Here are a few photos taken on a two week trip to the south of Algeria in October 2007. It was a loop from Tamanrasset over to Djanet and back. It's a well tried route and not terribly testing. http://picasaweb.google.com/algeriamike/Algerie2007 There were six of us in the group. Four of us had met in Algeria in 2001 and just wanted to look a little more at a region we love. This was my fourth trip to Algeria. Besides which we had made some firm friends in Tamanrasset and wanted to see them again. [View Full Entry]

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Top of the morning to you! Im enjoying having a blog again and feeling like I can have some sort of connection with people who matter in my life. Firstly, emiliano sent me a really fantastic essay by Orhan Pamuk (it was actually an acceptance speech for the nobel prize) that Id like to sent on. the link is... http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2006/pamuk-lecture_en.html I added some people to the mailing list, so if you are reading my blog for the first time, I urge you to go back and read my last entry, entitled "a personal essay on Delhi". I consider that piece to [View Full Entry]

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This is regards to my friends question. Lets start here, I think I am the only blond here in Sidi Bel Abbes. Many girls have highlights but no is as bleach blond as I. Second, I just wear my American clothes. Almost all women wear a over dress and more than half cover their hair. Even beyond that many cover their faces so only their eyes show and a few covereverything even their hands. So yes, I stick out and get many a stares. The food is ok, we have pastry and green tea for breakfast, salad, olives, fanta soda and [View Full Entry]

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Here are some more pix of down town Sidi Bel Abbes. [View Full Entry]

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Driving here is crazy. First of all there are only a few stop lights and no lines. On the road are cars? buses, trucks, motorpeds, bicycles, pedestrians, people pushing carts and donkeys pulling carts. Next, no one stays on one side, there is kinda three lanes. the cars swerve in and out and around. To turn you just go, and the oncomming cars slows down. The children traveling in the cars do not use seatbelts or carseats, they just stand in the middle. There are like eight people packed in one tiny car! The people crossing the street cross wherever they [View Full Entry]

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Our trip to the mountain was very nice. it is call attouche tessala mountain. You can see it froma distance from town. The road up is very windy and a few times we had to stop to let the cows and sheep pass. On the very top is a hospital and a building that the romans built. There is a source for fresh natural spring water. It was a nice cool day. [View Full Entry]

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Here are some more pix of the city. Also Amina in a traditional costume. It is called a shedda. we are all fine. much love to all [View Full Entry]

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yesterday was a big shopping day? I got some algerian clothes so now people will stop staring at me. Dresses for 8 bucks, and lots of gifts for everyone, let me know what u want. It has been pretty hot, today we are going to the mountain. Good thing I lived in the cabin for a year, cause it is pretty much the same thing, fetching water from rerserve buckets to wash and pour down the toilet. yesterday was a soccer game. sidi bel abbes (our city) the game was free and they won. The town went crazy!!!!!! People were [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone, we arrived on sunday and all is good. The keyboard is different so excuse any mistakes. yesterday i was so excieted when the water came on at 7 pm. It is only on in the morning and the nite. Then Ahmeds sister tught me how to wash clothes in the huge bucket, rinced in another and wrung out? then hung over railing outside. the toillet..... in our apt. we have a ;normal; one, at first it had no lid....thats how they ues them,but ahmed bought me a lid. everwhere is mainly the turks style, u stand on the raised [View Full Entry]

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This morning we went for a walk through the date groves, plucking off fresh dates and eating them. Then it was time to pack up to catch the bus to El Oued, but the bus was delayed two hours, so we went and had lunch, but the restaurant was dirty and full of flies. The bus trip was only an hour and we passed more scenery of sand dunes, date groves and mud hut villages. At El Oued, we went to our hotel "Hotel Souf" which was a beautiful building of arches and rooms all around a swimming pool and carefully [View Full Entry]

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