Saturday, August 14, 2010

to be in sig

to be in sig algeria in the house of my brothers in law is to close myself in to a world that is heat and heat and ear splitting heat in the day
all day all day is ramadan
i pretend i am not eating so i hide in the bedroom that is our when we visit here and munch apples with the door closed
god how i long for coffee
during nap time which is for everyone not just children even though one of my children the older one never ever naps but i do
during nap time i sneak to the kitchen and steal stale bread from last night%s feast

the day goes something like this
i wake up with the kids because the light is coming through the blond glass windows and the sound of the motor bikes are taking over the streets below
i guzzle water and wander out to see who is awake and if maybe i can somehow manage to pour a cup of coffee and get back to the bedroom before anyone notices
i am so afraid of being caught i still after three days have not found to courage to try out this plan
the floors are all tiled in large brown and or blue squares that when they throw water on them later will be insanely slippery the only major deterrent for boys wandering through the house to avoid the room being cleaned
this might be a choice that the women have made without knowing
this slippery floor tiles that are hard and perfectly melded to each other not at all like lynolium in my apt
but as i know that it is my brother in law who choose the floors for this house this cannot be true
already i am ready to go back to sleep
i lay in bed thanking god for the air conditioner that is fixed to the wall
i have been here sig algeria in the august heat when they did not have an air conditioner and the pain that is evident in my head now was so so much worse
the kids have nothing to do until their cousins wake up so for now i try to entertain them by reading magic school bus and harry potter alternately
the day proceeds with exactly nothing to except pretent to offer my help in cleaning but dissapear when the actual work is being done by my two oldest nieces yamina and fatima
i am hiding in the bedroom with the ac on and the door closed when i hear the bottle of soap being flicked over the floor
splat in quick jumps the sound falls on the floor
then will come the buckets of water and the foudwar which is a long handled squeegie thing is pulled along the floor directing water toward the bathroom door where there is a hole in the tiled floor that the water goes down and the huge water bugs come up
the floor will dry and then i will come out and stand by the door to the kitchen where my sister in law is beginning to cook already
already she has placed in the pressure cooker two frozen tomatoes two frozen carrots a handfull of flowering cilantro and parsely flat leaf meat is of course lamb and i am sure it is frozen too tho i cant tell exactly
the spices are little stars and colorant and ras el honout and salt and heavy pinches of black pepper that is so much spicier here than in the usa or spain or elswhere i have eaten black pepper
there are two onions chopped into four parts each and maybe a zucchini
the fire is high under the pressure cooker that has a sticker that reads secret in cooking is fast
the chinese really abuse the fact that this is not an english speaking country when they print their labels for products sold here
i often read the instructions on the ac universal remote or the instructions on how to put together a toy and laugh out loud and have no one to share it with

so my son is going crazy here so i have to go maybe more soon now that i have somewhat figured out this insane keyboard but not the punctuation so for that i am sorry

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