randomness on leap day

This morning I saw a man downtown walking in the rain with an acetylene torch. fancy that?!?

Earlier chez an American friend's place, I finally saw "Old School". I'm not usually homesick, but that gave me some yearning for silliness in the states.

Yesterday, I saw some Casbah kids tossing firecrackers at each other.

My colleague Khadija said one time somebody put a lit firecracker in her coat pocket.

We had lunch at a typical Algerian place near La Grande Poste and there was a canary in a cage warbling away while I savored my Fish Soup and Olive Tajine. Khadidja sed dat shi wonse bought a bird just to free it. awwwww!

reminded me of the time i saw Nassim give a wedge of Vache Qui Rit cheese to a stray cat @ Bouzareah....awwwwww!

dont forget to practice random acts of kindness: from the sidewalk on Frantz Fanon I waved overenthusiastically to some boys in a weathered bus. lots of smiles.:)

Gonna do some more collaborating with my colleagues at the Fac. Centrale. They teach translation and interpreting so it's a neat opportunity to share my perspective as an NAE dude. (NAE= nobody anybody everybody...no that's not right...New Algerian Educator...no that's not it either...North American English). Yeah that's it North American English variety dude. and then i get to hear and learn the translation into al arabiyya! isnt that wunderbar?

speaking of wunderbar...i went to a wonderful bar this weekend...The Hotel Aurassi Terrace.. check out the pics online:
http://www.el-aurassi.com/presenta_en.htm
met up with some americans that are here doing ph.d research type shtuff...brock, jacob, jennifer, and carrie and another that was just in town for 20 hours...cant recall her name. Fulbrighter Elizabeth showed up too and a guy named Bill...seemed british...is the reuters man in the region and carries 2 small backpacks.

anyways the view is spectaculaire! all of algiers in broad panorama before the mediterranean. the bar itself is quite a sight. The building had never attracted me...it's kind of massive monolithic and plain white...just rectangular. But, the inside is outta this world...sci-fi with middle eastern muzak...at times right outta kubrick's clockwork orange. u intrepid ones that make it here, this is not to be missed.

so today is cloudy and wet...i'm home...finally blogging again after a nearly 2 month hiatus.

there was another strike at Bouzareah this past week...only one of my classes was affected. some didnt show for the other classes, but the show must go on.

On Wed., I went to Cheraga and presented on Using Blogs for Teaching/Learning at Hopeland, a fairly new language institute. http://hopelanddz.com/ Laura and Bachir Dib, an American Lady and her Algerian Husband, have established it and I really enjoyed my visit. I was the special guest for the weekly teacher training session and met some nice teachers there: Rafik, Smail, Latifa, Abderrahim, Louise (from Britain), and Tumwiine (from Uganda). The look and the feel of the place reminded me of AMIDEAST Aden. I'm looking forward to going back there again and again. Cheraga is a suburb and I can get there within 10 minutes of Bouzareah.

coming soon....some pics and details on spaghetti in the sahara with you!