finally left Algiers. Nothing like that 1pm Thursday traffic. But a trip to Oran for a weekend is always worth the journey, so we pressed on, rocking to all your old favorites: the Nuge, Fleetwood Mac, Jethro Tull, and a bunch of other, obscure ‘70s bands that seemingly only recorded for the Algerian market. Its like Hasselhoff being famous in Germany – ‘70s white-guy blues-rock is the coolest thing going for your not-so-casual Algerian rock-n-roll audience.

About two-thirds of the way into the trip – made nice and smooth by the new highway connecting (almost) Algiers and Oran (the world's largest current road-construction project), constructed by a Chinese firm (motto: “The new east-west highway strengthens the bonds of friendship between Algeria and China”) – we came to the point in the road where smooth sailing ended and construction began. Traffic on the highway was diverted to the old road, closer to the coast.

Or at least traffic that didn’t know any better. My friend, however, had heard tell that it was possible to bypass the blockade and get back on the completed section of highway. And indeed it was. We followed some trucks down a little dirt road, across a small bridge, and then back up to the highway. And there we were, a huge, open road with just us and construction workers completing bridges and off-ramps. On we sped, with no traffic to impede our progress, nothing in our way save the occasional huge chunk of concrete in the road, or a bunch of workers working, or the occasional truck barreling down on us – you know, the normal stuff.

It was interesting to see how the construction proceeded. The Chinese firm that won the contract arrived with all the tools and machines direct from China, and all the workers, too. The guys building the road lived in shipping containers stacked with bunk beds and set down by the side of the road. When one section of road was completed they just picked up the container and moved it along, keeping the workers right there in the middle of the action. We got glimpses of the containers as we drove through the uncompleted section of road, and we could see beds in one, and what looked like a little kitchen in another. There were satellite dishes on some of the containers, so I’m guessing they could watch TV. (And you thought shipping container homes were just for the green-homes set.) Power came from large gas generators plopped down next to the containers. I imagine the workers sign a contract and stay on for a year-long shift or so, moving with the work, sending their paychecks to families back home.

The unfinished highway eventually set us down right on the edge of town – a nice route as long as the police don’t stop you in there, or you hit a pile of rebar, or some other construction-related catastrophe. After having a little snack and a drink at a friend’s house we were off to the birthday party that brought everyone to Oran. It was dark, around 9pm, and as we drove the cars ahead of us started to swerve a little. A second later we saw the cause of the commotion: a man in a t-shirt dancing in the headlights. And I mean just a t-shirt. He was also holding a little plastic sack, but that wasn’t providing him with much coverage. A naked guy, dancing in the street. He seemed like he was having a great time, and the police van a few cars ahead of us didn’t seem to mind, either. O, Oran!

Break out your Tangos!*

2010-01-18T20:39:00.003+01:00

A new report just found that violence after soccer games is much higher on the victorious side than on the vanquished. That is good, as Algeria just advanced to the next stage in the African Cup. How is this good, you ask. Because Algeria advanced with a draw. Phew. Not that you could tell from the fireworks, honking, and screaming that have been going on for three hours now. Too bad I can't channel this noise through the internets...if only there was some series of tubes I could use... In light of the aforementioned study, I can report that there seem to be no buildings or cars on fire, at least in the area of the city that I can see.

Since I'm too lazy to actually take pictures and upload them here, I'll post the following, from a friend who was here when Algeria first beat Egypt in World Cup qualifying play [edit: it turns out I'm not lazy, I went out in the streets with the kids, watched the show, but my pictures suck, and the following description is already written...ok, I am lazy]:

"When Algeria scored the first goal, the city went wild. We could hear people screaming in the streets, setting off fire crackers, and horns honking. Little did I know that this was only the warm-up act to what would follow. Long story short, Algeria won 3-1 and the minute the game ended, the city exploded. I don't use this word lightly. It was as though every single Algerian in the country had been watching and certainly everyone in Algiers because it was as though they had all been invited to a street party. People took the streets on foot and in cars, blasted music, draped flags on their cars and around their bodies, stuffed family members and friends (young and old, male and female) into their vehicles (and by vehicles, I mean their trunks, their hoods, and even on top of their cars). It was the most spontaneous outpouring of emotion and celebration I have ever seen. One would have thought Algeria won the entire World Cup, not some measly qualifying match. Because the women's corridor is street side, it was hard to even hear yourself think. So of course I had to investigate, although I must admit, I was a little scared because I have truly never seen anything like this in my life. I've included some pictures so you can get a small taste of what was going on here. And this was just outside the Gylcines. Not even in the center of town. This party of the people lasted from 10:30pm until 3 or 4am. Miraculously, I fell sleep somewhere around 2am out of sheer exhaustion."
And her pictures:

*Tango is Algeria's best** beer.
**"Best" means the one I can get readily.

Redux or Reflux?

2010-01-18T16:24:00.004+01:00

I just flew into Algiers this weekend, and boy are my arms tired! Ha! Landed in the drizzling rain, made it through security (the guard, seeing that I'm American, said, "uh, wel-come, in Algerie," in English will a big silly smile, which was nice of him), walked through the full-body screener, and got some dinars out of the ATM - a new ATM I might add, and this time it didn't seem like I got the last money in the place. After navigating my way through the shark-infested waters of the airport lobby ("you need a taxi? I change money. you need money? taxi? taxi? taxi?") I found the official taxi stand and got in a decrepit old Renault. We got on the road. I haggled about the price, asked about the weather, and then something popped on the roof of the car. We pulled over to find that his taxi sign had come undone. He cursed. I got out the duct tape. We fixed the sign. He became friendly.

So I'm back at the Glycines. The internet finally works. I have a new phone ("sir, your account goes dormant after three months, and this SIM card hasn't been used in two years"), a new local ATM, and a new DVD store. Same Glycines menu, same little cell, same bottle shop, and same poisonous air. Not sure how to conclude this, so I'll take a line from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who famously said, "I think this is a good place to stop."

Hack

2008-03-16T23:48:00.002+01:00

Yesterday was truly an amazing day here in Algiers. Not because the bus I took was so packed that the doors couldn’t close and I ended up getting a free ride; not because at the commissariat de la police the Bureau des Etrangers guy looked up at me once, then went back to his work and grunted negations to all my questions about my carte de résidence (no, I can’t get it before I leave on Wednesday, sadly); not because it was about 85 degrees and muggy, with no wind, and there was a strange smell throughout the whole city; no, it was amazing because when I got up in the morning and went out on the balcony to look over the city, I couldn’t see the port for all the smog.

On the street in town it was possible to see the smog in the air above you. If there was an air-quality index here it would have read: unsafe for all. Or like in some Lord of the Rings movie, “The very air you breathe is like a poison to your lungs…” I’ve seen some bad smog in my day, from Los Angeles on a pretty daily basis to when I used to go up to Red Rocks to hike around and look down on Denver, the pressure zone against the mountain holding the pollution over the city like a dirty wool blanket, but I have never experienced anything like this. Breathing anywhere was difficult, even inside.

Not to worry, though, because the government has recently announced that it will stop giving new taxi licenses in the next year, to try to ease congestion. If you can figure out how that makes any sense I would love to know. Maybe the impending end of the oil age and civilization as we know it won't be such a bad thing...

In other news, I found out this weekend that sardines can be delicious. Call me ignorant, but I didn’t know that sardine was the name of the fish; I thought it was just the name of the tin filled with pickled fish of some kind. In Algiers they don’t do fish very well, that distinction is for Oran; however, they do do sardines, which in the traditional Algiers style are gutted, dipped in a spicy batter and then fried, and you eat them whole. This is a fisherman’s bar lunch here, and they are the perfect food to eat with beer. They also serve them with a peck of pickled peppers and tomatoes with onions and olive oil. It took a while, but I finally found the elusive delicious Algeroise cuisine…beer and sardines.

Oran Chrestomathy III

2008-03-11T17:46:00.009+01:00

There isn't a single vending machine in all of Algeria.*

Here's some photos from my trip with Miguel to Oran. If I haven't said so already, Miguel is from San Antonio and teaches English here in Algiers. He has also taught English in Mexico and Yemen, and did a Peace Corps stint for two years in Mauritania. As you might imagine, he is often stopped by customs on his way back to the US.

This is snow on the ground outside of Algiers. Not much, I know, but still: freaking snow.

These are the famed snow-capped mountains of the Kabylie, to the east of Algiers (yes, you go east on your way to the western city of Oran - its Algeria, dudes).
And more snowy mountains...its almost like Switzerland, no?
You can just open the door and hang out of the moving train if you please Then sometimes you just have to go out and dance the night away in Oran
This is sheeshy club time -- a place where not only prostitutes but non "working" women are welcome as well, a nice break, really, even if the music was horrible.The "Téléferique" to get up the hill on the western edge of Oran, up to the old Spanish fortWe call 'em "hill thugs"Beautiful Oran The old French nuclear sub port on the other side of the hill from Oran. The French stayed here until 1969, seven years after they were thrown out of the country. Military secrets are tough to let go ofThe fabled Lady Justice, denying it to everyone nowThe old Cathedral is now a pigeon and cat infested public library, but you can't say it isn't prettyNow I understand the whole Oran-as-Paradise-City thing (look hard)That about sums it up, there was another night of the awesomest bar in Africa, the Meloman (which I learned is Algerian for someone who loves all different kinds of music, like "Melody Man"), but no pictures, as people would definitely object to you snapping photos while they have scantily-clad prostitutes on their laps. But the singers did do "Another Brick in the Wall" again, as well as a Willie Nelson medley, which was pretty fun. Oh, and they make a dynamite paella, surprising as it may be.

*To the best of my knowledge.

Syphon

2008-03-08T11:26:00.002+01:00

I managed to get myself up in the darkness of the a.m. this weekend and get on the train to Oran, which was fun as always. It is really the port town of your dreams. And the best part is that it snowed on the train ride there. Snow. The mountains outside of Alger often get snow, but this was on the plains and down in the foothills.

I might post some pictures later, but for now I'm putting up a link to my friend's website with pictures and stories from his trip to Tamanrasset and surrounding areas. This is 2000 some odd kilometers south of Alger, out in the middle of the Sahara, and it looks like I imagine the moon to look, although we'll never know (those moon landings were faked!). But it looks like fun, so take a look by clicking here. And stay tuned for a few glimpses of Oran, from a gondola no less!

Apologia

2008-03-04T00:55:00.001+01:00

I was out on the balcony late tonight, the city was quiet, and I was watching small fishing boats move out through the harbor. Small red lights slowly moving across the black water. They looked like stars, forming temporary constellations in a mirrored sky; some were still, others shifted and swayed. From a different perspective, I imagine the stationary and moving boats switch places, new constellations coming into view, constellations I will never know.

Polaris is the north star. If you trace a line through the far edge of the Big Dipper you will find it, far enough away to stay nearly true north, yet bright enough to guide a traveler at night. There is no polestar in the southern sky, but one can approximate south by finding the Southern Cross, a constellation hovering out over the glacial horizon of Antarctica. The stars, the constellations they form, are motionless to us; they form constants against which we can measure our movement through space, through time.

The constellations are not static, however; they are not constant in our sky. Polaris is only humanity’s most recent guidepost to the north, the Southern Cross a new addition to the pole’s pursuit. Every few millennia or so the movement of the earth, the shifting of our planet through the solar system, necessitates a new star be designated our guide, a new constellation formed through which we divine that northern truth. Four thousand years ago the Egyptians and Greeks knew the Southern Cross, and Polaris was but one nameless pinhole in the ceiling’s fabric.

Four thousand years. Thirteen thousand years. One hundred thousand years. Humanity has named more polestars than years have passed since television. Yet hundreds of generations live and die under the light of that one star, that one constellation, that one escort. Some might note a feeling of insignificance in this, the grand process of life, the cosmic temporality through which everyone lives and dies. Instead I am amazed at the scope of humanity, at the universe-al timescale humans inhabit. But it only exists in history. It only exists in our creation of history. In this vast universal space-time, only that history gives meaning to our transit.

And since I have the pictures...

2008-02-22T18:26:00.005+01:00

...and am not in the mood to describe what my Wednesday (its Friday here) night was like, here are some more photos, the first real pictures that I have of Algiers, taken from a friend's balcony:
And then a better approximation of what it looked like to my eyes at 4am:
Hungover is hard:
And some others:
It looks kind of shoddy, which it is, but pretty in its own right. And so steep!

Who doesn't love couscous dinner?

2008-02-22T18:02:00.005+01:00

Last night I ate some delicious couscous at a restaurant appropriately named Maison de Couscous. It is an interesting place, for the both the layout and the fact that you can really only get couscous there. Other things are listed on the menu, but don't expect that they will be available. Wait, "don't expect?" Its not as if you all are reading this as a restaurant review guide for the next time you're planning on going out for a night on the town in Algiers. Anyway, I had what I thought was the most interesting plate available, which was a half/half mix of regular couscous and couscous noir. Normal, yellow or white, couscous is made from semolina (a not-quite so refined wheat flour), and noir is made from barley, or so it said on the menu. Not, once again, that the menu is to be trusted. All in all it was delicious, and it is hard to get delicious couscous outside of a private home where some woman slaves over the dinner for four hours.
That's what all my taxi drivers tell me, anyway. And the decor really made the night, as you can see in the pictures:

And I should clarify that: you serve yourself from the couscous there, and there is also a stew-type vegetable dish that you spoon all over your bowl of couscous.

And the decor again:

Encore:
Looks like fun, no? Like a cowboy place, but where the cowboys ride camels instead of horses.

just a little addendum

2008-02-18T18:38:00.002+01:00

About the negotiating with taxis over the price. Today I was walking home from the Bibliotheque Nationale when I happened to turn around and see a taxi. I hailed it, the guy pulled over, I said where I was going, and he gave me the little head nod-thing. I got in and he repeated my destination to confirm it. I said yes, that's the place. He said "two-hundred fifty" for a ride that wouldn't cost over 100. I said, "oh, yeah, right...that's not possible." So he pulled over and told me to get out, and I did. I've never been kicked out of a taxi before, I thought I should share.

And while you're here, go here instead.
And here.
And here.

Amblyopie

2008-02-17T18:14:00.003+01:00

This morning on my way to the Bibliotheque Nationale (the Franz Fanon annex, if anyone is interested in specifics) as I first waited for the bus, then decided to just walk, and finally scored a taxi for the remainder of my trip, I figured I could write a few things about conveyance in this city. I have been all over by all means of transport, and since I don’t think any of you have yet been to Algeria I figure I have enough experiential expertise to at least lie in a convincing way. Not that I am making things up, but, you know, eye of the beholder and all that.

Walking: This is the best way to get around the city, as the roadways are congested with too many cars and not enough buses. The sidewalks, when they exist, are also crowded, giving the pedestrian a sense of just how overcrowded the whole city is. They say there is a housing crisis and that there are on average 6 people per household, a household that is usually a three-room (total) apartment. That means that the spillover – mostly young men with no jobs – spends their days roaming the streets or just leaning against the buildings. There is even a special word for the young men who lean up against the buildings, but I can’t remember it at the moment. It’s Arabic for “wall-brace” or something.

So as you can imagine trying to get somewhere in the middle of the day can be something of a chore, but, as most walking in the city, not without its benefits: pretty much just getting to see the layout of the city; I would say health, but I’m not sure it is actually doing me much good to walk around inhaling fumes all day. If there wasn’t so much tough-guy pride in Algeria I would expect to see painter’s masks on pedestrians in the near future.

Crossing the street is its own fun here, as well, as there are no operational crosswalks or traffic lights in the whole city. They both exist, but there is not a single working stop light in the city (although I saw lights working and heeded in Oran) and a crosswalk is more decoration than any meaningful measure of where to cross the street. Instead, you just walk out amongst traffic, either waiting for a slight lull or hoping that the person in the car is looking at you. There you rest in the middle of the street while you choose an opportune moment to cross the other half of the road, buses zooming past, cars honking, exhaust enveloping you…I actually think it is a better system than what exists in, say, Irvine, where I stand at an empty intersection for two minutes waiting for an electronic abstraction of a human to tell me it is safe to cross. Call it personal responsibility. This is only a good policy for the sighted, however.

Bus: If you have a long ways to go, you can always take the bus. There are a number of lines in Algiers, most having to do with going up and over the hill from downtown to the swanky districts in the valley beyond. This is my least favorite option, however, as not too long ago most of the buses in the city were privatized, meaning that today there are only the bare minimum required to convey a mass of humanity up a hill. It is actually quite an incredible sight to see a double-long bus, with one of those accordion-type things in the middle, packed standing-room only along its whole length, with the doors open because people are standing on the bottom steps hanging onto the poles inside.

I should say it is incredible the first time you see it, then you see the next bus come along, and the next, and pretty soon you are habituated. All this is if you are lucky enough to be in a spot where the bus passes. Going to the Bibliotheque, for instance, is technically possible by taking the #15 bus along rue Tilimli. I have, in a week now, seen exactly one #15 bus, and it was going the other way. I walk for a half-hour to get to the BN, every day, and never see a bus going my way. It is supposed to be a regular route. It was quite regular just a few years ago, the Glycine gardien tells me. Maybe there are some things a cash-rich, plodding bureaucracy can do better.

Taxi: Of course taxis are my favorite means of transportation in the city. Not only do you get a comfortable seat, but you also get to hear all the rumors and conspiracy theories about the day’s events from your taxi driver. This holds true for almost all drivers, with the notable exception of the barbus who I’ve ridden with. Maybe it is something about driving an infidel around that makes them clam up.

But taxis here work like this: you stand on the street for ten minutes; you wave at a passing taxi (which is any car with a taxi top: there are no regular cars, you run a taxi by paying for a license and getting surveilled by the police, so you use your own piece of junk (like the ’74 Mercedes I rode in the other day)), he (yes, he, although I have seen one lady taxi driver in Algiers and heard tell of another in Oran) either waves you off or pulls to the side of the road, sometimes blocking the now-honking traffic behind him; you run up to the slightly-ajar window on the passenger side and yell through it where you are going; at this point, the driver either says “no” and waves his finger while driving away, or kind of does a little nod thing that indicates you can get into the car. That’s right, you don’t tell the taxi where to go, you just hope that he is already going the same direction you want. It's probably closer to hitchhiking than hailing a cab, really.

Sometimes this process can take a while, especially when you are trying to get someplace remote, like the Archives. The best part is guessing, while you ride, if the guy is going to charge you the meter rate (if indeed he has a meter in the car) or just make up some number. The made-up numbers are open to haggling, as is nearly everything in this city. There is no agency to call to get a cab to come to the door, either: when you ride with a cabbie that you like, you get his cell number and then call when you need a ride. It is important to get multiple cab numbers, because invariable a few will be “too far away” or “you know, down in the city” when you want a ride. At fancy hotels there are taxis who just sit around, but they charge, on principal, two or three times the normal rate to go somewhere, in order to cover the fact that they sit waiting for fares all day. There are also plenty of illegitimate taxis around town, pretty much any dude with a car will offer you a ride in the evening: they aren’t trying to kidnap you, they are just trying to earn a few extra dollars. Except at the airport, those guys are a bunch of crooks.

I guess conveyance here is like anything else: you feel alternately in danger, neglected, or screwed over, depending largely on the amount of money you are willing to pay to get where you are going.

PS: I should also mention that there is a metro in the works here in Algiers. Yup, in the works, just like its been for the last 17 years...

Stop reading this blog

2008-02-11T22:29:00.000+01:00

If you like to eat food in Southern California, if you like farmer's markets, if you like delicious booze recipes, or if you need to live vicariously through someone who has access to the most beautiful and delicious produce in the world, you should go look at the Farmer's Market Mash-Up. And then either run out and buy food at the market or salivate in front of your computer because you live in a faux-monastery and eat flavorless creamy vegetable soup and luke-warm potato-meat things every night. Mmmm, vitamins...

Who Wants a New Name?

2008-02-08T15:11:00.000+01:00

This is fun.

Oran Chrestomathy II

2008-02-06T18:06:00.001+01:00

Oran has long been known as "Haraam City" in Algeria (Haraam meaning "forbidden" in this context). This is largely because of the ready availability of alcohol, other intoxicants, and, well, prostitutes - available at least in comparison with other cities in Algeria and across the Maghreb generally. It also means that for those who are of the drinking persuasion it has been a destination spot. Thus the oil-truck drivers who picked me up in the desert told me that visiting the south was for suckers, but Oran was really the place to be. One of my normal cab drivers also got a big smile on his face and said, "Oran...hehehe, its a great city!" and then kept chuckling to himself after I told him I was going.

It has also been labeled (by some sociologist whose name I don't remember) as one of the last remaining "true" Mediterranean port cities, along with Naples. What this means is that it is dirty and there are plenty of places for a lonely sailor to spend his hard cash during an all-too-short shore leave. If you put on "Rain Dogs" by Tom Waits you could probably get an idea.

Of course, as an alcohol-imbibing foreign visitor to the city I took in the sights. In particular I should tell you all about The Meloman, the most rockin' bar on the continent (maybe an exaggeration, maybe not). The Meloman is located, as is everything else in Oran, on a dark and dirty street, free from any overhead lighting save the moon. About a block out you start to hear the music, and the shapes staggering past in the night begin to materialize in the red glow of the neon sign outside. Push through the door and you are met by a giant, grizzled bouncer who actually could (and would) kick your ass if you got out of line, past whom is a little wall blocking your view to what by now sounds like a Stooges concert circa 1972, with a little more keyboard.

Turn the corner around the wall and you are transported through space and time (and reality) to a scene straight out of everyone's favorite Patrick Swayze vehicle, "Roadhouse." Dark wood tables and booths, a long bar, people smashed into every square inch, a small dancefloor with people sweatily shaking it, and a live karaoke band with a man singing, when you first get in, Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall (pt.2), and the whole bar screaming along with the chorus: "we don't need no education! we don't need no thought control!" in English and everything. Squeezing through the crowd is the team of prostitutes who work the bar, some eating dinner with patrons, others dancing on the tables, and most just looking surly (which is the appropriate look, considering). There is little room to stand, and you have to watch like a hawk to get a table when people leave, but in the Meloman everyone is your best friend (as long as you don't act like a gringo). People will buy you beers, women can come into the bar and remain entirely unmolested (as compared to, say, walking down the street in Algiers), can drink and smoke with the men, and leave by themselves. They serve beer, whiskey, tequila if you wish, wine, and all of it costs 250DA a glass. The music really makes the place, however, as the live karaoke band plays everything from old honkeytonk (special for the Americans) to Europop to '90s rock to Algerian Andalousian to Rai, and the owner comes out and tops it off by serenading the bar with Sinatra.

So then you stumble out into the cool night, check to make sure you're not being followed (hey, it still is Algeria: a bit o' the paranoia is always in order), wander home, and fall asleep dreaming of a man with a bad haircut, giant mustache, three-piece suit, and a thick accent belting out "Like a Virgin" with all his heart.

Oran Chrestomathy I

2008-02-04T16:18:00.000+01:00

I'll have a few posts about Oran pretty soon, but to tide you all over, a little info about the City of Two Lions (Wahraan, the Berber name):

Oranis are nostalgic about the good ol' colonial days, or at least they were until the block of "Euros" (people from mostly Spanish and French families, but born in Oran) finally left at the beginning of the "Black Years" of the 1990s. To service this nostalgia, the Oranis left most of the old colonial architecture and especially the colonial monuments, but changed them just a bit to reflect the new reality of a politically independent Algeria. To this effect the statue of Justice that the French put up is still there, but changed like this: The statue was of Lady Justice standing between two children, one of them "European" and the other "Arab." One of her hands rested on the head of the Euro child, while the other hand hovered over the head of the Arab child, indicating that Justice favored the Euros.

After independence the Oranis wanted to change this, so they attempted to raise the hand over the head of the Euro child to create an equal situation. Of course, the hand broke off. They saved the statue, though, so what you have now is Lady Justice with one broken arm and one hand not touching the head of the Arab child, seemingly indicating that there is still no justice for the Arabs and really no hope of justice for any remaining Europeans. Which seems about right.

"You may tell yourself, 'this is not my beautiful house!'"

2008-01-28T21:25:00.000+01:00

I had an interesting encounter while having coffee at the cafe today. My friend Jacob and I were down at our "local" (of course, not in the British sense. Beer.) and were speaking English together, as is our habit. There were a few young guys sitting not too far away, and at some lull in the conversation I happened to look over and one of them made eye contact and smiled (you know, the raising of the eyebrows smile, the "I want to say something" smile that one seems to get when people want to talk to the crazy foreigners...maybe you don't know, its immaterial).

I smiled back and he then asked "how are you?" in English, which was the start of a small conversation about how we liked Algeria and what we were doing and how they are students and want to at some point come to the US to study (biology). When I told them (this is in French now, their English was more for show) that I studied colonial history, they both just assumed that I worked on the War of Independence (1954-62), since "colonial" history in Algeria is the War. There's no place for remembering those other nasty 124 years.

I told them that I was researching at the Archives Nationales, at which point they took turns telling me how there "is nothing to find there" and that "to get the real history, you have to talk to people" and that "the only true history is what you can learn from people who actually lived it." I agreed that talking to people was important but thought that there might be some use in archival material. They both scoffed at the notion and once again agreed that nothing the government was involved in could be true, "there is no government here, just lies."

I find their position both remarkable and normal for Algeria. Rumor and hearsay are so prevalent in here that there is no room for anything "official" to have any claim on truth or validity, no matter how marginally connected to "le Pouvoir" ("the power," which is like "the Man") that source may be. Thus, for these guys (university educated) the fact that the government controls the Archives automatically disqualifies archival sources from the regime of truth. To them the only way to get at anything "true" about Algeria is to heed the claims of the various oral networks, unsubstantiated by anything other than the fact that they get repeated.

I guess its a cheesy conclusion, but in the end, which is more important to the social life of the country, the "truth" that I "discover" in the archives, or the "truth" that my taxi driver constructs for me in on the ride there? What good is something "true" if it can't convince anyone, can't promote action of any kind?

That, and I have an ant infestation. I blame the cookies, so I threw them out. Hopefully by the time I get back from Oran (leave tomorrow, stay 5 days) the ants will have deemed my room desert and moved on to more fecund fields.

Same as it ever was...and this

99 Problems

2008-01-25T19:19:00.000+01:00

I haven't posted in quite a while - again - and I'm starting to think that something is going on here. I was initially putting it down to the fact that I've actually been working much more and wandering around less. You know, staring at bad nineteenth century handwriting or the blinking cursor of Microsoft Word doesn't really lend itself to snappy stories.

But I think it might be something a little different. I think my blogging career is condensing the historical trajectory of the field of anthropology. Now, I'm not saying I know anything about anthropology, other than I think Indiana Jones was one of its greatest minds, but I have read a Taussig article or two, which I think gives me adequate intellectual firepower to continue.

Like anthropology, when my blog first started out it was deeply connected with the circulating powers of empire and colonialism - really, what am I doing if not presenting "Algeria" in all its otherly strangeness safely to you readers back home in the metropole. Hell, some policy wonk might even get his hands on my brilliant treatment of Algerian karaoke and stage a new invasion.

These initial stages were, I think, similar to the vulgar anthropology of "look how weird it is here!" Or, "man, people in XXXXXX (Algeria) sure do some wacky things!" But I think it got better - I was able to cut through the focus on otherness to think about the city or country and how it relates to larger concerns in the world (or at least I assume that is what you all read when I wrote, "Canadians = Jerks. According to an article in the Nov. 5, 2007 New Yorker, Canadians still club baby seals, skin them, and sell the pelts," and other such gems of analysis).

But things just keep getting more and more "normal" here. I go out, I do my work, I meet people, etc. All the same stuff that I did before, in about the same proportions, but now it all seems so normal and regular that I'm having trouble coming up with some way to write about it all and make it more interesting than, "I read a couple of documents in the archives today." Pretty soon I - like anthropology before me - will, in the search for a way to keep my blog (discipline) alive, turn to theorizing my self in relation to my subject instead of saying anything about the subject (Algeria) at all (note, for instance, this post itself). Before you know it I'll be able to continue writing the Corsair from the comfort of my home in Irvine. What a relief! A way to squeeze some more blood from the cold stone that is my blog!

Either that or I'll find the only American-style supermarket in all of Algeria (stay tuned), see how many chwarma I can eat in one sitting, finally make it out to Notre Dame d'Afrique, take a trip to Oran, and/or challenge the Kabylis who run the liquor store to a Tango*-drinking contest, before Heineken takes it over. So there's hope for the blog after all, I guess. Thanks for that session, I'm sure my medical insurance covers this couch-time.

And to all you anthropologist apologists out there: as I said before, I know nothing about the discipline, so if you would like to enjoy this entry a little more, use your find/replace tool to change "anthropology" to "phrenology," "ethnography," "dentistry" or some other old-fashioned hilarity.

*Tango is (was) the only completely independent Algerian beer. Heineken just bought it out and will take over operations soon.**
**That means I'm not sure when they take over operations.

Keep on Chooglin'

2008-01-13T19:17:00.000+01:00

Back to the grind here in Algiers, which of course means back to sleeping in and shirking my research duties...but just for a few days, of course.

The lovely break with Jess in Paris - where I was able to eat pork and drink alcohol to my heart, stomach, and liver's delight - had to end at some time, I guess, as it seems that humans have managed, in all our brilliance, to create a world where my continued pleasure and leisure is not seen as the pinacle of human achievement that it most surely is. For some reason there are people out there not working toward this lofty goal. I am making it your mission (yes, you) to find these people and do whatever it takes to get them on the right track. Your friend/relative/sibling/ random-guy-who's-site-you-stumbled-upon needs you. Don't let him down.

But the bastards are out there, and so accordingly I caught a flight back at some unholy hour of the morning, going through Madrid. Now, you might know this already, but in Spanish "Algiers" is "Argel," (and in French it is "Alger"). Finding the name "Argel" on the flight board, I had to pause to check the flight number. Because of the notorious Spanish tendency to spell everything wrong ("piso" is how they spell "floor," and "mojado" is how they spell "wet." Now how dangerous is that?! Get it right, Spanish!), and because of the French "Alger," I thought that some sleepy jerk in the Madrid airport had merely typed the name into the computer wrongly. I even took a picture, I thought this little Spanish anagrammal mix-up was so funny.

So I spent the two hours of my layover in Madrid giggling to myself about this wacky mix-up. Then I got on the plane. Oops, they actually say "Argel," in Spanish. Well, isn't that just a kick in the pants.

At the end of the day (wha what Pierre!), I guess it isn't so bad to be back. You know, I was getting too much of spending time with my girlfriend, eating delicious food, drinking wine and walking around one of the most beautiful cities on earth. It's nice to get back to crushing poverty and deep structural corruption, not to mention very poor air quality, poor nutrition, and generalized anger. Starting to go soft, I was. Smiling too much. I can't wait to get my scowl back.

Tournage dans un jardin Algérien

2007-12-14T18:53:00.001+01:00

Just a quick note to say that I'm famous. Or I will be in about six months when the film I just took part in gets released. That's right folks, I'm spitting out the bad milk of academics and sipping the sweet wine of movie-stardom. Or at least that is what I assume will happen after the Academy sees my powerful portrayal of one of a group of paparazzo running toward an elevator in an obscure Algerian film. That's right, and I got paid. They pay extras! What kind of crazy mixed-up Planet of the Apes world is this?

But really, I went and participated as an extra in this Algerian film, and I have to say that after seeing the magic first-hand, the movie business sucks. Early mornings. Endless repetition. Lots of standing. People telling you to be "more lively" on the 32nd take. I have to say that it was a fun experience, I got 20 bucks for my efforts, and just maybe I'll be able to see myself run by in the background of a scene on the big screen. Of course, it will only be on the big screen for a week in some art-house cinema in Paris, but maybe I'll be in town for it. I will put up some exclusive, behind-the-scenes photos when I get motivated enough to plug my camera into my computer.

This is also another way of saying that things here seem pretty normal. That goes for everyone except my doctor friend, who still has a lot of very sad work to do. But the rest of society as a whole is so Post Traumatic Stress Disordered from the recurring violence that you don't notice too much at the cafe or on the street. And just in time, the Corsair is getting even more Causal. I'm going to Paris to meet Jess tomorrow night, and might post from there (like the exclusive photos I promised just a few sentences ago), but maybe not. So see ya'll later, and as Cicero said: "NON-ILLEGITIMI CARBORUNDUM."

News

2007-12-11T15:03:00.000+01:00

If by some miracle there is news of Algeria in the US press, you will likely hear that there were two bombs here in Algiers this (Tuesday) morning. So far (this is about three hours later, there are around 28+ reported killed and 45+ wounded. They were car bombs that went off outside of the UN building and a police training facility, both in the same area called Beni Aknoun, near a bunch of government ministries and the like. I would estimate the area is about a mile or so from the Glycines, and to give you a picture of how loud car bombs are, I was laying in bed for the first one and it rattled the windows and shook the whole building. I got up and went out onto the terrace, and the second one was not quite as loud but still like the loudest thunderclap you’ve ever heard. I actually thought it was a construction crane dropping a huge metal beam or something of that nature. But everything is fine here as far as myself and everyone I know is concerned. I will post more info at some time when I know more.

The Tradition of all the Dead Generations...

2007-12-09T21:54:00.000+01:00

I can't remember if I have already written here about the physical city of Algiers, so if you think you've heard it all before, there is a whole world of grad-school basketball talk going on over at freedarko.blogspot.com, check it out (and witness the template for the Cas. Corsair)...

Algiers is on the coast. It means "islands" and has been a habitation for some thousands of years. The land upon which the city has been built and rebuilt is hilly, green, and bright with sunshine. The hills fall down to the coast, not unlike the middle section of California; they aren't precipitous, but they definitely slope. Because of this the town is based on winding switchbacks and stairs. There is no way to get anywhere without a significant change in altitude, the whole place is more vertical than any city I've been in. More than San Francisco, more than Seattle...I guess a bit less than this one Greek island I was on once but can no longer remember the name. And you thought I wasn't getting old.

What all this means is that the city has tons of steep back alleys and stairwells connecting two streets that run more or less perpendicular for a few blocks. Along these stairways are little shops: butchers, chwarma shops, cobblers (yes, cobblers - it seems that no one throws shoes away in Algiers), men's clothing stores, tobacconists, and photocopy salons. I would imagine there are other types of stores as well.

There are great parts of the city where you are turning the corner on a stairway, there is a white and blue building on your right, a green and white state school on your left, lines of shops on the street below, and as you come around the corner you look up from the stairs to see a blindingly crispy blue Mediterranean in the near distance. It can really be stunning. Then you get to the bottom of the stairs, are almost bowled over by the stench of urine, mobbed by mosquitoes, knee-deep in trash, with a bunch of unemployed twenty year olds silently watching you in a kind of menacing manner (they probably have university degrees and speak three languages, but you try being unemployed with no hope of employment for about three straight years and you'll look menacing, too).

Couple that menacing unemployment with the fact that no one is on the streets after 8pm, that there is nothing apart from a few man-bars even open after that hour, and that the Algerois - due to about ten years of generally random violence that ended in the deaths of about 200,000 people at the end of 170 years of terrible governance - have internalized a curfew that keeps them from even thinking about interacting with others late at night, and you have the deadest city of millions this side of Salt Lake.*

The city has the physical set up to be a really interesting, really fun town. A few nice restaurants moving in, a little paint here and there, a nightclub for the kids, some decent employment, a working infrastructure to repair roads and take away trash and provide services to the population, a complete overhaul of the political/economic structures that keep a handful of very very corrupt guys/parties at the head of all the major industries and government ministries...you know, just a few little things and this town could be a real gem.

I must admit to liking - or at least to having a grudging respect for - the fact that Algeria is sticking with the Thursday-Friday weekend. No matter what happens to the country I hope it maintains its quirks like that, it helps give the place its character.

I'm not going to conclude with anything here, I just (note the rhetorical move) think that it is a shame that things have gone so poorly in Algeria for so long that a place like Algiers, which could be a beautiful, amazing town that everyone would want to come see once in his/her life, is instead a poor, poorly run city that people try to avoid.

*I have never been to Salt Lake City, have no idea how many people live there, and am only guessing that it is boring. I'm standing by that guess, however, largely based on their basketball team from the 1990s.

Legislative action on the part of the League

2007-12-03T19:24:00.000+01:00

I was just made aware of this, which will be of interest to fans of baseball, sports in general, and cursing:

read more about it here: http://s210975194.onlinehome.us/blog/?p=41
All that and not a single "carnsarnat!"? I feel cheated.

Cultural Patrimony

2007-12-01T18:55:00.001+01:00

While I haven't been doing too much that would pass for excitement lately, I do have some few things to share with the ether:

On Thursday I went with another American, Jacob, and his Algerian journalist buddy to watch the voting for municipal elections. Never mind that it was pouring rain. I mean really pouring. Remember when I wrote a while ago about the heaviest rain I've ever seen, and being caught in it? Yeah, it was like that, but coupled with standing in the street under a flimsy umbrella - on purpose - for a few hours. We did get into one of the polling stations, and I even saw with my very own eyes a box of ballots being counted, but we were quickly shooed out of there. Prior permission necessary.

I guess they don't want people doing any kind of counting of voters. The official number was 42% of the population turning out, in the Biblical rain. A newspaper here, El Khobar, called 18,000 people, a pretty good sample, to ask if they would vote. 4% said yes. People definitely were not knocking down the doors to the polling stations where I was. This is what leads to claims of fraud. That, of course, and the rampant fraud.

I have also been to the National Archives, an imposing Soviet-type building out in the middle of nowhere. There are many security checkpoints, seven heavily-armed policemen on duty, a week-long waiting process to get clearance, and about seven workers for every researcher. Probably more, actually, as there is all kinds of construction going on.

Now that I think about it, at lunch-time in the canteen there are at least 50 workers of various titles, and I am one of usually three people using the reading rooms. So that puts it at about sixteen workers per researcher. But hey, at least the bloated, oil-rich state is employing people. Its a step up from building another presidential palace or funding another two-week trip for the finance minister to France.

Ted Williams was Basque-American.

The 1976-77 TampaBay Buccaneers went 0-14 for the season, getting outscored by an average of 20.5 points per game.

Mission Civilisatrice

2007-11-27T19:10:00.000+01:00

To briefly wrap up the story that my pollution-and-(tuberculosis)common-cold-addled brain is quickly forgetting…

There we were, stranded in Timimoun, car barely operational and a long, long bus ride through the early morning Sahara ahead of us. We had gone to the mechanic, who told us he couldn’t fix the car, had come back to the White Sisters’ place expecting to pack up and go, ran into the handyman who was fixing the pipes, he took us to his buddy who is a mechanic, they played around with the car, I road in the oldest Renault on the road (it shifted from the middle of the dashboard, a lever pointing straight out between the driver and passenger), and we ended up by leaving the car there with the news that they would have to send a chunk of the engine by plane to Algiers.

Thankfully, before Jean could get too stuck on the idea of taking the bus at some ungodly hour in the morning, we managed to convince him that the taxi collectif would be a much better idea, and that Marek and I could pay for it. So we found a taxi and hired it to Beni Abbes. It cost us about $60 for 6000km. Probably not too bad (but really, how would I know?)

We bid farewell to the Soeurs and dusty Timimoun and hit the road. At one point, in the middle of the desert with nothing around our driver started slowing down. He kept slowing and pulled to the side of the road, all without a word. In the distance I could see a truckload of his buddies driving over to beat, rob, and leave us exposed to wither and waste away in the desert...but it was just a mirage, you know how those things tend to happen in the desert. Really he was just pulling over to pray. He took his rug out, found a spot off the road and made his afternoon prayers.

After the most intense security check outside of an American airport we were let into Beni Abbes. The town is built on a river that flows from Morocco, and it was actually filled with moving water. It is a true desert oasis, right on the frontier between the “rock” desert and the “sand” desert. Climb a high dune near town and you can look forever east over the dunes, then turn west and see the river recede greenly into the rocks.

Well, I stayed there among the dunes and rocks and monks and ghost of Charles de Foucauld for a week or so. Marek started his Arabic lessons. Jean went back to Timimoun to wait on the car.

And I saw this:

Eventually I got a call from Jean that the car was going to take at least “many more days,” and took the opportunity to find a bus. That bus left at 5 in the morning and stopped at a cruddy little (but slightly bigger) town called Bechar where I had to find a new bus to Algiers. That bus left at 4pm. It took 16 hours. Don’t let any romantic notions about seeing the countryside or meeting the locals creep into that head of yours. Sixteen hours on an overnight bus is an uncomfortable sit among equally uncomfortable, angry strangers.

And that concluded it. I got a taxi ride home with the Angriest Man in Algiers; was momentarily locked out of the Glycines; took a long, hot shower; and went to sleep.

A Post With No Pictures (just so you know how good you've got it)

2007-11-25T19:07:00.000+01:00

I got three things today:
1) soaked
2) an umbrella
I took advantage of a brief lull in the intense Algiers showers to run out on some errands. I knew I ran a risk. The sky loves to rain here, and it had been pouring all morning. One of my tasks, yes, was to buy an umbrella. I managed to check that off the list, the wet, unreadable list, after the skies opened before I found a guy on the street selling one. So I bought the first umbrella I saw, and I dare say that I got the ass-kickin'est $3 umbrella this side of Bangalore. Or maybe not. I will send you a picture when I get them uploaded. I did manage to get the umbrella operational before the real deluge happened.

I was taking a short-cut through one of the hospital campuses when the rain fell harder than I have ever seen. Really. Even with the king of umbrellas I felt compelled, as did everyone else, to take refuge under the awning of a building. It lasted ten minutes or so and was like the kind of pressure you dream about for your home shower. And I'm not going to sit here and criticize the Algiers infrastructure for having senseless road design for a place that gets this much rain...sorry, I said "road." Riverbed would be more accurate. Or canal, as the presence of sidewalks (for the cars to park on) allows the water to be channeled more directly at pedestrians.

That was pretty spectacular, and I was happy to have witnessed it (and my feet stayed dry! Hooray for waterproofing spray!). But then I got to the other side of the campus, and the door was locked. I know, that sounds strange. Here in Algeria everything has a locking door and a doorman. The University. My home. Banks. Bookstores. The hospital. And this doorman had decided to lock up and take off. So there is a steel gate with slats, so both those wanting in and those wanting out could see where they needed to be but not get there. Really. Locked inside the hospital. I waited for about 15 minutes before finally deciding to scout the perimeter, which led me to find a guy by a door who let me out. He slammed the door behind me and when I turned to look it was just a little spot of steel in a four-story cement wall. But I was free! Its like they didn't want to let anyone out before they were sure we all contracted something horrid.

3) my récépissé
Which is like a receipt for the carte de residence. Or like a provisional carte. It is a piece of paper that says I can stay in the country for another three months while they fix me up a carte. It has my picture stapled to it, so you know that shit's for real. I'll get you a picture of that, too. What this means is that I get to successfully leave the country and, supposedly, successfully reenter. What I think this really means is that at the airport, when I want to come back to Algiers at the beginning of January, I will go to pick up my boarding pass and the person will ask to see my visa. I will present the person with this récépissé (it is all in Arabic) and argue through two and maybe three layers of hierarchy that it really says I should be let back into the country and it is really valid FROM Nov. 22, not UNTIL Nov. 22. They will not issue me a boarding pass in time for the flight, I will have to talk to some kind of "international desk" and various police/security officers will examine my paper. I will get frustrated but will keep calm. It will take 32 hours to get all straightened out.

Happy Thanksgiving all!

2007-11-22T20:51:00.000+01:00

We should all be happy to know that one of the French papers I sometimes read (I forget which, exactly) today named Thanksgiving the best American holiday, as it managed to break free of the Great Commercial Cult that ensnares our other holidays.

Just so everyone knows, I did have a glass of wine with dinner to celebrate, but kept it to that as I've been spending – and plan to spend - the rest of the day in bed, sick. How many hours can one man sleep in two days? It was 18 yesterday, and we're shooting for lucky 13 today...I'll be sure to keep you all posted.

Anyway, the point of it all is that I hope that right about now everyone is stuffing his/her face with Thanksgiving goodness. Have an extra (piece of) pie for me...

Controlling the means of production

2007-11-19T12:05:00.000+01:00

Since this is "the most popular blog that I have ever written for," I figured it would be a good forum for the dissemination of good music. Everyone should go download and love the new sungiant album: http://www.anachronatron.blogspot.com/ Really though, I've listened to it like seven times in a row now, and its friggin' great.

In other news, everyone should be happy to know that I have neither tuberculosis nor syphilis. I am now cleared (medically, not administratively) to live in Algeria. I also got to keep my chest x-ray, which is pretty fun. Does everyone have a family of pixies living in their lungs? I assume they are there to help...

Dromedary

2007-11-16T13:08:00.000+01:00

Leaving Ghardia going south you start to get into a mixed rock and sand desert, driving along side of the Grand Erg Occidental (Ergs are the sandy dune-y parts of the Sahara). The sand is very fine and almost soft. This sand also blows all the way to the Canary Islands.

We stopped in El Goléa (also known as El Meniaa) to see the sights. The sights include a museum containing artifacts from archaeological digs around the area and a bunch of fossils from when the Sahara was a big lake. It is kind of a surprising museum, just in the fact that it exists at all. They play a one-minute loop of Beethoven’s Ninth all day long. No one goes in. In the lobby I did get a look at a coffee table book of all the different varieties of date palms, one variety per page. It was 400 some pages long.

We then drove to a shanty-town (almost) on the outskirts of the city. After plowing our way through the sand-dirt streets between the mudbrick buildings we finally made it to the abandoned (mostly) church and graveyard where Charles de Foucauld is buried.

(Briefly, de Foucauld was a French army officer turned missionary who was one of the first whities to go live out in the Sahara. He set up hermitages in Beni Abbès and in the mountains outside Tamanrasset, from where he studied languages and customs of the natives while making the occasional conversion. He also set all kinds of information about the defensive capabilities of the indigenous populations to the French military, had weapons storehouses and generally acted like an advanced scout for the armed colonization of the Sahara. He was killed in Tamanrasset by a group who wanted to steal his massive cache of weapons. Frère Charles de Foucauld de Jesus, indeed.)

He has a pretty nice grave, too, in a churchyard where everyone else gets a cement rectangle filled with rocks, and sometimes a bush of some kind.

We stopped off at the Soeurs Blanches for the catholics amongst us to have mass, and to look in the garden. Jean was surprised and disappointed that they didn’t offer us any lunch.

Cruising along nicely – Marek finally wrested controls from Jean and we topped 100km/h – when a funny (but not ha ha funny) noise comes from the engine. As we pull to the side of the road the car quits. Here we are, then, stuck on the side of some crappy road in the desert 1700km from Algiers, and 70km from Timimoun, the nearest town. The engine coolant container sprung a leak, we overheated and then the engine seized up in some way we can’t fix. So, like anyone out in the desert, we flagged down the first truck that came lumbering down the road. Jean had a tow-rope in the back of the car and we tied it off.

Jean stayed in the car to steer and press the brake, while Marek and myself rode up in the truck with the drivers. The two guys generally thought it was a riot that a Pole, an American, and an old Frenchie were out in the desert, just for fun.

It was tough making conversation, because one guy didn’t speak any French, one guy kind-of spoke it and neither Marek nor myself know Algerian Arabic. But here are some statements: the road here is very dangerous, due to, for lack of a better word, the Mafia. There is no law out here (he chuckled when I asked about the police and gendarmerie). Algeria is “shit,” as there is no work and no money to be had. He repeated this twice. If we want fun for tourism, we shouldn’t go to Beni Abbès or these little towns out here, but to the cities like Tamanrasset or Oran. Dude loved Oran. Tourists just end up “eating money.” People get killed out here on the road, really, its dangerous, just like the gas in the tanker behind us, “Pchwewww!!” (or some other exploding noise).

We had to stop a few times to readjust the rope, but the two guys took us all the way to Timimoun. We had to stop in the outskirts of town, because it is illegal for big trucks to enter the city itself. The guys didn’t accept any money as payment.

Jean had the phone number of the Soeurs Blanches in Timimoun, and while we waited he worked on the car, complete with help from nearly every Algerian who walked by. It was very important during this period that Marek and I “watch the car!” Even though there are only two doors and we were standing right there. So I stood against the back of the car and watched a full-scale football match in an empty lot. Played on sand/dirt and with a flat ball, the guys were good.

Jean got the car to run, although just barely, and we cruised down into the centre-ville. Keep in mind, centre ville is only a name, as this is a pretty little town. We got to see some of the sights (odd architecture down here, as Jean said “this is the Mali part of Algeria. The country is too big to have just one Algeria.”) Also learned that the people in this part of the desert long ago perfected underground water piping and water towers.

The Soeur Blanche showed up and we walked back to the house, as the mechanic was closed for the evening. There were three “sisters” living in the house, and they fed us and made us feel at home, which was nice because we could have still been pushing the car on the road somewhere. Marek wanted me to quote him: “We have no idea where we’ll be sleeping tomorrow, but hey, at least we’re still alive.” Now say that again in a thick Polish accent, its way funnier that way.

One last note: the good sisters in Timimoun have the best soap-holder I’ve seen. There is a circular magnet that one jams into the bar, which allows one to suspend the soap from a little magnetic gallows that protrudes from the wall. No wet mushy soap! No fumbling for the bar!

News Flash!

2007-11-12T22:23:00.000+01:00

Canadians = Jerks. According to an article in the Nov. 5, 2007 New Yorker, Canadians still club baby seals, skin them, and sell the pelts. It is illegal to watch this without government permission. Yes, Canadians are seal-clubbers, and they don't want you to know it. What other dirty secrets will come out of the Great White North? The super-secret "Beat up a Baby Celebration?" The seldom-reported "Punch a Bunny Festival?" We'll have to wait and see...

Gotta be the Freak o' the Week

2007-11-12T18:06:00.000+01:00

A note to start with: when you call a French guy on Tuesday to make plans to leave on a trip, and he tells you that you will leave next Thursday at 5am, what he really means is the coming up Thursday at 5am. Don’t be fooled, “prochain” is a slippery concept, both “upcoming” and “next.” And don’t be surprised, then, when on that coming up Thursday morning you are awoken by a Polish priest knocking on your door at 5:40am and then looking confused when you open it in your underwear.

But all in all it is not a bad way to start a trip you know nothing about. By the time you actually wake up and realize that you are on the road into the Algerian desert with an elderly French man and a young Polish priest, neither of whom you really know, its too late to have any preparation anxiety, and you can promptly fall asleep in the back seat.

Once it was light enough to really take a good look out the window of the 1970s-era Renault Espress we were in the mountains on the northern coast. Dense with vegetation, and soggy from the week straight of rain, the green mountain pass reminded me of the view from a distance of the Black Hills in South Dakota: so green, in so many shades, that you really could mistake it for some darker color. The drive through the pass was dramatic, as the rain clouds were stuck there, creating swirling mist and a moisture not yet coalesced into rain.

We had to take the route straight south from Algiers instead of the normal one that veers to the west because the roads in that direction had been cut off by flooding inland. While it does rain quite often here during the winter, the downpours we had were out of the ordinary.

Through the mountains we came down onto an arid plain, the Mitidja. The descent was too dense with fog to see much, but things got progressively less green as we leveled off and pushed south, kind of like you would expect, I guess. What I did not expect was that in many places it looked like the Badlands…so thus far in my sleep-deprived mind my personal Matrix-machine is malfunctioning and looping me back to a rainy trip back home from the grandparents’ house in Rapid City. I hate the sun!

We stopped and ate at the “Algerian McDo[nalds’]” as Marek, the Polish priest, says. What this meant was that we pulled off the road to a small building at which we ordered skewered mutton brochettes, french fries, and a spicy Algerian soup, all complete with as much bread (baguettes, as always) as one can eat. It was all pretty delicious, and fun since it was grilled literally right in front of our table.

The desert of rocks ¬– for we are not in the dunes as yet – is pretty odd landscape. It is a true desert, even more uninviting than the dunes, with nothing but flat-topped, squared-off hills of rock jutting up from the flat land.

After 10 hours in the car we made it to Ghardia, a city built into a ravine carved into the ground by a river. We actually drove down to get to it. You could look from the road across miles and miles of country and not see a thing, but as you approach the canyon reveals itself and there’s a city down there. It is a pretty fun effect, like you get to see inside the seams of the earth or something, and there’s activity down there.

The city itself is fairly divided between the “Arab” and Mozabite communities. The Mozabites are a Berber group that builds A-shaped minarets on their mosques. The men wear distinctive pants that are super baggy in the crotch and pleated, along with a white skull-cap. Once a woman gets married she can only leave the house when completely covered except for one eye. Only one, though. But at least we saw women, which was a first since we left Algiers. Really, I did not think it possible to drive through multiple towns, for 10 hours, and not see a single female, but it is. As our host in Ghardia said, “yep, it’s much different from Algiers out here.”

The town itself is very cute. The main square was filled with people getting ready for evening prayer, and the vegetable/fruit/food section of the market was pretty amazing. Especially the fish area. Fish in the desert, why not. The wonders of modern refrigerated container shipping. At night many of the mosques put a green light up in the minaret (green is the color of Islam), which is a pretty cool sight because the rest of the town is completely dark. Just moonlight and green-lit lighthouses. Make up any “steering people away from the rocky shores of impiousness” metaphor you want.

There's Gold in Dem Der Hills!

2007-11-10T18:02:00.000+01:00

25 hours of sitting on, and waiting for, busses later, I'm back at the Glycines. Let me tell you that night busses are not all they're cracked up to be, whatever that is. But stay tuned for more.

Sand is everywhere

2007-11-04T21:52:00.000+01:00

After three days of driving south, including 400km in a taxi after our car broke down, and old French man, a Polish priest-in-training, and I finally made it to the oasis of Beni Abbès. More after I get back to Algiers, In'cha'allah.

C'mon Fellas! Its all Ball-Bearings These Days!

2007-10-31T16:36:00.000+01:00

I have been waiting for a sunny day to take some pictures around the Glycines, because there are a few nice little gardens with flowers and lime trees and vine-y canopies, but some system seems to have taken up residence over the city and it just rains everyday. Maybe the clouds are having a tough time getting their travel visas from the Algerian government.

At any rate, I do not really feel like commenting more about the karaoke experience other than to say that it was surprisingly fun, way better than French karaoke, where everyone is serious and a jerk about groups who can't really sing. Here the dudes (like any public space in Algeria, it was exclusively dudes outside of our group) were serious about their singing but had a great time plowing through hits with our group of no-talent yahoos. Now if only I could have snuck in a quart of Popov vodka and a SOBE iced tea of some kind we would have had a real party, Elvis?! stylie (embrace the interrobang).

There is an international book "salon" in Algiers starting tomorrow, and I'm pretty excited about going. Its a big deal here in the capital, tons of publishers and tons of books. Don't worry, the organizers have assured the population, through an interview in the newspaper Al-Watan, that they have barred "objectionable" books from the salon.

Whew! Would hate to read anything bad about the government or Islam. Although that isn't really fair, because there is a new vogue in Algerian history that examines the Berber resistance to the colonizing Arabs (and their religion) about a thousand years ago. It is a step in a pretty good direction, it seems. Not that Berber nationalism is any better than other nationalisms, but publishing books like this helps establish the legitimacy of plural identities.

Just one more note: I know everyone is curious about what it is like to be a foreign minister or cultural minister in the Algerian government. Well, good thing there have been various reports lately, and we have gathered that it mainly consists of taking long "working trips" to France to "establish ties" to various French bureucrats, all with an expense budget not available to the public.

And don't worry, if you somehow manage to go eight times in one year - as has the current finance minister - and fail to develop any cooperative projects with France, you will probably still be rewarded for your service to the country with a cushy seat on the Water Resources Oversight Board, from which you can give no-bid contracts to your buddies in the "private" sector. Its actually not dissimilar from being Vice President of the United States (or was that too easy?).

Gotta have some faith in the sound

2007-10-30T22:29:00.000+01:00

This is just to say: if there was any question about my ability to pull off a George Michael song at an Algerian karaoke cafe, dead sober, let it be put to rest. I totally owned "Freedom" last night. Let no one tell you otherwise. In'cha'allah I'll have video to prove it before too long.

Havlicek Stole the Ball!

2007-10-27T17:51:00.000+01:00

Scored my first win against the Algerian administration today. Of course, this puts the series at about 4-1 in favor of the Bureaucrats, an unenviable position for any team to be in. Good thing this series is open-ended (maybe best out of 173?). I managed to get the right day, the right time, the right building, and the right official. What was my reward, you ask? A list. Yep, I got the official list of things I need for the residency card.

Among the necessaries are: 10 photos; photocopy of my housing contract; some kind of note from the ambassador; and three separate medical certificates. But at least I have the list. I was told by a few people that if one shows up with all this stuff one will be sent away to get more things; but if you show up and ask for the list first, then you can get the items on said list and it’ll be over. Hopefully that’s the case. Let’s hope my tuberculosis test comes back negative.

I also had a pretty good chwarma today, the best sandwich I’ve had thus far (and way better than that illegitimate “King” of chicken). With the chwarma I had Algeria’s (maybe France's or Spain's?) finest cola, a Selecto (or, translating the Arabic, a “seeleectoo”). It was probably the sweetest soda I’ve ever tasted, and that includes all those ginger beers I love to drink. I wish I could describe the flavor, but it escapes me…let’s say cola mixed with some kind of super-sweet red kool-aid.

And to add to the cultural firsts, what passed me on the street while I was enjoying my post-bureaucratic victory feast but an extended-cab pickup. The make (model?) was difficult to read as it went by, but it was something along the lines of “Wingles,” and the model (make?), proudly displayed on the back, was “Great Wall.” It looked like a Toyota (or, now that I think about it, a Tata) to me. That China, man, where can't it export?

It has also been raining here every night for the past four days or so, and has gotten quite cold. I’m told the best garment I can buy for the fast-approaching winter weather is this specifically Berber kind of hooded cape-thing. Everyone knows that I love capes and hooded jackets in various guises, but I still think that person was lying to me. The Berber Rai (a kind of popular music, think drunken men in bars, wearing jean jackets and dancing with their hands in the air) dudes wear these when they get famous and go to France to show how “authentic” they are. I guess a jean-jacket doesn’t say “Kabyle” to the world music crowd.

Tune in next time for a peak at where I live.

You Can't get There from Here

2007-10-22T13:40:00.000+01:00

It has been a frustrating few days around here. My Arabic class welcomed a whole cohort of Algerians who need to bone up on their FusHa, so now about half the class actually speaks Arabic and demands we spend time debating obscure grammatical rules. Meanwhile I don’t understand a single word, let alone the different ways to structure Idaafaa…but I guess I’ll just keep plugging away and continue to be the idiot American, and maybe I’ll pick something up in the next month or so. To be positive: I get to witness a new culture’s (terrible) pedagogy. At least I have Al-Kitab and Maha to help me through.

I also spent about an entire day walking around trying to find the correct offices for the carte de residence. I don’t want to overplay the Kafka “Castle” angle here, but c’mon. One office tells me to go the Bureau des Etrangers. The Bureau is often closed. I get there the other day and it is finally open. I wait in a line to talk to reception. The nice woman tells me that, well, duh, this is only the place to prolong visas, not to apply for a residence card. For the card I have to go to my local police commissariat, wherever that may be.

I then asked around the Glycines, got directions to the commissariat, and started out. There are police on every corner of this city, so as I’m walking I ask the way. I get new directions. I get directions conflicting those I just received a block ago. I start an argument among a group of cops about how to get to the commissariat. I finally find some guys who figure it out among themselves and give me working directions.

This is the afternoon now, and I’ve been walking for hours. I find my way to the commissariat, wait while the reception ladies have a lengthy personal chat with their buddy who has come in to say hi, and then ask to be directed to the bureau that handles residence cards. “Oh my” they say “that office is only open for a few hours in the morning.” Of course it is.

There is something about the ineffectual administration of this country that has to do with colonialism and oil, I think. The French colonial regime (and most importantly the settlers who had political power by the 20th century) never allowed an indigenous educated elite to develop, frightened as they were by any pretenders to their power.

So when a conglomerate of violent factions managed to kick the French out, there was no “organic intellectuals,” no middle class, no civil society to speak of. After independence the FLN turned itself into a new military elite, stifling any new competition and consolidating its power. National myths built around a few popular warlords helped legitimize the military dictatorship masquerading itself as a socialist state. Its tough to have a socialist state with no society.

This state was not beholden to the population, however, because nearly the entire income of Algeria came from oil, and it still does. The state doesn’t have to tax the population, and therefore has little incentive to provide anything for the population (like, say, an operable administrative apparatus). 97% of Algeria’s revenue currently comes from oil, while the sector only employs 2% of the population. The state continues to be run by a virtual oligarchy of families the patriarch of which were top FLN officials 40 years ago, and “private industry” (which might otherwise put pressure on the state to better administer the country) is the province of the sons of those men.

So we have a situation where a military/political elite has maintained itself through oil revenues while at the same time abstracting itself further and further from the administration of the country and the concerns of the population. Throw in the threat of “terrorism” to help the state maintain its military stranglehold on the country in lieu of providing the population with any other services (“we would build you better schools, but, you know, we have to spend all our money on security”) and you have the makings of one terribly run country. But hey, at least the DVDs are cheap.

If anyone wants to read further about the travails of dealing with an ineffectual bureaucratic hierarchy as it pertains to the administration of a country, just wait a few years and I'll send you a copy of my dissertation.

P.S. As far as I can tell Irvine isn't burning to the ground right now. Everybody get a bucket and let's keep it that way, huh? I can't believe I don't want Irvine razed...its YOUR fault, you know.

I'll have coleslaw with that

2007-10-19T10:48:00.000+01:00

The trip to the depths of state regulatory power didn’t work quite as I wanted it to, since the Bureau des Etrangers is closed Thursdays and Fridays, as I found out after I walked all the way down there. To quote Tenacious D: “All you people up there, in City Hall/Are fuckin it up for the people that’s in the streets.” I did manage to get more of the stuff that I will eventually need, however, like something called a timbre fiscale (a stamp of some kind) and a whole grip of identity photos, or, I guess, passport photos (do I really need 10? Well, yes. Really).

I also had a nice long talk with the two people who work at the photo shop. I asked for identity photos, they said sure. While the lady was getting the camera set up she asked if it was for a passport or visa, to which I replied it was for a residence card. She looked surprised and said, “oh, you’re Spanish, I see,” to which I replied that no, I am (was? What’s the correct grammar here?) American. She was stunned and the news quickly spread to the guy working with her.

The fun started there as I had to explain why the hell I was in Algeria, tell them about how I even knew anything about their country (“because we have lots of oil and you have none, right?”), and fend off marriage proposals (the lady stormed off in mock disappointment when I said I wasn’t on the market for a wife, which was fun for all. Also: “its ok, in Algeria everyone has to have more than one wife,” “oh yeah?” “Yes, have you seen what happens to the women after they get married?”). It was fun, they told me all about the country and all the different people here. I also found out that I look “more Kabyle than American” (the Kabylie being a region in the east that produces a bunch of redheads with freckles and even more brunets with blue eyes...and Zinedine Zidane).

For a moment I questioned whether to just agree with the pronouncement of my Spanish-ness or tell the woman that I’m from the States. I do think, however, that things are never going to turn around in the world if two things don’t happen: 1) the US stops getting up in everyone’s business, politically, economically, and militarily (i.e. we stop beating around the Bush (ugh) and finally elect Kucinich (holy crap Word recognizes Kucinich!), whom everyone knows has all the best ideas for change, which is why he’s constantly marginalized by the media (along with the other candidate with serious thoughts about policy: Ron Paul); and 2) Americans who aren’t dickheads start actually telling people they are from the US. I’m sick of Canada getting all the recognition for having nice people.

I would like to put the interaction with the photo people in contrast to the interactions on the streets of the Casbah; “interactions,” that is, in the sense that men muttered and swore at me. Gainfully employed people are happier, more forgiving, and more curious in the world (I would argue) than the economically depressed. I guess I think that – adding to what I said above – redistribution of wealth (however one wants to accomplish that: through a massive state or a completely unfettered market (and I mean completely) or something else entirely) around the world wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Just a note: I had a chicken sandwich from the “King of Chicken” today, and it wasn’t very good. It seems that monarchies are tired systems. For my next sandwich I’m looking for “The Duly Elected Representative of Chicken.” Or hey, why not think big and hold that sandwich ‘til I find “The People’s Committee of Chicken” or “The Enlightened Dictator of Chicken.” Yeah, that’s good chicken…

P.S.

Village to Castle

2007-10-17T15:16:00.000+01:00

I get a pretty good view of the port from the terrace of the Glycines, and I can’t help but think about the sailors aboard those container ships that come in. How many are there per boat? A whole crew? And what’s it like coming into port these days? I think it is leagues from “comin’ into port” in my imagination, one fed by Pynchon novels and Tom Waits.

Shore leave probably has completely different connotations than it used to (or at least different from the way that Waits presents it in various songs on Rain Dogs/Bone Machine/etc. and Pynchon tells it in V and Mason & Dixon). I bet the degree is further removed when the port is Algiers instead of Singapore or Malta. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve been down by the port and not seen any bars or brothels or tattooed sailors or dwarfs or talking dogs. Maybe I’m just not looking hard enough.

I also got a chance to go to the Embassy of the United States of America, just up the road a bit on Embassy Lane. That is one secure compound, my friends. There are “gardens” with marble 4 foot high marble walls around the whole compound, the security section is at least 20 yards from the road, the whole thing is raised off the road, there are no direct driveways into the compound, and there is an army of guards with nothing to do but watch you walk on the winding (marble-walled) path to the security gate.

Then you get to security, where they take five minutes to inspect your passport, take another ID in exchange for an entrance badge, and send you over to the entrance. As with every door in the whole compound, you pull on it and it doesn’t move, then someone behind the tinted glass determines you are ok and unlocks the door. Once inside there is not only a metal detector and x-ray, but a pat-down and search of all your bags. They keep all cell-phones while you are in the compound.

After security there is a single path, once again littered with marble blocks and with what I am sure the communications department would call a “railing” but is more accurately described as a fence. Did I mention there are guards everywhere? Once again you go through the door dance, and upon being let into the consular section you sit in a highly air-conditioned room and wait upon your bureaucratic masters.

Again obscure, but for the record all the police/guards (not the military guys in camouflage but the other guys/ladies in blue) are shod in Adidas GSG9 Tactical Boots. For what its worth.

What this all really means is that tomorrow I get to start slogging through the Weberian nightmare that is the Algerian bureaucracy, as I have my lettres d’attestation and can now apply for a residency card. We’ll see if they actually make me get an x-ray to prove that I don’t have consumption. Let’s just hope I don’t develop a cough before then.

At the end of the mRNA molecule is a region containing a self-complementary sequence

2007-10-16T14:13:00.000+01:00

Last night I went out to dinner with a group of people, and realized what an odd situation I am in. I was eating in Algiers with a Cuban, two Frenchies, two Danes, a Polish woman, a German and an American, all speaking French, and the proprietor of the restaurant was a Ukranian guy who’s father was Algerian. Oh, and there were hamburgers on the menu.

I can’t decide if I feel good about it or bad, like I should really be out meeting more “real” Algerians, since as of now I know two (three if you count my Arabic instructor, although she was born in Lebanon). But again, I’ve only been here a week.

There are no working ATMs in this country. None. I have passed many in my wanderings, and not a single one is operational. I actually went into a bank yesterday and bought money with my credit card from an actual person! It was quite the experience. I had to go through those double-locking security doors where you get in between them and have to wait for the second door to open: you wait for a guy to look you over and, deciding you are legit, push a little button allowing the second door to open.

Then you have to put in a request to a man in a glass box, who will let you into the space with the credit card reader after you show him your passport; you then get a receipt for the money you bought, take it over to another guy in a different glass box, and he grabs you a big stack of cash. It took much longer than the ATM, but I actually interacted with people, which is something that one does increasingly little, it seems.

I started an Arabic class yesterday, one that is a bit above my level and taught, when not in Arabic, in French. I’m in there with a couple of nuns, who are pretty forgiving of my stumbling and smile a lot, and the wife of one of the Japanese consular officials.

Lots of Things

2007-10-14T17:43:00.000+01:00

I defy anyone to walk around this town and not find traffic. Ok, I walked up the hill during Iftar one night and there was no one on the roads, but on the way back they were packed. Even yesterday, Eid al-Fitr (end of Ramadan), there was no one walking on the streets but cars (and NAFTAL stations, seemingly the only petrol company in Algeria, though I’m pretty sure that’s not true) everywhere.

I walked around the hill on which I live a little bit today, and every tiny street, whether going up or down, was packed with cars. Cars, mind you. It seems that the United States and Algeria have at least one thing in common that separates them from the rest of the world: no one drives scooters in either one. Really, I haven’t been anywhere outside of Aberdeen, South Dakota, that has fewer scooters on the road. And even Aberdeen has its legions of kids on crotch-rockets. I have seen, if I recall correctly, three motorcycles since arriving, and one of them was disassembled at a mechanic.

Yesterday, lounging on the terrace, I saw the largest flock of birds I have ever seen. It was more of a school of birds, or a caravan. They were tiny and a ways off, but the spectacle was not unlike tracing a line of ants from a pile of spilled lunch to their hill, which might be 100 yards off. I mean, these things just kept coming. They moved sporadically and were small, so let’s call them finches. At the end of the train there was this ball, this swirling mass of birds; anyone who has seen the “deep ocean” segment of Blue Planet can think of this mass as similar to the mass ball of fish that gets devoured by dolphins and diving birds and tuna, it was that dense.

Speaking of many of the same thing (cars, birds), there were tons of dead people in the movie I regretfully watched last night, Smokin' Aces. I do not recommend that anyone spend time on this bouillabaisse of poorly-drawn characters and violence, but if you can track it down I do recommend the one scene featuring everyone’s favorite, Jason Bateman.

It is about a 3 minute monologue and easily the best three minutes of the film, if not of Bateman’s career (that’s not to disparage his high-quality work on Arrested Development; in fact, the scene in this unfortunate movie is probably only so good in light of his work on that show). Here is a teaser, although it does not cover the best part of the scene:
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=1111414691&fr=yfp-t-471-s
I guess the lesson of the movie for you screen writers out there is that graphic violence, a handful of “colorful” characters, and a convoluted plot involving the FBI and the Mafia do not a good movie make. I can’t believe it took me this long to realize that. Ben Affleck’s “character” gets killed quite early, however, which must be a plus.

L'Amour fou

2007-10-12T21:19:00.000+01:00

Took a walk down to the Casbah (a medina in Morocco, where a Casbah is a castle) today, which was an interesting experience. The structure of the casbah is not unlike the old medinas in Morocco; with the hills and stairs and constant up and down it seemed like Chefchaouan to me. The difference that I can tell is this: in Morocco it seems like you are just a walking dollar (or euro) sign. In the Algiers Casbah you are a walking symbol of ongoing injustice, however perceived.

There is no touristic structure that allows one to comfortably exploit people’s ways of life for entertainment; in the A.Cas. you really do not belong, and people let you know: at least twice I was called a fascist (in French) and any number of other angrily spoken names in Arabic. I have never felt more out of bounds. I think it really speaks to a couple hundred odd years of exploitation and direct, violent colonialism, followed by an international economic and cultural situation that marginalizes whole populations to a degree it is difficult for me to understand.

All of that and yet a very nice man, Sidi Mahmoud Azziz, invited us up to see the Casbah and the city from the top of his building, which we did. He was very friendly and said when he was on vacation in Marseille some people invited him to their homes and so he likes to do the same. The view was spectacular (see photos):

Needless to say that was a great kindness that was quite opportune, and served as a reminder to stop for a second when you find your mind categorizing people without knowing them or anything about them. Like the woman who gave us directions said, in a different context: “on doit faire attention.”

There was also a massive thunderstorm, abating about now, that fell just after we arrived back at the Glycines. Thunder, lightening, strike! Ok Go! Alright, perhaps that reference didn’t work out so well, but it was (and continues to be) pretty awesome, with tons of lightening and it actually hailed for about 20 minutes. I got two pictures after the rain:

Thank You for Eating American Cheese

2007-10-12T14:58:00.000+01:00

Got to walk around the neighborhood a bit last night: I’m really up in the sticks here. There are a number of government ministries and institutions here, as well as a few areas with large homes well-fenced (who doesn’t love spools of barbed-wire atop 15 foot walls).

I went to a party “chez Susanne” with some other people from Glycines. “Chez Susanne,” we found out when we arrived, is a large chuch/charity home that houses all kinds of people who have come from the more southerly parts of Africa, as I met men from the Congo, Soudan, Nigeria, and Senegal. We were invited because of our western-ness or our assumed Catholicism, which was awkward but not too much so. I did get to eat some very red sausage/hot-dog contraption with pitted olives in the middle of it. There was also couscous and the delicious/disgusting milk drink that goes along with it. I’m really still up in the air about this thing, although I did manage to put down a few glasses. It is a lot like plain yogurt, a bit milkier and a bit tangier (that’s tang-ier, not Tangier…although I wonder what could make something “a bit Tangier…”).

There was also a band of young guys, guitars and bongos, that played some “rock algérien(ne)” as they said. It was mellow and reminded me a little of Hoba Hoba Spirit, if anyone knows them. Altogether the scene was odd. I even met a Polish biologist (specializing in the reproduction of desert animals) who has been teaching at the University of Algiers for 36 years.

I walked around town a bit more yesterday, only further confirming the Marseille bit I wrote a while ago. Really, look at some pictures of the town. I knew that the French tore down huge swaths of the city and built boulevards and buildings in the French style, but I guess I never realized to what an extent the city was/is “European.” What amazed me the most, however, was/is the sheer number of shoe stores in the city. Really, blocks and blocks with a patisserie, a “taxi phone” store, and two different shoe stores. This in a town where, from my count, 68% of the population wears flip-flops or other sandals.

I also found out last night that Kraft, along with General Foods, is owned by Philip Morris. So all that Jell-O you eat (or consume in Jell-O shots, as Joey is want to do) is helping get little kids addicted to cigarettes. Thanks a lot. Why do you hate kids so much? Speaking of odd things, is anyone aware that in the South some people soak pickles in Kool-Aid and then eat them? I guess this really happens, and I want someone to try it and report back.

The real discovery of the day came from my Cuban friend here: just down the street, past a boulangerie, there is a store that sells 3 bootleg DVDs for 500D (about $7.50). He assures me that they are much better quality than those one can buy in Moroccan medinas. Goodbye grant money.

I am the Cheese

2007-10-11T11:19:00.000+01:00

As promised, pictures from the Glycines:

A view of the garden:

And a few of the port from the terrace:

I hope that is the beginning of a thunderhead you see over the Mediterranean in this one, as I'm dying for some weather other than hot and sunny (I'm starting to believe I never actually left Southern California. Someone would tell me if I'm just delusional in some mental institution in San Diego, right?):

I will get more up as I take them, but don't expect too many of the city itself, as stopping and whipping out a camera is a sure way to get the kind of attention I don't really want right now. And I'm not sure what the golden dome is in the pictures, but the building is currently under construction all night long, with a crew that makes prodigious use of what sounds like some kind of very powerful pressure-washer.

Au Coin du Monde

2007-10-10T14:05:00.000+01:00

I guess that I expected something that felt more like Morocco than Paris, which just goes to show my latent (latent?) Orientalism: all these crazy Arab towns will look the same! Another thing that shows how Eurocentric (or Mediterocentric) my tendencies has to do with when I think of Algerian geography: to go to the Sahara in my mind means going North, Algiers is on the southern coast, I look south across the great sea, etc…

What Algiers resembles most to my mind, since I can’t see something without comparing it to other things, is Marseille without all those blasted French. Well, that isn’t quite right either, but keep in mind I’ve only been there for about two hours total. I guess the lesson is that Braudel was on to something. I guess I should read those Mediterranean books again, as it might mean a bit more now that I’ve been to a few more places bordering this sea. Although I also have to keep in mind what Charles Wheeler once said to me about the notion of seas/oceans/river/water in general as bringing people and cultures together (which seems to be an analytic trend, especially about the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean): “sure, but have you ever been on a long boat ride? Can you imagine that 500 years ago? The ocean sucks, man. If you fall off your boat you will die; if you fall off your wagon on land you might get a bruise. You get blown off course, there’s no landmarks, no way to find longitude, no way to get fresh water, it’s harder than you think to catch fish, long enough out there and you’ll get scurvy, even if you have both fresh water and fish. No, I think water probably keeps more people apart than it brings together.” Which I think is probably true.

From the Glycines I get a pretty good view of some of the town below and the port, pictures to come. The whole town is built on a fairly steep incline coming off the sea, and none of the streets just go straight through. They are not exactly switchbacks, but something pretty close. Nearer the water the town levels off.

When I came into town from the airport at 12:30am on the highway (newly paved and smooth, I must say) the other night there was a huge traffic jam going the other way: cars standing still for probably two miles (at 12:30am, take that L.A.). The driver said, “oh, there’s always construction,” which didn’t really explain much to me. Then when I walked into town along a main road yesterday there was a traffic jam the entire way on one side of the road. Coming back up the hill the traffic was jammed going the other way. I think that Algiers has only a few roads that they are magically moving around: if the road is in use on the other side of town people just have to sit patiently. I assume that angry gesticulating and laying on the horn for minutes at a time are both signs of patient waiting here. But, it is Ramadan after all, and people are bound to get angry by the end of the day.

All the money in Algiers (airport, anyway)

2007-10-09T09:54:00.000+01:00

9 October
First coup: Arrive at the Algiers airport at midnight. Out the window of the docking plane are multiple armed policemen, armed not with pistols and clubs but with what appears to be an assault rifle and some kind of automatic shotgun. This is a theme that is to repeat itself throughout the airport experience. Passport control goes off without a hitch, although the bureaucrat was incredulous that I had the specific address of my lodgings and not just a hotel or institute name: “This is the address? The specific address? It is correct? You are sure? In Algiers? Ok, bienvenue monsieur…”

The baggage arrives shortly, after seemingly everyone in the waiting area takes or makes a phone call. My bag is the second one through the plastic flaps. I take my bag, throw it on a pushcart, and exit the baggage area. I should say that the Algiers airport is spotless and modern, about the size of John Wayne airport and probably more charming, although if it has a statue that I missed it is more likely to be of Abd al-Qadir than The Duke.

After walking through the doors, there are some less-than-aggressive taxi drivers and people offering to change my Euros to Dinars, a nice service that I somehow find the nerve to decline. After finding the ATM at the bank kiosk is out of order, a guard directs me to the other one across the airport. On the way a man offers to help me find it, to push my cart, to be my taxi and any other number of services. I eventually tell him to go try someone else, as there will be plenty of Europeans coming through the customs door any minute. He seems very hurt by this.

I make it to the second (and only other) ATM in the airport. After standing trying to do the math, I take out 10,000 Dinar, which I hope is around $120. My card comes out, my bills arrive, and as I’m leaving the machine’s screen proclaims “This ATM is currently out of order, please use another.” I got the last money in the whole airport! Take that you German suckers…

As I’m exiting the airport a man says, “Hey, I’ll take you to the taxis, where are you going?” He is in a jacket and looks like a taxi driver, so I tell him and bargain a price when I notice that he is leading me away from the official taxi stand. I stop walking and of course the other taxi drivers notice and come over. I tell the man I want an official taxi and he is angry. A fight ensues among the taxi drivers.

I eventually get in an official taxi with the driver and a man he introduces as the taxi supervisor who periodically comes along for quality control. I am dubious, but as the taxi driver commences to show me his identification card and lecture me about how I should never just take a ride from some random guy at 12:30am, “are you in the habit of taking taxis? Then you should know that official taxis are for your safety. You must promise that the next time you will go directly to the official taxi stand and not talk to those people inside. I mean, really, what did you think?” This lecture continues, with the quality control man chiming in with a “you know he’s right” every now and again. But the two men were very nice. As I did not know exactly where the place was, they took Thierry’s number from me, called, got directions and delivered me safely to the Glycines.