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).

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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.