#DZBlogDay, One day, One Nation.

The beginning egg was a mere idea; the egg hatched giving birth to a mature idea, and then turned into what’s baptized: “DZ Blog Day” or “the day of Algerian blogging” that would bring myriads of Algerian bloggers together,-in spite of their different opinions, backgrounds, styles and languages-, to discuss about a sole topic, everyone treating the matter from his own viewpoint like any other blog post. The only particularity is: This blog entry would be posted in the same day as many other ones, and this day is the very 01/15th/2011, the first DZ Blog Day ever.


To participate, one should write a blog entry about “Education and instruction” in its different reincarnations: within the familial circle, in the streets’ labyrinths, in the corridors of schools, to the universities’ amphitheatres, etc.
Education problems, they don’t lack us! All what one needs to do is, digging for a problem, talks about it, exposes it, maybe it falls like an autumn leaf between the palms of the one who has the key to solve it.
Why?
One might wonder, why? What’s all this for? The main purpose is the attraction of the public opinion (particularly Mass media) to a topic being spoken about by numerous fellow bloggers in the same time. The secondary aim is: introducing the term:”Blogging” to the Algerian laymen - that may have no clue about it-, vulgarize the concept and clear the ambiguities about it.
Even if the “DZBlogDay” didn’t make the media buzz till now, locally, it would leave a footprint on the universal blogosphere’s track, and enrich the actual web content. Still not everything, yet! The most important thing is gathering Algerian bloggers under the same umbrella (peculiarly, ‘cause they are dispersed here and there, everyone in his ivory tower talking a different language) to show unity, and be the good example of the youth today (the majority of Algerian bloggers are young folks).
Where and how?
The Algerian Website “Bloginy” (A blogs’ aggregator) powered by Benguella Riad adopted the idea and gave it a special corner in the website, hence even if you don’t have your personal Blog you can post here: http://www.bloginy.com/feeds/dzblogday. You’d find there Blog posts related to the event and all articles published in the different blogs.
If you are a facebooker, you can join the DzBlogDay group to confirm your participation and know who are taking part that event here.
You can also follow updates through twitter here: @dzblogday.
Official website: www.dzblogday.org



If you are an Algerian Blogger or want to interact with society’s issues - whether you’re a blogger or not-, we want to hear your voice rising in January 15^th, 2010…
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An atypical translation of the article (DZ BLOG DAY يوم واحد، مجتمع واحد) posted by Seifo

An Algerian in Egypt chronicles [day 1]

The plane took off from Algiers at 13:00 heading to Cairo. We began the flight with “دعاء السفر” (The imploration of voyage)- Booking a flight of Egypt Air was a better idea, we felt, at least, we were Arab Muslims unlike “Air Algerie” where you get the feeling of being a mutant-.
While flying up to the skies, one of Algiers’ awesome landscapes attracted my attention. It’s Oued Smar’s Park, as the photos below show:













Ooops, I forgot! We’re still in 2010, so the sketch above would be like this in reality :-(




We do hear, since ages, about the transformation of this garbage dumping site into a park, but no one knows If we do live enough till seeing it (just like the Metro Project).
Leaving the country’s aerial boundaries, we came across different breathtaking sceneries. One feels like one is hung between the sky and the land, reality and dreams, swinging like a pendulum in the nothingness. Above the clouds it’s like time itself is resting for a while, hiding under the clouds, to catch you once you’re on earth’s surface with hours of difference that would let you baffled, asking how could the watch on your hand tell 4pm and it’s sunset, already!



Here are some photos, that I could barely shoot without a plane’s wing or a part of the windows messes ‘em up:







I can’t tell where this place is! But, I guess it would be in the Algerian East.






When the clouds are the ground of another cloudless world.






I like clouds, they always fascinated me, I don’t know why! Here, they seem like an endless cotton field





When we landed at Cairo Airport, it was 16:30, and already dark (that time would be a clear evening in Algeria).

Honestly, I was sorta prepared to a bad hosting from the part of Egyptians due to the events occurred last year, because of that goddamn Football game. But, it was just the complete opposite. The police-officers were too loose towards us when they knew we were Algerians and locals were very friendly. We found someone to pick us up from the Airport to our 4 stars Hotel;-) and the first question pops up into one’s mind while rolling down Cairo’s streets at night is: what time it is ?! It’s the same if it’s 8pm or 2am! It’s a never sleeping city.
Here are some shots (they aren’t clean due to the speed of the MiniBus ):







Cairo’s tower









We arrived to the Hotel (after a 1 Hour&Half drive in the traffic jam ) that’s situated in Al Zamalek (a nice place surrounded by the Nile river from both sides which gives it the shape of a micro Island), dumped my luggage into the locker. We had to go somewhere to sate our hunger, so we didn’t bother to go somewhere far while a small traditional fast-food (offering a range of Potato meals: chips, French fries, etc.) would be more than enough.





Afterwards taking a walk in the surroundings, we come across a nice library called “Diwan” (a series of libraries all over the city) offering nice books with an affordable price. I bought 5 books by the price of 2 in Algeria! I was going to buy as much as can, if the thought of “It’s your very first day here, you can’t empty your pockets, already!” didn’t hold me back.
The funniest part of it, when I ask the clerk about a book, he responds in English (does our Algerian dialect sound like English ?!! :p). so, I gave up speaking OUR Arabic and started talking in English to avoid any misunderstanding .
Here are some shots inside the bookstore(I knew in the end that it’s not allowed :p)



































The original version of “The Secret”. I even found the Arabic version of it somewhere else. It was expensive and less educative (I watched it as a movie. The book is  a mere transcript)




Many things made me envious.
1- These photos were shot at 22:00( I did what could to not make people appear in the photos, but I assure you there were more than 20 persons inside) and looking like an Algerian library in its rush hour.
2- People don’t come just to buy books, there’s a cafeteria, and round tables where I found 2 intellectuals discussing one of the books, a handful of Americans and Arabs talking about some shared issues and some people scattered here and there reading silently.
3- You come across many foreigners (mainly Europeans) learning Arabic, as you can see below the two girls (they are Dutch, I could easily distinguish their language that seemed too close to German) in the Arabic section of the library, there was also a German boy who speaks Egyptian dialect fluently! The sad thing in Algeria is, when a foreigners come, they learn French instead of Arabic, which is shameful and disgraceful in the same time.







We made it back to our headquarter at 22:30 safe and sound (no one threatened us or bother us, hehe), and here is the car I bought from there. Anyone wanna re-buy??

Algiers, the Mediterranean bride in the grey wedding dress (I)

A normal day in Algiers

Yesterday, I was in a cab (clandestine!) heading from El Harrach to Bach Jarrah, that are ones of Algiers’ red spots (Poor and dangerous places, but modest. I was in the front seat buckled up by a tight safety belt in a grey Maruti –when we run over a dos d’âne, I feel the shock going all over my spinal column to my neck-, breaking through the traffic jam like a swordfish drawing its way through a school of fish. I had my earphones on a level that I can hear no one of the other passengers. I enjoy listening to the sounds inside my head that rise, when my spirit is secluded and my thoughts flow through my neurons like an overwhelming river.


El Harrach’ City Hall
I stared at people’s faces ( one can notice more men with beards and women in Niqab. poor areas are more engaged in religion than people living in richer zones), the walls height (in a real country, walls surrounding houses shouldn’t exceed 2m10! But, in Algeria you find 3m walls crowned by “barbed tapes” or “razor wires”, and I imagine a ditch of water with crocodiles and stuff, hehehe) , the unaccomplished metro stations, the scars on the roads caused by the heavy vehicles , the mediocre asphalt and the digging, and the shinny sun of autumn washing the sky like a radiant waterfall . Algiers is a beautiful mosaic wrapped in an unembellished cover, a breathtaking canvas underwent the drawing of a mediocre drawer (I avoid to say artist). In this first part of the trip, I came across Harrach’s city hall with its beautiful bright white walls and its colonial style with its straight well-trimmed palm trees, the bridge passing over the stinky Oued, the charming old small houses that French settlers dwelled in one day, the long forgotten slum shacks, the recent commercial center in Bach Jarrah with the Quran verses in its entry which reveals that it’s a decent place to go to with your family (nowadays, one can barely can go with his family to public places, avoiding the embarrassment and the unexpected bad sights).


The stinky Oued of El harrach
I, while rolling, cry secretly for the sake of this capital, torn apart by the black decade, exploited by hollow-skulled responsible idiots who’re watching her plains losing their virginity by the tractors’ rippers (Metidja is one of the most fertile series of plains on the planet. It’s all along the cost, and it’s well known for the quality of its Citrus family trees that bear: Orange, lemon, etc. and the excellent olives).
Yore, Algiers was mightier than any French city (a simple resident in al Kasbah had a toilet in his house when Europeans didn’t, even, dream of WC’s in their own places), and under French occupation –although all the terrible acts and horrible crimes against humans- she was always wearing her white wedding dress, that’s why it’s called “Alger la blanche” (Algiers the white) or in Arabic “El bahdja” (The delight). I, in my daily way to college, pass through the streets of the so called “Beau lieu” (Beautiful place), with its old pleasant small houses, that was inhabited by French officers, but now they have greasy walls and nothing separate them from the “La décharge de Oued Smar”(the biggest garbage dumping site in Algeria) except the agronomical experimental field (less than 500 m).
In my second part, I went from Bach Jarrah to Ben Aknoun then to Cheraga. It’s like we aren’t in the same country! Neither people nor the places are similar. One can, clearly, see how one is climbing the social stairs. One can behold the big villas all along the highway’s sides, the classy cars. I hate seeing such big buildings, tons of cement on an innocent generous ground, high walls declaring microscopic republics inside the mother land, separating its residents from the sad reality and the ugly truth. The highway in Algiers is a hell, one sometimes find oneself stuck for a whole hour in a bumper-to-bumper situation. The traffic jam is one of the biggest problems in Algiers (I sometimes spend 3 hours on the road daily); I hope the Metro – if I live enough to see it operational- and the Tramway help the smothering highway to breathe again.
After I reached Ben Aknoun, I got on, immediately, a bus to Cheraga’s terminus. One goes through hell of “Dos-d’ânes” or “ralentisseurs” (the humpback speed reducers scattered all over the Algeria territory’s byways). I’ve never understood this concept! In a linguistic point of view it’s a “speed reducer”. So, if I’m rolling at 40km/h, there’s no need for it. But, these accursed bulks of solid asphalt don’t distinguish between who’s speeding from who isn’t. They, both, undergo the screwing of their suspension. This reflects one of the sides of our authorities that apply the “collective punishment”. I saw in a documentary about this issue a moving “speed reducer” in Germany. There are speed sensors meters ahead of each “Dos d’âne” to measure the velocity of the coming vehicle and if it’s less than the maximum it goes down by itself and the road is clear. But, when one is exceeding the speed limit, the “dos d’âne” stays still. The lesson: “They want to reduce speed and not damage cars!”

The Commercial center of Cheraga ElQuds, and that ugly load of red-bricks mangling the view
Whilst crossing Dely Ibrahim and Cheraga, one’s heart sings a sad requiem for the wasted plains. Agricultural Fields attributed to people during President Boumediene under the slogan: “الأرض لمن يخدمها ” (The terrain for he who looks after it) turned into buildings, backs , villas, fashion shops, etc. not knowing that future generations will curse them until the end of history, when they cause irreversible damages to the giving lands. Afterward, I took another bus from Cheraga to my final destination. I passed through narrow roads with bottoms white-painted trees on their sides (typically Mediterranean) not letting the evening sunlight pass through their wide leaves, small nurseries (pépinières) with plants and flowers I ignore their names, but I know very well how they look, smell and taste (I tried some of them :p hehe) and some fields embedding old Spanish styled haciendas surrounded by vines. Sceneries one gets used to and loses interest in them in the midst of the problems and the heavy atmosphere of “je m’enfoism”. I, many times, overlooked the beautiful buildings of “Alger centre” just because I’m lowering my sight, and this remembers me of
Oscar wilde’s saying:

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

I’d rather say:

“We are all in the gutter. We should look at the stars not forgetting where our feet are”