La Famille

So I have been trying to make sense of the family tree, which as my father correctly pointed out, resembles a bush more than a tree. I can't make much sense of it, but I will share with you what I have been able to discover thus far.

My great grandfather was Muhammed bin Achrati. He had five children: Ramis, Dahmas, Dean, Haleema and Bouhafs. Ramis married Said and had three children, Kadar, Hamoud and Cheikh. Kadar married Barkama and had Ridha, Malik, Mahmoud, Sohhad, and Layla. Hamoud married Keira and had a lot of kids (I don't know the names yet). Cheikh married Khadouma and had Faruk, Maroua and Gemha. Said had four children from a previous marriage: Bilgasa, Ibrahim, Krimo and Romar.

Dahman had five kids. Muhammed, Shelali, Fahtna, Ahmed and Ghannea.

Dean married a woman named Fahtna and hat a son named Naimi.

Haleema might have family; I don't know yet.

Bouhafs married my grandmother Fahtna and had three sons, Slimane, my father Ahmed, and Ali. Slimane married Zahra and had Jehane, Yacine, Moubine and Nibras. Jehane married Muhammed and had Khalil and Mehadi. Yacine married Jaleela and had Tayeb. Ahmed married my mother Rosie and had Nora, Sara and me, Adam. Ali married Fahtna and had Kouthar, Ahmed and Dohar.

My grandmother Fahtna, daughter of Abdelkader, had a brother Muhammed. Muhammed had a son Abdelhamid. Abdelhamid had a son Ali, who married Aiesha and had four children: Toufik, Abdo, Imam and Ferdouse.

Fahtna married Ma'Roof after my grandfather Bouhafs was captured and killed by the French during the war. They had Tayeb, Faruk, Aiesha (Ali's wife and Toufik's mother), and Fatiha. Tayeb married Kelthum and had Mounibe and Rashad. Faruk has three wives. He married Samira and had Ouedad, Sundouse, and Muhammed. He then married Fuzia and had Abdelbari, and he just married Ouedad (more kids may be on the way).

Ma'Roof, my step grandfather, had another wife, Zoletha. They had Khadeeja, Fateema, Brahim, Muhammed and Issa. Muhammed married Zahra, daughter of Ahmed. I don't know where Ahmed fits in. There is also Amar, father of Cheikh. They are lost amongst the family.

So thats it for now. You follow? Savvy? Me neither. There is more, and God help me when I try to make sense of it all.

Dreamsicles

I have been having crazy dreams lately. I'm not sure if it is the climate, the diet, the people or anything else. Here is a quick rundown of the dreams:
*I was in driver's ed (for adults who got tickets) talkin to a lady until her huge boyfriend came to class and put the kabosh on things
*I got maried thinking things wouldn't work out, and then got a divorce about a week later
*Went on a road trip from DC to Woodstock, NY for New Years eve
*Dreamt up an episode of Seinfeld where they need to stay in a motel but the proprieter has an impossible accent. They must try many different ways to find out how much the room costs. Hilarity ensues...
*My dad, two sisters and I are going across DC to get things out of storage, but we don't have the keys. The solution? Bring guns to shoot the locks off. We drive through DC and my sister, for some reason, takes us through an embassy compound. We get stopped, get searched, and I have a gun but no permit. I get detained and proceed to loose my mind. After half an hour it turns out they can't hold us, so we bolt. (This is pretty much the end of the story)
*A friend of mine dies, and we all go to the wake. The strange thing is the body keeps moving. Just small twitches, sometimes a grin and a wink. All enough to get me jumping out of bed

Merry Christmas!

To all! I figure this climate is close to Bethlehem's (but warmer). Christmas isn't celebrated here, so everything is a little hush hush. This is the most honest Christmas I've ever had.

El Kasbah

Probably the most interesting neighborhood in Algiers is the Kasbah. It dates back to the Phonecian times, when the city was still called Ikosim. It has been rebuilt multiple times, most recently by the Turks around 1700. The French despised the place (what else is new) and razed portions of it for better troop movement through the area. If you have ever seen "Battle of Algiers," most of the movie is filmed on location in the Kasbah.

The Kasbah has suffered terribly from neglect over the past 20 years. The civil war in Algeria meant that the Kasbah was a no go zone. It has been a haven for pirates, freedom fighters, terrorists, theives and more throughout its entire history. Anyone can get lost in its alleyways. It is like New York in that sense, and in the sense that there is refuse strewn over most of the streets.

About half of the Kasbah is in working order. Renovation is made difficult because if one house is damaged, it could take down all the houses around it. Also, recent earthquakes have taken their toll. Government intervention has fallen off, and so has funding, since the "Mayor" of Algiers started his post in 2003. So it goes...

But what is left is beautiful. I poked my head in a free clinic (that, ironically, wanted to charge for taking photos) and saw an amazing courtyard with a two story loggia from the late Ottoman period. There are many of these but they are hard to stumble upon since they are all privately owned (at least most of them). What is public is an intricate series of alleys and steps and tunnels and streets and such.

An analysis of such a place is impossible; you can only live there. Walking through is a poor substitute. One of the most interesting aspects of El Kasbah is the way it records history. Cracks in the stucco. Passageways sealed shut. Every alley has a story to tell, if you'll listen. The halmark of the Kabah is the extension of the houses into the alleys. These "bays" extend maybe 4, 5 feet past the floor below, supported by a series of substantial wooden poles (once I know how, photos will be posted). They secure into the floor above and the bearing wall below. Almost every famous picture of the Kasbah will include this element.

I hope to visit again before I leave, and perhaps meet a few of the preservationists living in the neighborhood. Many people are still optimistic about rehabilitating the place. My uncle Cheikh is not one of them. He says every few years, the French, Italians, and Egyptians come to fix a small portion, but any large scale renovation would not get off the ground. I hope he is wrong.