So we had a fantastically fun filled Thursday, most unusual in that my beloved was off work due Eid al-Adha the Feast of Sacrifice celebrations where the muslim culture throughout the world celebrate the obedience of Ibrahim (Abraham) in offering his child for sacrifice, and God showing mercy and replacing the child with a sheep, hence the celebratory meals with mutton.
So anyways thus far I am still hearing bleating, so some of the poor sheep are still in good shape. We were almost finished our lunch when the intercom buzzed, so my beloved answered and it was our neighbour, who also happens to be our landlord whilst we stay in The Big House, he insisted we visit his house immediately to celebrate with a his family by eating some gateaux, never one to shy away from cake we legged it out the gate and into the neighbours. Would you believe it Mr Kadar was the same gentleman that had shown me around houses and apartments on my first visit to Algiers, so once that was established we were introduced firstly to his young son Riyadh, then to his brother Riyadh, then his wife Eman (not Riyadh), his Mother (name unknown, but the type of lady you want to hug just because she is in the room), and then coffee was made and cake was eaten.
My French was sorely tested as Mr Kadar has no spoken English but understands well enough, and my poor beloved was completely lost, but would you believe that from such confusion and lack of language came a wonderful hour and a half of conversation and good company.
Mr Kadar believe it or not is a football supporter who supports Newcastle, from way back in the Keegan days and his other team is Celtic, so the boys garbled on about old players and World players as if they both could miraculously speak each others languages. We were given a plate of traditional lamb, couscous and sauce with vegetables to bring home with us, and we graciously left carrying our tray all ready for our evening meal.
The lady who left the house we are staying in had told me about Mr Kadar's mother being a good cook, and regularly sending food round so today we got to try it for ourselves. We wont mention the dead sheep hanging from the tree in Mr Kadar's garden because I'm still trying to think of fluffy bunnies and beautiful puppies!!!!! When we eventually got around to eating our evening meal, the mutton was mouthwatering and the couscous and sauce delicious, so good in fact that tomorrow when Azzdine brings his couscous over to allow us to celebrate and share with him we may have to compare it with Madame Kadar's mighty fine taste tantalising offering.
So a bit of a conundrum occurred to me whilst I was cutting up my chicken over the weekend, if my chopping board is orange with a cat and a bird on it does that mean I use it for cutting meat as the cat eats meat, but none of it orange, and then the bird mops
his brow and says phew that was lucky, or is it to be used for chopping up cats and birds, you can see the conundrum, the green one I get because rabbits eat veggies and so the rabbit and the flower being green makes perfect sense, and rabbits are edible to some rather peculiar folk, so does it make sense? surely it can't mean I may only to use it for rabbits and flowers though!! Back to my issues with the cat and the bird, because yes I know the cat will eat the bird given the opportunity, but what does the poor bird eat that would make some chopping board manufacturer think 'yep I will stick a bird on that board and they will get the idea', well I don't get it and I think it's a tad sick on the part of the manufacturer to be fair, because who the hell wants to eat CAT? And especially if it has just eaten a bird..
We have been brushing up on our walking skills the last few days, you would have thought it would have been more difficult, but no it's just like riding a bike, you just never forget. You might not have done much of the right left for a very long time but it's there in the recesses of your mind just waiting for you to initiate procedures. The weekend was great for walking because of the Eid celebrations the roads were practically empty, the directors of traffic were still out in their uniforms, obviously not getting their mutton along with their families, but the lack of traffic must have made standing in the road for extended periods of time very, very tiring.
Friday we walked just over 4.5km scoping out the area, and getting our bearings, because everything is built on the hillside, so we did a loop connecting one area to another and getting the lay of the land. Saturday totally different ball game, 12km later and I thought I getter give my beloved a rest, we trekked from the Golf area to Hydra, to Ben Aknoun and back again, we did have a little stop off at the The Hotel El Djazair for coffee before heading off again up the hill and home, it was a glorious walk and really helped to understand where in the world I am living, my beloved on the other hand still has a bamboozled expression on his face, that man will never, ever know where he is other than stood next to me!
OH MY GOD I found the Mall, and exceptional it is too, I can see me spending quite a bit of time there, the supermarket was excellent and none of the torture at the checkout we had last week, so my beloved was happy too....
Well my beloved and I arrived in Algeria very tired, and for some of us very hungover, never again, not for a very long time will I be drinking the grape juice, but to compound it all I had to keep eating, as you do when your belly is churning at almost 40,000 feet, so the only thing to eat was croissants. Yay!!! go me I kept the stomach settled for the whole flight. We were collected by Azzdine and informed he would be our personal driver for the foreseeable, we were driven home to our new abode for the next wee while, well until I can find us another that is, my beloved headed straight into work, I set about organising our belongings, this entails moving the cases a couple of inches and then deciding that was mens work and had a cup of tea.
So we woke the next morning to the sounds of Algiers, which involves a lot of sheep bleeting (a story for a little later), my body was revolting.... the croissants I had eaten were poisoning me, and torturing me, the joints (without my knowledge) had been on a rack over night, they were so painful I was walking like Quasimodo, and yes I had the hump, so needless to say the next couple of days were an endless round of pain killers, moaning, coffee and a torturous trip to the supermarket. The trip was only torturous because as you know seating is not provided at the tills, and when you have to wait what felt like hours just to get your groceries scanned and payed for, trust me a wheelchair would have been comforting.. Note to self when discovering a new supermarket do it in trainers and only when fully fit.
Anyway lets just say it took me until today 23rd to recover, but during that time I have managed to get out of bed every morning before 6.30, ok not always fully upright, but there are many relatives and friends also who can attest to my inability to get out of bed in the morning, recently made worse by my prolonged stay in Saudi, now in that place I really could not get out of bed.
So Garry and I managed a great long walk around the area before he left for Hassi Messaoud, we discovered vegetable markets and meat markets, nice people and a couple of crazies, the old dear dropping her skirt for a quick pee outside the hypermarket being one of them, I still feel sick when I think of that one, I could not understand how a covered lady does not mind bearing her arse in public, yet keeping her head gear in place..
The weather is magnificent, it about 13-15 degrees cooler than Saudi and far less humidity, I can breath, the area is green, and I can hang my washing outside, compound rules were that no washing outside, understandably as we didn't have gardens, but it's funny the things you miss, I have hung my washing out and had it dried très rapidement! I remember that feeling in Scotland on a great weather day, getting your washing in with the freshly laundered smell wafting through the house, but even the fact I have a proper washing line is just a little bit of housewife magic. The washing machine is like a time machine and in French.
The little darling is very quiet, complicated, but quiet, so we now have a downloaded into Ingrish (wrote thatfor Chris) manual which tells me I even have to give the tub a dry cycle every week, sometimes its good to be simple!
So whilst my beloved has been away house hunting has began, and I have seen six places now, and awaiting on another, fingers crossed I will be able to decide which one in the next days or so. Yesterday I was taken to see three places with Madame Djouhi one of the agents, now Madame has no English and I have no French, but luckily for me Madame has a daughter with English so all was not lost, people we must always remember that if you just keep speaking in your language to someone who doesn't they will not miraculously start to speak your language EVER. Anyway first one nah, second one possibly, third one spectacular, until that is I went down stairs to the underground parking area and found this.....
gads, it was stinking, it is part of the traditional Eid celebrations and goes back to Abrahams willingness to sacrifice his own young, so as I mentioned earlier the bleeting of sheep and goats is like a dawn chorus just now, just in the background carried gently on the wind, it's either that or I have one next door and haven't realised yet. The children take them for walks as if they were dogs on a lead which is quite funny to see, well until you remember the poor think is gonna get the slash quite soon, and the bleeting creatures are cajoled into the streets by their keepers with tubs of food, obviously for fattening purposes, although making them walk the streets is gonna keep the weight off I would have thought, it's working for me.
I managed to get myself phone credit the other day, now you would think this was easy but nope it certainly isn't, I went into a computer store thinking that they would be able to help, and the lovely Algerian gentleman who didn't speak English directed me to his young friend of around 18, now this young man had great English and said follow me, heart in mouth bag zipped I followed this young man up the street, where we ducked right into a store which could have been a tobacconist of sorts, my young friend spoke to the gent behind the counter and then asked me my phone number, he took my phone eeeeeek, which was displaying my number, took the gentleman's behind the counters old brick and punched in my number eeeek, all weird and wonderful things were running through my mind, he then asked how much eeeeek, I gotta get money out my zipped bag, I told him and almost immediately to my great relief I or should I say he, as the young man still had my phone, received a text confirming I had in fact just received 200DZ of phone credit, all I had to do now was get my phone back and pay the gentleman behind the counter..... You know both guys were absolutely pleasurable to do business with and really helpful, my misguided sense of doom was completely unjustified, and when I went one way and the young guy went back the other, he shouted out 'god bless you' to me to which I replied 'and to you my friend', I have met some very friendly, very helpful people since arriving in Algiers, and that alone can keep a smile on your face for a very long time.
