Downtown Algiers

Downtown is filled with ornate French style buildings, and crowds that browse through hundreds of little stores, restaurants and sweet shops. Rue Didouche Mourad -- named for a hero of the War of Independence but soundly oddly like a feminine hygiene product in this conservative country -- is the main street. Here we found the Artisanant Arts Gallery. I was shocked when the blond blue-eyed owner spoke to us and asked where in America he was from. Karim is Algerian, but a star graduate of the American language school. We had a blast in this store. He served us sweet tea with mint while we went through his three floors of clothes, jewelry and art. Not only could he provide English, but he took credit cards. I've never actually used my credit card here. He said it costs him 200 Euros a year plus 17 percent of every transaction for the right to use the credit card machine. That is very costly and he hopes the amount will go down as credit and better banking comes to Algeria. Inshallah. In the meantime, the same connection that was down and preventing us from getting cash at the bank was affecting his machine.

No problem, he told us, wrapping each of our purchases in beautiful paper with stickers and old post cards from Algiers. He let us take our stuff with a small cash deposit and a promise we'd be back. We gave him our business cards and that promise.

Can you see that happening in any U.S. store? Free tea, free wrapping, and trust. Some parts of modern I hope they don't get here.