Ankara-Kerkuk

In Ankara the skies were grey. A white derwish was turning around his heart over a clock. There was a brige too. White and grey, were the colors.

Hours after travel I succeded to fall asleep. Woke up to see a face of an owl. A symbol for wisdom according to the westerners, a symbol of bad luck according to us. I remembered that brige in Ankara. Remebered Ataturk. A brige between East and West. I am already longing to go out of Iraq.

Here is Kerkuk.

Bou Saadi Last Moments

In my last days in Bou Saada, I started to spend some considerable time sitting on the bench of our door smoking.

The very last 24 hours I visited one of the oldest cafes in Bou Saada. I somtimes sit here and watch the stork couple who got their nest in the front tower (not shown in photos).

Pine tree aroma is now linked in my mind to Algeria since it was here that I mostly smelled it summer and winter, under sun and under rain.

Took a hair cut, put a headphone, and go Tracy Chapman.

Wondering what the clouds may offer from shapes. I didn't want to believe that they may offer a map of Iraq.

Contemplating one of my favourite dad's painting of the Espresso machine.

Dad came with me at dawn to the airport. My dad offered me my last Espresso drink. I took an Espresso maching with me to Iraq but the coffee beans' types are different from Algeria to Iraq. I failed to got that same flavour I used to love in Algeria.

Kissing goodbyes. Viva Turkish Airlines.

La Nuit des Origins

Our ancestors live in El Alleig, a village about 10 km south to Bou Saada. El Alleig literally means Blackberry. It has a natural water source. It is older than Bou Saada. We headed to El Alleig that evening to bring some water from its source. All El Alleig inhabitants are our relative. There was a wedding and we were invited. When we asked to leave an hour after that we weren't allowed to do so because the bride was expected to arrive few minutes later and we were told that we should stay to witness the entrance of the bride. We were invited to dinner. After dinner, Ouled Naïl percussions and that special flute named Ghaita started to play. Ouled Naïl dancing started. It was a night of going back to origins.

Pear Morning

A Peaceful Friday Morning in Bou Saada

Is it already a month since I have started giving English lessons? Since our first day I told them that this may not continue, and we are in a trial, that can succeed into more serious and regular paid lessons. Our verbal agreement include that each one of us is free to stop the lessons on his side. Few students dropped during the month, others new ones joined us, but I was attached the most to those who accompanied me from the first, to the last, lesson.

How are you? I asked. They answered in one voice: Fine thank you and you? One of them, who always makes jokes, and is the fastest to learn, added in Arabic: here you are giving us a lesson! Aissa (=Jesus), Raid (=pioneer), Aimen (=the right handed), and a relative of them joined me from our center to the nearby hill to take photos.

I headed to the center of the city where a couple of storks had made a nest above the telephone tower. The storks were not there. To the left there was the martyr's monument.

From between the two buildings of the municipality I found my way to an old café usually attended by old men. I like its peaceful slowness and calm and found it an opportunity to take photos, especially to old men, and to the machine of the Espresso that we don't have in Iraq.

Espresso Machine

Mille Feuilles et une Feuille

Thirsday. No work. Just another day. To spend. To spend? To the left my friend. What for? For buying journals. You forgot that? El-Watan, and… where is Le Soir D'Algerie? Didn't come yet? Okay let us take…. mmmm… Liberte… To the café my friend… and here is a new mille feuilles…. And your Espresso… and three L&M cigarettes.

You eat by big bites as if time is running out of you. You know that your time is a Saharian one these days. Lessons of patience are giving to you while you have some right loin pain. Hmmm? Are you enjoying that? I am a little astonished by your anarchic way of learning French. You seem to take learning new things as fighting. As if you are fighting. A son of rat becomes a digger! Why you are looking at me like that? Do you want to speak. Speak!

No I don't want to speak but I found your proverb strange. A rat and a digger!! Here look at those cartoons. Astonishing. Algerian journals got talented cartoonists. That was a discovery for me you know. We don't use to have good cartoonists in our area of the world. They express themselves cleverly. Not like you! A rat and a digger! Huh!