I’ve landed in Bejaia. Imma Gouraya, a mountain top in the shape of a woman laying down, looks over the entire city. There is a film festival going on at the Maison de la Culture that I have been attending. Like the professional theatre festival in Algiers this film festival is free of charge—everything paid for by the cultural ministry--which of course means certain things be upheld in a certain way regarding content…
Today was my first experience out and about on my own taking the famous Algerian transport publique. Here in Bejaia they have small buses each clearly numbered but the stops are totally not clear. And oh I wish my Kabyle was better!
My host family is very nice. Mom, Dad, and two small kids. But I do have a curfew (to not give the neighbors any ideas…). Not surprising considering that this is Algeria where reputation is everything. But a curfew means I can’t see the films in the festival at night. It’s hard to swallow. But I keep reminding myself I didn’t come to Algeria to go out at night or to have a happening social life. I came to do this project. I knew there would be certain limitations and I tried to mentally prepare for them…but all the same my reference points of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Paris are totally thrown off balance.
Tomorrow I head over to the TRB and meet with the administration. Next week I lead a week-long workshop and I have to start recruiting for the KFP…in St. Paul at SteppingStone recruiting or advertising for projects, while not always easy, was made possible by being able to look any school up on the internet, send an email, set up a meeting. Here right now I am frankly feeling a little bit lost. But…like all things here in Algeria you have to really concentrate on the moment. This is really a step-by-step sorta system.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Audience
A brief description of the Algiers theatre audience.
People walk into the theatre in the middle of the show with a loud Salaam...to the entire audience.
People walk into the theatre in the middle of the show with a loud Salaam...to the entire audience.
Cell phones ring, people answer.
Audience members tend to speak directly to the actors--I'm not sure if they just can't contain themselves or if they are just so into the show that they can't help themselves.
Every piece of decor that is flown in gets an applause!
Flash photography all over the place and the actors don't seem to notice.
During a performance of a Palestinian company's production of Ibsen's "A Doll's House" the director got so mad at a woman talking on her cell phone that he grapped it out of her hands and threw it out the hall door. The entire audience turned to watch that scene instead of the stage.
After two shows a day for 5 days I finally stopped resisting and thought--why not? Why should we sit and watch a show passively!? Why not applaud the decor? Scene designers so often get forgotten about! Why not chitty chat as I watch? I might be more engaged!? But the cell phone thing and the flash thing...no way.
Standing outside the TNA chatting with an actor friend a hot shot director comes over and I introduce myself as Kabylo-American. The fellow shook his finger at me and said: your passport says Algerian. Not Kabyle.
Tomorrow I finally land in Bejaia.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
TNA Festival...
The TNA theatre festival is in full swing. In general, I find that the mise en scène of all that I have seen has not been very well thought out. I have seen one show that I liked and two where I sat squirming until the end. So far the style of the shows has leaned toward the fantastic and surreal. In the past two days I have met actors, directors and writers from all over Algeria. The atmosphere of a theatre or film festival is always heartening and energizing.Next week I am going to be leading a weeklong workshop at the Regional Theatre of Bejaia during their children’s theatre festival. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some KFP participants from my class. 
Last night I taught my new friend from Oran words that I know in Kabyle. The irony. The irony.
Last night I taught my new friend from Oran words that I know in Kabyle. The irony. The irony.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Algiers
Just the word Algiers makes me think all sorts of orientalist thoughts. Delacroix paintings of large women lounging in hamams, men in jalabas muttering strange incantations, and colonial period women strolling along the sea in large white hats and matching shoes. Algiers is a big dirty city.
I am staying with my step-mom’s sister at the foot of the great monument of colonial France: the cathedral Notre Dame d’Afrique. Yesterday we went to visit the mausoleum of Saint Sidi Abdel Rahman. The caretaker told us that Sidi Abdel Rahman was said to have had the power to cure women of infertility. Then he told us that the American he admires the most is the actor from Colombo.
We also visited a small museum of traditional Algerian art in the casbah. Traditional Algerian art seems to really mean Amazigh handicrafts—bowls, jars, olive press, the bride’s trousseau, jewelry…most of the pieces were labeled 20th century. There is something eerie about seeing objects that my Grandmother used in a museum. It’s the same with the Tamazigh language. People here are surprised when I tell them I want to first be comfortable in Kabyle before I start to learn Arabic. The Grandparents here in Algiers speak Kabyle. Most people my age and older whose parents spoke to them in Kabyle understand it and speak it. But it’s rare that the younger generation understand much of anything. And that’s how a language dies out I suppose. Little by little everyone forgets one word at a time. And our grandmother’s everyday objects end up covered by glass in a museum.
I am here in Algiers to attend the Festival du Théâtre Professionnel at the Théâtre National d’Algérie (TNA). Last night was the opening and I finally meet up with Omar Fetmouche—the director of the Regional Theatre of Bejaia (TRB), where the Kabyle Folktale Project will be housed, before the show. I risk driving my step-aunt mad because the shows are at night and not during the day. Only a certain group of people tend to have a night life in Algeria. It is rare for a woman to attend a performance of any kind alone especially at night and expect to get home safely on her own.
*
The opening of the Professional Algerian Theatre Festival was quite a snazzy affair.
I am staying with my step-mom’s sister at the foot of the great monument of colonial France: the cathedral Notre Dame d’Afrique. Yesterday we went to visit the mausoleum of Saint Sidi Abdel Rahman. The caretaker told us that Sidi Abdel Rahman was said to have had the power to cure women of infertility. Then he told us that the American he admires the most is the actor from Colombo.
We also visited a small museum of traditional Algerian art in the casbah. Traditional Algerian art seems to really mean Amazigh handicrafts—bowls, jars, olive press, the bride’s trousseau, jewelry…most of the pieces were labeled 20th century. There is something eerie about seeing objects that my Grandmother used in a museum. It’s the same with the Tamazigh language. People here are surprised when I tell them I want to first be comfortable in Kabyle before I start to learn Arabic. The Grandparents here in Algiers speak Kabyle. Most people my age and older whose parents spoke to them in Kabyle understand it and speak it. But it’s rare that the younger generation understand much of anything. And that’s how a language dies out I suppose. Little by little everyone forgets one word at a time. And our grandmother’s everyday objects end up covered by glass in a museum.
I am here in Algiers to attend the Festival du Théâtre Professionnel at the Théâtre National d’Algérie (TNA). Last night was the opening and I finally meet up with Omar Fetmouche—the director of the Regional Theatre of Bejaia (TRB), where the Kabyle Folktale Project will be housed, before the show. I risk driving my step-aunt mad because the shows are at night and not during the day. Only a certain group of people tend to have a night life in Algeria. It is rare for a woman to attend a performance of any kind alone especially at night and expect to get home safely on her own.
*
The opening of the Professional Algerian Theatre Festival was quite a snazzy affair.
A marching band paraded in on to the stage and played “Kassaman”, the Algerian national anthem, Madame la Ministre of Culture opened the festival with a long speech, 10 actors in costume held spears that made up a sort of grand entryway for old time Algerian actors, directors and producers to come on stage and accept an award from Madame the Minister and the director of the TNA. Two Algerian television personalities hosted the evening…my step-aunt watched the whole spectacle agog as she saw all these famous Algerian actors parade across the stage.
We thought we would need tickets but we just walked right in. My step aunt said to the man at the entrance to the performance hall: "this is an actress come all the way from America here to meet with Omar Fetmouche." And the guy at the door hurried into the hall, found Fetmouche and placed us in the third row!
My step-aunt and I walked halfway home this evening and really—this country at night becomes a place for young men to run around and hiss at any woman who is unfortunate enough to walk by. I really wish their mother’s or sister’s or auntie would tell them “you know young (insert name here) hissing at a woman in an aggressive fashion will get you no where on your pitiful march to find a wife.” Honestly.
Once home I asked my step-aunt’s mother-in-law if she happened to know any Kabyle folktales. She knew a few but she repeated the lament of most Grandmother’s “it’s the TV now that has become the story teller not us the Grandmother’s.” I got a couple of songs recorded and one folktale (one that my great aunt told me last week). But the real success of the evening (voir in my own “political” way) was when 5 of us sat down and she started testing my Kabyle to see what I knew already and what practical things she could teach me. Her daughter, who grew up here in Algiers, understands Kabyle but doesn’t really speak it learned along with me.
When learning Kabyle oftentimes I feel like I am running up a down escalator.
Things to remember
If I had grown up in Tizi Ouzou I would have the following things engrained in my psyche:
-When you enter a room of people you greet each and everyone with kiss on the cheek or a handshake.
-When you shake hands with a man you touch the right hand to your heart.
-When you shake hands with a woman you touch the right hand to your lips.
-When you arrive at someone’s house you have something to offer them in your hand.
-When someone comes to your house from another country you never let them leave empty handed.
-When you get engaged you are totally sure you want to marry the person.
-If you were born after 1970 you avoid falling in love with your cousin.
-When you see people around you for the first time in the morning you always say Good Morning.
-You conserve every drop of water, every last crumble in the pan.
-If you want to break free from the constraints around you have to live a double life or face the consequences of exclusion.
-Lock everything away and keep the key close by.
-When making your bed never put blankets or pillow on the floor. That’s where you feet that have entered the toilet have been.
-When you enter a room of people you greet each and everyone with kiss on the cheek or a handshake.
-When you shake hands with a man you touch the right hand to your heart.
-When you shake hands with a woman you touch the right hand to your lips.
-When you arrive at someone’s house you have something to offer them in your hand.
-When someone comes to your house from another country you never let them leave empty handed.
-When you get engaged you are totally sure you want to marry the person.
-If you were born after 1970 you avoid falling in love with your cousin.
-When you see people around you for the first time in the morning you always say Good Morning.
-You conserve every drop of water, every last crumble in the pan.
-If you want to break free from the constraints around you have to live a double life or face the consequences of exclusion.
-Lock everything away and keep the key close by.
-When making your bed never put blankets or pillow on the floor. That’s where you feet that have entered the toilet have been.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Imaginary Worlds
Another Great Aunt came over and told 4 more folktales. So far the women I have asked who know the folktales are more than willing to tell them—in fact seem flattered that the American Granddaughter has taken an interest in one of the oldest parts of our culture. Tonight the other grand children (understand Grandchildren in their 20s) left as soon as the story telling began. Which of course means that there will soon no longer be anyone to carry on these stories. My Great Aun
t said that when her kids were young you could scare them or teach a lesson with a folktale—now she says they don’t believe in imaginary worlds anymore.
*
This morning everyone was saying “did you hear the gun fire last night? Towards the road that leads to Beni Douala?” That’s my family’s village. The day before yesterday terrorists held two women hostage in an apartment building in the area near Tizi Ouzou called la Nouvelle Ville. The police shot one of the men and the other ran away. But these are incidents we read about in the newspaper and even though they are happening close by they feel completely distant and separate from my daily routine here. When I widen my eyes or say Oooh that makes me nervous everyone says “how is that different from the horrible things we read about in America? People getting shot at school? Or in a shopping mall? Or at a church? You just don’t use the word terrorist for those things.”
And then it turns out all the noise that everyone thought was gunfire came from firecrackers up the street. Dozens of little bitty firecrackers.
*
I came home for the afternoon coffee yesterday and was met by my uncle who said that my aunt had lost her tooth in her lunch at work today. “Make her laugh, she’s in a foul mood.” To repair a lost tooth costs as much as one month’s pay. Last night, standing waiting for the water to boil for my evening tisane my uncle comes home from work lugging a big plastic bag--the day’s garbage from the hotel where he and my aunt work. He sets it down in the middle of the kitchen and says: “I’m going to find her tooth.”
*
I have to give props to my uncle as the only man I have ever seen wonder the streets of Tizi Ouzou with his son in a stroller. He refuses to take out the new stroller. He says: “the new stroller is really strong and well built—it’s not fit for the tough broken up streets of Tizi Ouzou. I prefer this old rickety one that could break any minute…” All the same, he’s not ashamed to be seen taking his son for a walk around the neighborhood in an old dirty stroller that is so low to the ground it forces him to bend halfway over.
t said that when her kids were young you could scare them or teach a lesson with a folktale—now she says they don’t believe in imaginary worlds anymore.*
This morning everyone was saying “did you hear the gun fire last night? Towards the road that leads to Beni Douala?” That’s my family’s village. The day before yesterday terrorists held two women hostage in an apartment building in the area near Tizi Ouzou called la Nouvelle Ville. The police shot one of the men and the other ran away. But these are incidents we read about in the newspaper and even though they are happening close by they feel completely distant and separate from my daily routine here. When I widen my eyes or say Oooh that makes me nervous everyone says “how is that different from the horrible things we read about in America? People getting shot at school? Or in a shopping mall? Or at a church? You just don’t use the word terrorist for those things.”
And then it turns out all the noise that everyone thought was gunfire came from firecrackers up the street. Dozens of little bitty firecrackers.
*
I came home for the afternoon coffee yesterday and was met by my uncle who said that my aunt had lost her tooth in her lunch at work today. “Make her laugh, she’s in a foul mood.” To repair a lost tooth costs as much as one month’s pay. Last night, standing waiting for the water to boil for my evening tisane my uncle comes home from work lugging a big plastic bag--the day’s garbage from the hotel where he and my aunt work. He sets it down in the middle of the kitchen and says: “I’m going to find her tooth.”
*
I have to give props to my uncle as the only man I have ever seen wonder the streets of Tizi Ouzou with his son in a stroller. He refuses to take out the new stroller. He says: “the new stroller is really strong and well built—it’s not fit for the tough broken up streets of Tizi Ouzou. I prefer this old rickety one that could break any minute…” All the same, he’s not ashamed to be seen taking his son for a walk around the neighborhood in an old dirty stroller that is so low to the ground it forces him to bend halfway over.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Algerianize!
May 18-20
Tonight I sat with my cousins as my Djida told us 3 folktales. My cousins had heard these stories before and kept asking for more once she got started. There is an official opening and closing to each story. I recorded her so that no one would have to translate for me right then and there—so she wouldn’t have to be interrupted. It was the first time I spent an evening in Tizi Ouzou without the TV on. Tomorrow I will ask my Step Grandmother to tell me a folktale then Tuesday night I’ll see if my other Great Aunt up the street would be telling to tell one as well. I’m not sure if the other women will be as good at telling folktales or willing as Djida was tonight. I was amazed at how easy it was to get her going. This tradition has become such a rarity. My cousin told me that someone she works with often tells folktales at the office. Most people my age only know snipits of different folktales or can reference different characters like Dajah (the clever one) and Behloul (the idiot).
**
It turns out my Step Grandmother doesn’t know any folktales. “Made up stories of made up problems is all you will get from her,” my cousin says.
This week in Tizi Ouzou there have been sudden reminders of the quirkiness of this country (or maybe it’s more my family). For example, my uncle has been collecting the coupons on the packages of any product that happens to be offering a drawing—whether its soap, yogurt, beef bouillon, chocolate…and he always wins! He enters the names of his sisters, brother-in-law, sister-in-law—he has won a car (for a sister-in-law who didn’t even have her driver’s license), a gold necklace and earring set for my aunt, a blender for himself (though it is still in it’s package a year later, he doesn’t dare use it and then ruin it as he says)…
And then, I bought a new cell phone. I took the contract home and filled it all out like I am used to doing in such situations. I brought the contract back to the store and the clerk laughed and said: “obviously you are not from here because you are returning this within 24 hours.” And then he noticed that I had written in my home number here in Tizi Ouzou under the line where it asks for a home phone number. “They will see that your passport was delivered in Washington, DC, they will see that you checked Mademoiselle and then they will see your photo, and then someone will call you at home thinking you are their ticket to the US of A!” Then he winked at me and my cousin and added a line across the number 1 to make it a 7. “There, now they will bother someone else! This is Algeria! Don’t worry! That is how things work here.”
Every time I come just when I think I have the hang of it things like this happen and I realize I still have a lot to learn!
From my bedroom window where I have a makeshift desk set up with an old table I can see the edge of the Djurdjura mountain range, the orange blossoms of the pomegranate tree in the courtyard and the minaret of the neighborhood mosque. My cousin calls the local imam Tarzan because he bellows the call to prayer as if he was swinging through trees in the jungle.
Tonight I sat with my cousins as my Djida told us 3 folktales. My cousins had heard these stories before and kept asking for more once she got started. There is an official opening and closing to each story. I recorded her so that no one would have to translate for me right then and there—so she wouldn’t have to be interrupted. It was the first time I spent an evening in Tizi Ouzou without the TV on. Tomorrow I will ask my Step Grandmother to tell me a folktale then Tuesday night I’ll see if my other Great Aunt up the street would be telling to tell one as well. I’m not sure if the other women will be as good at telling folktales or willing as Djida was tonight. I was amazed at how easy it was to get her going. This tradition has become such a rarity. My cousin told me that someone she works with often tells folktales at the office. Most people my age only know snipits of different folktales or can reference different characters like Dajah (the clever one) and Behloul (the idiot).
**
It turns out my Step Grandmother doesn’t know any folktales. “Made up stories of made up problems is all you will get from her,” my cousin says.
This week in Tizi Ouzou there have been sudden reminders of the quirkiness of this country (or maybe it’s more my family). For example, my uncle has been collecting the coupons on the packages of any product that happens to be offering a drawing—whether its soap, yogurt, beef bouillon, chocolate…and he always wins! He enters the names of his sisters, brother-in-law, sister-in-law—he has won a car (for a sister-in-law who didn’t even have her driver’s license), a gold necklace and earring set for my aunt, a blender for himself (though it is still in it’s package a year later, he doesn’t dare use it and then ruin it as he says)…
And then, I bought a new cell phone. I took the contract home and filled it all out like I am used to doing in such situations. I brought the contract back to the store and the clerk laughed and said: “obviously you are not from here because you are returning this within 24 hours.” And then he noticed that I had written in my home number here in Tizi Ouzou under the line where it asks for a home phone number. “They will see that your passport was delivered in Washington, DC, they will see that you checked Mademoiselle and then they will see your photo, and then someone will call you at home thinking you are their ticket to the US of A!” Then he winked at me and my cousin and added a line across the number 1 to make it a 7. “There, now they will bother someone else! This is Algeria! Don’t worry! That is how things work here.”
Every time I come just when I think I have the hang of it things like this happen and I realize I still have a lot to learn!
From my bedroom window where I have a makeshift desk set up with an old table I can see the edge of the Djurdjura mountain range, the orange blossoms of the pomegranate tree in the courtyard and the minaret of the neighborhood mosque. My cousin calls the local imam Tarzan because he bellows the call to prayer as if he was swinging through trees in the jungle.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Tizi Ouzou
I am in Tizi Ouzou for a week before going to set up shop in Bejaia.
Tizi Ouzou smells like hot dust—even here in the mountains, dust and sewage and moldy walls, budding lemon trees and coffee grounds.
There is now water 24 hours a day. What a difference it makes! Yesterday at breakfast my uncle said that he wishes for his country that all the petrol and gas that is exported from here would disappear. “Then there would be nothing to steal and we could maybe have a shot at a more egalitarian society.” The average salary these days is $200 a month. And like everywhere else in the world the cost of basic everyday staples are soaring.
I had a bit of a personal issue I was worried about—a two-year-old break up that I hadn’t completely dealt with head on since I have been living in the states. I was worried I would be met with hostility from certain family members and the person in question. When I revealed how worried I was they were insulted: “What, you think we are uncivilized idiots? Oh come on, it’s personal, your problem not ours. You are a Khazem. You always will be a Khazem.” This place always surprises me. One minute I find myself thinking: “everyone seems so confined in all this cultural pressure” and then the next minute none of it seems to matter. Even my oldest aunt said: “you know these things happen, you think you want one thing and then you realize you want something else. There is no reason to be so stressed by this!”
It’s raining and feels like winter even though the Algerian summer flies are out and everything is green and blooming. Tizi Ouzou always looks like it is hanging on by a thread with crumbling walls and enormous pot holes filling with brown sandy water every time it rains.
My Kabyle improves every day. I learn quickly playing with my toddler cousins. Besides language I'm still working on figuring out my housing in Bejaia, buying a cell phone, figuring out my recuitment plan of attack. Today I told my great aunt that I will come over after dinner and ask for a folktale. This is will be my first test run of folktale gathering.
Tizi Ouzou smells like hot dust—even here in the mountains, dust and sewage and moldy walls, budding lemon trees and coffee grounds.
There is now water 24 hours a day. What a difference it makes! Yesterday at breakfast my uncle said that he wishes for his country that all the petrol and gas that is exported from here would disappear. “Then there would be nothing to steal and we could maybe have a shot at a more egalitarian society.” The average salary these days is $200 a month. And like everywhere else in the world the cost of basic everyday staples are soaring.
I had a bit of a personal issue I was worried about—a two-year-old break up that I hadn’t completely dealt with head on since I have been living in the states. I was worried I would be met with hostility from certain family members and the person in question. When I revealed how worried I was they were insulted: “What, you think we are uncivilized idiots? Oh come on, it’s personal, your problem not ours. You are a Khazem. You always will be a Khazem.” This place always surprises me. One minute I find myself thinking: “everyone seems so confined in all this cultural pressure” and then the next minute none of it seems to matter. Even my oldest aunt said: “you know these things happen, you think you want one thing and then you realize you want something else. There is no reason to be so stressed by this!”
It’s raining and feels like winter even though the Algerian summer flies are out and everything is green and blooming. Tizi Ouzou always looks like it is hanging on by a thread with crumbling walls and enormous pot holes filling with brown sandy water every time it rains.
My Kabyle improves every day. I learn quickly playing with my toddler cousins. Besides language I'm still working on figuring out my housing in Bejaia, buying a cell phone, figuring out my recuitment plan of attack. Today I told my great aunt that I will come over after dinner and ask for a folktale. This is will be my first test run of folktale gathering.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Paris
- First leg of the journey.
I arrived in Paris to a pair of customs officers who upon seeing that I worked in the theatre asked me to "jouer de la comédie" right then and there. I half considered it noting that they held my precious passport in their hands.
I had forgotten how much Kabyle is spoken here--the couple chatting on the street, the shoppers out and about in the market...I went to visit the olive seller who has been asking about me for the past three years since I lived here. He was so excited to hear I was headed to Algeria. I had a sample of the dried apricots he was selling. Paris is like easing into Algeria.
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