End of the blogging season

So, I'm back in Albany and getting ready for my first class of the fall and that means suspension of the blog for a while. Thanks for reading and for the expressions of support. For those who commented that I'll have a lot to say if I'm asked what I did over the summer, you are right. It was my best summer ever, I think: lots of work, lots of friends, tons of travel to nine countries in three and a half months and lots to learn. I am realizing how lucky I am, though I haven't felt like that much over the past few years. But I've ended up in a far better work situation than if I'd remained at a hard-pressed US newsroom, I'm seeing the world, and I am free. Divorce seemed devastating at the time, but I now see that while I wanted adventure and travel, I was married to a man who wanted unconditional love and financial support. In the end, we both seem to have gotten what we wanted. This is no small thing.

Wish me challenging students and travels in research on my next adventure at UAlbany.  Ciao

Love notes from Algeria

I got all kinds of email today from old co-workers and friends in Algeria and I am struck by how warm and almost even mushy they are. An editor from a paper where we worked signed off "lots of kisses." A colleague greeted me "Ah, my love."

Is this a French influence? How do I respond? Darling? Sweetie?

Someone snooping in my email might think I'm having affairs with lots of Algerian men. Ha.

The mystery of pudding and wine

Our re-entry into Sarajevo did not go smoothly. We got in at 11:30 p.m., not the 8:30 p.m. we'd expected after two transfers. We waited until all the bags came through the carousel to make sure even one of our three giant bags did not show up. None did. Then the line at the Lost Baggage Claim window was clogged with people -- all chattering angrily in French -- at three overworked but blase Bosnian staffers.

Drew had come to fetch us but he couldn't come into the terminal because of -- of course -- security. So he waited out in the cold by the door and sent us an SMS: "Don't stress. I have wine. And pudding."

OK, now that bowls me over. How considerate is THAT? About our two most favorite comforts in the world and he them without being asked. Just coming out in the cold when we could have taken a taxi was nice, but this was above and beyond.

Why can't husbands be more like friends? They would never think about this. Hawley and I wondered. We went on and on about the strangeness of niceness until Drew cleared it up. Actually, he admitted, he never did things like that for girlfriends, come to think of it. He was more likely to be thinking of other things.

Adults can eat whatever they want

Ramadan makes that evening meal something of grave importance. I find myself planning it in my head during the day. Weightwatchers has this effect on me too. When you are watching what you eat, you think of eating everything.

Explain then why tonight (9/30) we had tea, bread and butter and french fries.

This sounds like a dinner little kids pretending to be adults might cook up, I protested. Stuffing another french fry into my mouth.

The vast expanses of my latest home

no cabinets but ballroom-sized floor space in the kitchen

Four bedrooms, vast echoing salon, three balconies, and a 29-inch TV are some of the features besides locks and bars of palatial new home.


roses, jasmin, palms and gates


I could comfortably live in the hallway. I have one room with just a lamp and a rug to do situps on. "What, you prayer in here?" the boss asked. I hadn't realized it looked so much like a room in a Muslim home set up with prayer rug.

Bedroom and balcony.

Salon My camera doesn't have wide enough lens to capture the scale of this room. The TV is hard to hear because of the echo.

Carthage Museum

Enough, I kept telling Zied. I have enough pictures of me. "Yes, a thousand pictures," he said, snapping away. I have ended up with a rather thorough catalog of the art and artifacts of the museum. The mosaic is the bath of Aphrodite and the original of the head in the third picture is in the Louvre.

To give or not to give

Beggars make me so uncomfortable.

I feel instantly guilty at the sight of skinny feral-cat like kids, cripples and amputees, mothers with babies at flappy breast and especially of battered old women without sons to care for them asking me for money, I who am traveling to exotic places, spending money on silly souvenirs and dieting because I have too much to eat.

Some people cope with this guilt by seeing all beggars as fakes who are actually earning riches by feigning poverty and deformity on the public sidewalks. I don't believe that, or if it's true, they still deserve something simply because that's an awful way to make a living. Some of my traveling friends believe that giving to beggars encourages more begging, which is why I never give to children in the streets. How likely would it be if they come back with a big haul that their pleased parents would decide, OK, it's time you went to school now! I was overwhelmed in Kampala at first by the sheer number of people approaching me for handouts so I developed this system of giving only to the old women and walking by the children and the lame. I try to keep my pockets full of small bills and all my coins to give away. In Bosnia I gave to the old ladies in kerchiefs on the street curbs.

But I am having some trouble with that system here.

Walking down a Tunis street a man in a wheelchair waved two leg stumps just inches from by body. I gave him money. The other day outside a little aquarium in Carthage that caters to tourists a withered old woman with scraggly hair and missing teeth sat outside on the cement terrace, a wash bucket and a crutch nearby. I pressed a dinar into her hand.

She started laughing and clutched my hand to return the coin. She spoke only Arabic and I only English. But I asked You are OK? and she nodded, still chuckling

Hmmm. How's that for meaning well and giving offense? Or maybe she is mentally ill or has a system of only taking money from countrymen. I don't know.

So, outside the Great Mosque in Kairouan I found this woman above (and no, I didn't coldly train my camera on her. I was shooting pictures of the facade along with about 38 other people and only zoomed in on her later by computer.) Beggars outside mosques are as common as the kicked-off shoes of worshippers. Islam demands the giving of alms, so mosques are a good place to remind practicing Muslims of that. Our newspaper in Algiers did a recent story about a trend the prayerful find disturbing of beggars coming inside the mosque and hitting up donors as they lift their heads from talking to God.

I thought maybe I should give her something. But she wasn't asking; she wasn't even looking at any of us. She was just sprawled on her rug with water and fan in the crushing heat. Was she begging or praying? Appealing to fellow humans or to God?

Women and Freedom of Choice

Apparently my sisters, niece, nephews and son got into an argument about the role of women in their own oppression during a recent vacation at the Beach House in South Carolina. I know about this half a world away because son Marco sent me an outraged email to please tell my stupid relatives that WOMEN ARE THE DRIVING FORCE IN ANY CULTURE because he could not get in a word edgewise.

Said stupid relatives responded curtly that he'd gotten his word in -- they had just disagreed and so enraged him.

Interesting discussion. Marco was right about one thing, that it's hard to argue with opinionated and articulate relatives that more than straight-out repression is involved in these issues. When I mentioned to sister Kate that what we call female genital mutilation is carried out even in the presence of laws against it -- by mothers, aunts and grandmothers who believe they are protecting their daughters and families and that increasingly it's a matter of choice for Muslim women to put on the hijab or nijab, she retorted, as I might have once "and I bet they love the arranged marriages and honor killings too."

I think women do drive cultures, and I think they are frequently made by tradition, religion and law into the instruments of their own continued oppression. But I also see here plenty of smart, loved, educated free women choosing to cover up, marry men their families have picked out for them and feeling happy to submit. They see this as a political statement, a personal test, their own choice.

So, let them. This is a controversy like gay marriage that doesn't affect my life. So, let people choose.

The argument over veils feels a lot like the angst over long hair on men in the 1960s -- which I still think was a good idea, by the way, far preferable to the bald is chic mode of today.

Anyway, mostly I am happy to have been born American in the 20th Century if I have to be a woman because I would sweat in a veil and cannot submit to any authority.

Finally, Marco, I recommend a blog as a way to get your words in edgewise. Hah!

Below is intriguing article from the Economist that touches on these matters for those who want to read more.

In every corner of the Muslim world, female attire is stirring strong emotions

IS THIS all because of me? At once bemused and indignant, the potential first lady of Turkey demands that her compatriots stop judging her, and her spouse, on the basis of her appearance. “My scarf covers my head, not my brain,” insists Hayrunisa Gul, whose husband Abdullah is foreign minister and aspires to be president.
Yet if there is one big reason why the candidacy of Mr Gul—whose elevation by parliament has been vetoed by a court, triggering a political crisis and an early election—sparks strong emotions, it is the silk fabric that frames Mrs Gul's expressive features. “I am a modern woman, I can hold my own with foreign leaders and their spouses,” Mrs Gul (pictured above with Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands) told your correspondent this week. Nor does the tall, loquacious mother of three—a more lively figure than any of Turkey's recent presidential spouses—favour a draconian regime of the Taliban kind. “I used to drive Abdullah to work and the children to school,” she says. “So I couldn't imagine living in a country where women cannot drive.”
But the challenge which Mrs Gul's apparel poses for Turkey's strict secularism is more than imaginary. Until now, neither she nor the wife of any other top politician in the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party has been welcome in the chamber of parliament, the presidential palace or any military premises—because as devout Muslim ladies, they cover their heads. The idea of a scarved mistress of the presidential residence, guarded by soldiers trained to uphold secularism, delights some Turks and enrages others.
In almost every other part of the Muslim world, controversy over female headgear is growing. Turkey and Tunisia are at one end of the Muslim spectrum; both ban female civil servants, as well as students in state schools, from covering their hair. One Turkish judge was nearly assassinated after decreeing that teachers could not wear scarves even on their way to work. But in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the rules go the other way. No woman may appear in public with more than face and hands exposed.
Not even that was allowed in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime, which mandated the burqa, the most extreme form of female covering. In today's Iraq, meanwhile, a big fissure in the Sunni resistance movement pits al-Qaeda-minded thugs who want women to wear gloves and the niqab (which differs from the burqa only in having slits for the eyes) and milder sorts who allow the simpler hijab, which covers hair and neck.
A clash over female attire is intensifying in neighbouring countries too. Just now, police in Iran are busy with their annual spring campaign against “bad hijab”, prowling parks and stopping traffic to enforce dress codes. This year's drive is the strictest for a decade. Thousands of women have received warnings; police cars have been parked outside shopping malls, scrutinising every customer; vehicles with improperly clad ladies at the wheel have been impounded. The crackdown, which also targets men in short sleeves or with extravagantly gelled hair, marks a reversal in a relative relaxation of dress codes which had occurred under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime. The manteau, or coat, which women are supposed to wear to hide the shape of their bodies has been getting shorter, as have the trousers underneath; and some women have sported jeans and lipstick under chadors covering their upper body.
Whether the current campaign will have any enduring effect on the determination of Iranian women (and fashion designers) to interpret the rules creatively remains to be seen. But there are many Muslim countries where rows over headgear have already taken a toll in blood.
In Pakistan last year, an assassin shot dead a provincial government minister, judging her gauzy head covering not Islamic enough. In January a clash between Tunisian police and Islamist rebels left 12 dead. The rebels said they were “defending their veiled sisters against oppression”, a reference to the fact that Tunisia's president dismisses the hijab as an alien form of “sectarian dress” and has sent police to toy shops to seize dolls with scarves.
Among most Muslims, who live between such extremes, two broad trends have emerged. One is a general movement towards more overt signs of piety, including “Islamic” attire. Within the past two decades, modern forms of head covering have become standard fashion in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Malaysia, Morocco, Sudan and Yemen, replacing both traditional country scarves and the exposed coifs that were inoffensive to an earlier generation of city dwellers.
On the streets of Cairo, the Egyptian capital, headscarved women form a very visible majority. In the Egyptian countryside, where women used to work the fields uncovered, veils are now universal. Even gloves are not uncommon. Wearing the hijab is now so popular that it has ceased to be a statement, says Hania Sholkamy, an Egyptian anthropologist. “In fact, it is getting hard to shop for what used to be ordinary clothes,” she says. “Islamic dress is cheaper and more available.”
The other trend is an undercurrent of rebellion against sartorial rules of any kind. Trendy women in Saudi Arabia have taken to sporting slimmer-fitting abayas, while embellishing the traditionally black over-garment with bold strips of colour. The fact that Iranian authorities must still, 27 years after the Islamic revolution, forcibly impose dress codes suggests a persistent urge to challenge them. In cities as far apart as Damascus, the Syrian capital, and Casablanca, Morocco's commercial capital, some women accompany perfunctory head-coverings with heavy make-up, while others compete with the skimpy attire that is often seen in Arabic pop videos.
Yet the stern secularism of Turkey and Tunisia also meets resistance. Veiling, which a decade ago was confined largely to the tradition-bound poor, has made a middle-class comeback in both countries. In subtle defiance of a ban on scarves for official identity photos, some Turkish women erase their hair digitally and replace it with a wig-like substitute.
In less rigid Egypt, pious women have filed lawsuits against anti-veil rules imposed, for example, by state-run television networks. One judge overruled the ban applied by a private university against the face-concealing niqab, on the grounds that personal freedom counts more than the university's right to ascertain the identity of its students. When Egypt's culture minister casually told an interviewer that he personally considered veiling a backward practice, the ensuing public outcry forced him to recant. When its minister for religious affairs, who pays the wages of mosque preachers, stripped niqab-wearing employees of the right to preach, provincial bureaucrats declined to obey.
Different views on female apparel reflect differing readings of Islam's holy texts. One passage in the Koran, cited in support of the hijab, reads as follows: “Enjoin believing women to turn their eyes away from temptation and to preserve their chastity; not to display their adornments (except such as are normally revealed); to draw their veils over their bosoms and not to display their finery...”
A minority of Muslims would argue that female modesty does not necessarily imply covering one's head. Another school cites oral traditions from the early Muslim community to insist that an ordinary hijab is not sufficient covering.
Egypt's grand mufti, under pressure to clarify the issue, obliged recently with two rulings. One stated that modest dress, including hair covering, is an Islamic duty. The other fatwa declared full-face veiling to be permitted—but not obligatory. That may satisfy some people, but it will not please either those zealots who think establishment clerics are too soft—or those devout believers who think God does not mind very much about their hairstyle.

The power of tipping

Tipping is not required in Tunisia and locals don't.

I read up on this and for my first week here I mostly followed that custom. But I'm headed toward my third week here and every morning I go to the hotel breakfast room and see the same waiters. They are very nice and even try English with me. It just wasn't feeling right.

So, yesterday I left 21 dinars by my plate. This is a little over $16 or in other words only about $2.30 a day.

This morning, I had two virtual slaves slobbering over my table, fetching me clean napkins, pouring me fresh coffee and delivering, unasked for, a plate of unblemished fruit artfully cut into a design that put tidbits of peach and pear at my fingertips.

I am gonna tip the chambermaid tomorrow morning to see what happens. Extra towels? Shoe shine? A new paint job?

Price not all included

As I walked into a gallery I saw a guard sitting slumped in a corner filled with grating, tiles and etched glass. His shoes were off and I was thinking how pretty a picture it would make, when he suddenly jumped off and pantomimed taking my picture with my camera. No no, I said, but he insisted, so he took the picture. Then he motioned to go stand near Venus and after that mean a cabinet of gold earrings and broaches. He's shooting off snaps with the flash, despite signs in about six languages all over the museum saying NO FLASH. So I finally got it before he rubbed his fingers together. Money. Later, walking around another little guard came up to me and asked in French if I liked tiles. Sure, I said in English. With that he pulled aside a barrier and let me into a gallery shut for a new installation. It was filled with gorgeous tiles from Greece, Turkey, Andalusia, Holland. He tip-toed, held his finger to his lips for silence, glanced dramatically right and left as we walked around and in general acted the role of a guy doing me a tremendous big favor. You know that cost me, but the theater of it all was worth it. In total the guards extorted double the price of admission I paid. Even then it cost about the same as any American art museum I've visited.

As at the ruins, the museum was mostly deserted, leaving me alone with the tiles, masks and steles.

How many ruins does it take to feel full?

I may be done with ruins. After Greece, Rome and Egypt, they are beginning to run all together like European cathedrals and Civil War forts.

It might just have been the extreme heat which made trudging up stony paths and climbing around columns a bit tortuous.

Shadow Henna

In my latest attempt to lose my round shape and the Delroll that has resulted from living with a Caribbean chef I started doing 200 half-situps every time I heard a call to prayer. I haven't seen a change in shape but one night doing this I noticed how the curtains made a shadow design on me that reminded me of henna -- without the mess.

Another passport stamp and a new pile

Because my visa to be in Algeria is expiring I have to leave in order to get a new one My destination is Tunis and I am setting off tonight (8/14).

I don't know exactly how long this will take; that's up to Algerian authorities in Tunis, but I'm bringing a full suitcase.

What this means is that I now have possessions scattered in three states in the U.S., Bosnia, Algeria and now Tunis. This makes me crazy for some reason. All my life -- it's a Libra thing -- I have saved and hoarded things which have accumulated in big piles I need periodically to go through and organize or trash lest I am overwhelmed.

Now, however, it seems my piles have gone global.

Gotcha

The journalist sometimes tease me about being Arab. They do this when I get passionate or angry about what they are doing. It's so frustrating.

We've been trying to emphasize the the front page picture must ALWAYS be a fresh, locally shot picture, not something taken, as photos in Algerian newspapers too often are, from the Internet or the archives. So the other day I was hanging out by the photo editor asking, "What does it look like we'll have for today?" We have been pushing them to offer the managing editor a choice of several photos of the best stories of the day, but they are stuck on the idea that the photo, good or bad or even non-existent," must go with whatever the top national story of the day is. This was one of those days, so I was beginning to take off on how this was not good enough.. blah blah. And the editor next to the photo editor goes, "You know we do have a picture for tomorrow. Do you know what it is?"

"What?" I asked.

"It's an American expert..." and I let him get no further before I began moaning, "Oh no, please don't tell me you are planning THAT for the front page, a foreign expert????"

"Yes," he goes,"she is here trying to push freedom of the press..." and again I interrupted with, "That is sooooo boring. We can't keep putting officials on this page. Why would Algerians care about that?"

"And" he goes, "her name is Rose..." I broke in again and then stopped.

"Oh," I said. " I think you got me."

We all had a good laugh and it broke up the tension. But the picture they put on the front page was still lousy.

The joy of a clean house

My mother is going to have something to say about this posting. But here goes. Tuesday has become a favorite day of the week after Thursday, our weekend, because the cleaning lady comes then. We return and everything smells like flowers -- sometimes she puts a pile of jasmine blooms on my dresser. She arranges everything -- food in the refrigerator, the shells and change on the night stand, magazine and piles of papers on the coffee table. Why does that feel so great?

I don't like to DO it, Mom, but I do like to benefit from it.

The cost of this weekly service, we have calculated, is less than two gin-and-tonics at the St. George's Hotel, which is an alternative way of getting a feeling of well-being.

I'm frequently mistaken for Algerian

Out of respect I wear long skirts and sleeves and no wild colors. I have a wardrobe of cotton Algerian tunics and I am frequently asked if I'm Kabylie, one of the tribes here. I am getting fat because, really, why not take advantage of roomy clothes and I have not mastered the art of long skirts around office furniture. I keep rolling over my clothes in my chair and pinning myself to the floor. Nadir, our stylish interpreter with me here, is highly amused.






We went along on a photo shoot recently and met Wahid, a local fisherman who posed, offered us some of the Algerian salad he was cutting up and tried out some creaking English. That's Shahareddine, one of our great drivers, between Nadir and me.

Stong symbol

Taken from L'Ecole Superieur des Beaux Arts overlooking Algiers Bay. If I can even figure out this blogspot software, this will be my logo for this journal. A woman alone and strong looking out on the world. So great. I want to be her when I grow up.

Translation Charades

Nadir has been translating articles for us so we can see what reporters are turning in as raw copy. We keep seeming to have conversations like this one Tuesday morning:

Nadir: "What do you call it in English when you are running out of blood?"
Me: "Uh, bleeding, maybe?"
Nadir: (with a look of disgust) No, no (pantomining a needle going into a vein.)
Me: Oh, anemia.
Nadir: Right!