Epic voyage ALGER ORAN

Judging by the headline in Liberté, this might not be the best day for our visit to the casbah. 'Algérie en Colère!' it screams - 'Algeria in Anger!' - but for once it isn't a massacre or another killing that's responsible. The anger this time is directed at the inadequacy of public services, and especially the water supply, which has remained unchanged since the French left. After another long dry summer, water in some areas is now rationed to one day in five, and there are reports of a typhoid outbreak in the poorer parts of the city. We're told on no account to drink tap water.
Before entering the casbah we rendezvous with the local police outside the white walls of the Barberousse prison, named after the Barbarossa brothers, two Turkish corsairs brought in by the ruler of Algiers to fight off Spanish invaders in the sixteenth century. It stands at the top of the hill looking balefully out over the narrow, crowded roofs of the casbah. Because of the heightened security and the momentousness of our visit (the first foreign film crew to be allowed in for several years), we're all a touch jumpy, and when, with a sudden blaring of horns, a convoy of cars bursts round the corner, we instinctively rush for cover. Much mirth on the part of the security men, as it turns out to be nothing more than a wedding procession, in the middle of which is a portable band - six musicians in fezzes, white cotton tunics and red waistcoats, sitting in the back of a pick-up truck. With a salvo of car horns they move past down the road.As we near the main road at the lower end of the casbah there is a milling throng. Eamonn walks beside me, casting wary looks, but everyone seems to be either friendly or preoccupied.
I feel that we have barely touched the real world of the casbah, which, as in all Arab communities, is private and inward-looking, so Said takes me round to the shrine of Sidi Abderrahmane, a holy man of great powers who lived here in the sixteenth century. The sound of female voices rises from inside as we approach the domed building surmounted by a tall balconied minaret.
This is traditionally a place for the women to come and invoke the help of the saint in childbirth or with problems of infertility, but the imam is happy for us to join them. Remove my shoes and enter in reverent silence. I needn't have bothered. The small chamber is less like an English parish church than a kindergarten at collection time. Small children sit and play as their mothers worship in their own way. Nothing is formal. One woman hugs the side of the tomb, singing plaintively, another bows to Mecca, another has brought her new-born baby to touch the wooden casket that contains the saint's remains. It's the first place, she declares proudly, that he's ever been taken to. Brightly coloured texts run round the walls, heavy cut-glass lamps hang, undusted, from the ceiling, and in one corner is a heavy-duty industrial safe, with a slit for offerings.
By now I've completely forgotten that I might be a target. The cordon sanitaire has been discreet to the point of invisibility and the people of Algiers as cordial and curious as anywhere in ALGERIA. Michael PALIN

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• ALGIERS
• ORAN
• VOYAGE

[54spiritedwill54]

nice to see more algerian history in english!!

[richardbealey100]

This is a very good documentry of Algeria on BBC.

[soeffingwhat]

@isayfew - I very much doubt your latter sentence has any truth to it. Why don't you go to Algiers find out for yourself.

[soeffingwhat]

@chinwi23 - It was filmed between 2001 and 2002 (he was in Niger when 9/11 happened.

[faslaful]

très bon reportage, pour une fois on parle de l'Algérie et de ses résistants dans une autre chaine que la chaine algérienne. Encore une fois BRAVO très bon travail.

[maya08ful]

@adeel37x hahahahahaha xd

[ALGERI5CH]

@samolo20000 Et toi tu es un âge, apprends à écrire espèce d'esclave puis viens me parler, et aussi erkaâ ou bouss.

[samolo20000]

@ALGERI5CH yemek si an kahba

[samolo20000]

@ALGERI5CH nike yemek ya kahba algechiene esclave vive casablanca

[ALGERI5CH]

@samolo20000 Bled hatchoun yemmak ya l'esclave.

[samolo20000]

BLED KHAB IL 

[MrJansuer]

viva cheb Mami ul blad dial jalti hiia zzazzaier

vive l'argerie