Life in Algeria

Photos

theflowerofjannah — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:46:24 +0000

Post out of pure boredom.

Shopping!

theflowerofjannah — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 18:51:02 +0000

The last shopping trip I remember was four years ago, me and my daddy ♥ went shopping one night for Eid clothes. He spent all night telling all his friends I had a great taste, which made me feel so happy :’). He is Algerian, so everyone reading this thinks I have a freaky taste – Well, yes, I probably do. But, my English side does come out every now again, and it makes me very proud of my taste.

Last night, my mum told me that we were going shopping for Eid clothes, I was super excited as I had my own money as well as I was going shopping… for clothes… for ME!! Yay! Haha. I got offline and went to bed at around midnight. Me and Hamza joked about it until around 1:30AM, then he fell asleep, an hour later, I managed to fall asleep too.
I opened my eyes the next morning, it was 10:00am exactly. It felt sooooo early :’). I got dressed and wait impatiently for my uncle who was gonna drive us there. But, he is Algerian, so he arrived an hour late. >.<
He dropped us off at auntie Umm Zakariya's house, we then waited for the lovely Mayble to get ready and went, heading for the market. It was extremly hot, and it was far, I was tired by the time we arrived. I stopped in the middle of the street and drank LOTS off water. And old woman walked by and told me to be ashamed of myself and that I was rude, I didn't hear her thankfully otherwise I would've told her to mind her own buisness. (Mayble told me) but I forgot about that as I was really excited to start shopping.
We walked through looking at each stall, looking through everything. Hamza and Sumaya both needed shoes, mum wanted to get some hair accessories and Abdullah needed a T-shirt and I needed a shirt, two hijab material and a few scarves for school.
I went into a shop that looked really intresting, it was waaaay too expensive but I saw this T-shirt with Taylor Swift on it – I LOVE her so much!! She is AMAZING! Even though it was bloody awful and like May said "Taylor would scream if she saw you wearing that." … and she'd sue the people who made it too. I still couldn't help asking the guy to hand it down to me and I kissed it and gave it back. Everyone was like O.o what the hell! And may called my a lezbo. I walked down the street yelling "I am a lesbian, listen, world, I am a lesbian." and my mum was poking me to shut up because a guy was looking at me. I looked up and saw this dude looking at me laughing his head off. I was SO embaressed. I swear. How the hell would I have guessed he knew what a lesbian was. When I call all the guys at school "gay" and they don't understand and gay is more famous then lesbian….. ANYWAY!
We looked through everything, I saw so much stuff that I liked, but didn't love, and most of it was horrible quality, so I was really dissapointed and felt like I wasn't gonna find anything. Hamza bought his shoes, and Sumaya FINALLY did too! She went through 340967830222676898996894873 billion shops!! I swear, by the time she bought her shoes, I was exhausted. My feet were killing me and I was really feeling down and just wanted to go home.
We walked down the shopping center/mall, and we went into a shop that sells clothes for teens, which was mainly jeans (my parents don't let me wear Jeans :'( ) but anyway, this extremely bright and lively shirt caught my attention, I was in love with a really lovely shirt. We asked the dude how much it cost.. but it was too expensive. I was really dissapointed but I just walked out and told mum "let's go its expensive." as I know we're short on money, but my mum stayed and called me back and we bought it! YAYAYAYAYYYY! Thank you mummy ♥
I was so happy. Alhamdulileh! Then we passed by a little material shop, bought black and pink material from my hijab, Walking back home, I saw a make-up stall! I had to stop by and ask the lovely, funny May what everything was called. I ended up buying eye liner and mascara. The first make-up I've ever bought :') Haha, I feel like a proper teenager now! We continued our walk home feeling hungry, thirsty, tired, in pain but happy! We finally arrived back at Umm Zakariya's ( livelovelearnafrica.blogspot.com she has an amazing blog!) house and one hour later my lovely uncle (thank youu!) came and took us back home again. I took a shower and tried my clothes on and I CAN'T WAIT FOR EID!! Haha :')
It's maghrib now and I'm starving, soooo.. Hope you enjoyed reading this. Sorry if I'm making a big deal about a random shopping trip… Actually, I'm not sorry because it's exactly how I feel . Drop me a comment if you're reading

Friendship.

theflowerofjannah — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 16:02:10 +0000

Friendship is one of the most beautiful things in the world. Having a best friend that you can share all of your moments, your deepest, darkest secrets, your joy and your sorrow, someone who is loyal to you, someone who loves you for who you are and will never want to change you, someone who will always be there for you, they’ll be your shoulder to cry on, and you’ll be theirs. I hope, I honestly do hope, that I am that type of friend to someone.
I sometimes feel extremly guilty, that I am friends with people I honestly hate, I feel like I’m using them, or something. When the truth is I’m a big fat softie. I don’t like hurting people, so I end up just being stuck to them for eternity, unless they get sick of me and dump me.
I’ve been used before by people, got into trouble big time, but I’ve also got a few loyal friends. Even I never see them in person, I still appreciate having the online and hearing their voice down the phone. I love my friends!

My amazing friend, Hajr Delli, yes, the one I met in Tlemcen is my bestestestestestest friend I love her. I have many other friends that I love. But today, I feel like talking about her.
I spent a whole week with her, the best week of my life. I never laughed so much, I laughed until I cried, I laughed until I rolled on the floor, crying, I giggled so hard I honestly couldn’t stop, Shaima and her husband, Habib, honestly thought I was totally CRAZAYYY! They would look at me like O.o.
When we watched horrors, we would curl up, squashed to death in one chair, and when gross, bloody parts came up and the woman got chopped up, we burst out laughing. Shaima was like O.o thinking that that had supposed to scare us, not make us laugh! We would spend half the night trying to load one video on Youtube, that would take FOREVER. Literally, we never managed to get past 10 seconds. We would go to the toilet, and almost die because we saw a cocroach. Then she’d start taking pics of herself in the mirror. It was so funny. Me and Shaima tried throwing her in the pool, but she landed on the floor beside the pool. I was laughing my guts out, but Hajr was crying. The poor girl got so many cuts and bruises, she taunted us with them forever!
I also fell madly in love with…….. HER iPOD! I swear, I have one now, but I think hers was special. I loved it so much. Though once she changed the password and didn’t tell me and I managed to block it for one hour.. She was so upset, that was the night before she was flying back to London and I was so upset that she was mad at me. But we got over it the next morning. The saddest thing about the whole friendship is that we never hugged I just realised that… like last night! After over a year! She made me the sweetest pictures ever

This post is so corny. LOL.

My Book!

theflowerofjannah — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 21:31:03 +0000

I have promised many people a “sneak peak” and the main plot of my story. If you have not read my previous post, afraid you were going to die of boredom, I will announce it again: I am writing a book. I started quite a few weeks ago when inspiration found me, finally! I’ve always wanted to write. So I went to google and searched for “I want to publish my own book and I’m a teenager.” It was very encouraging yet disencouraging at the same time. It is very hard to get your first book published. But, never say never, right? J.K Rowling was regected 12 times.. Yes, TWELEVE times before managing to publish Harry Potter, these books and films will never get old. That told me to go on and fight to get it published. If I couldn’t, who cares? I know so many people would be intrested in reading it, and even if no one was, I’d still be proud that I wrote my own whole book. Enid Bylton, my all-time favourite author inspired to write many years ago, though I quit and recently started all over again when I noticed all of my stories where based on hers! Now, I’m feeling very proud that I have my very own idea, very unique and I hope it doesn’t resemble anything else.
Anyway! The main character is a 17 year old girl, Ellie, who’s very popular, she’s very loyal towards her best friend, Katie, but she disses all of the “nerds and geeks” at school, and will only talk to the popular girls, that are all double faced apart from Katie, who was only popular because she was her friend. Ellie, will learn the hard way, that the “nerds and geeks” are the people that you can trust and that can be loyal to you, there will be many tragedies including deaths, illnesses, loneliness.
I am hoping this book will inspire someone, one day, maybe prevent that one bully from bullying, encouraging teenagers to appreciate their parents and family before it’s too late (I’m not perfect! I know, I’m the horrible teen that hates hugging mummy!). Anyway, I’m going to shut up now because I don’t want to give the whole story away! Here is a sneak peak from my story .

My dad put his arm around me.

“Get off me!” I shouted, I couldn’t bare to be touched like that. I was furious.. With who? I had no idea.

“I’ve quit my job, I’m gonna stay at home, I only have a few weeks left.” she added to the bomb shell.

I pushed my chair backwards knocking it over and ran upstairs, I was shaking. I tried my best to phone Katie as fast as possible.

“Hello, Ellie.” came her sweet, gentle voice through the phone.

I wanted to cry at the sound of her loving voice. I pulled my self together and said “Can you come… Now? It’s urgent” I choked.

I lyed on my bed, playing my favourite songs, my throat hurt me, I tried my best not to cry. Ten minutes later, Katie arrived and opened the door to my room.

She stopped like she saw a zombie next to her, “Ellie, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost!”

Tears started pooring down my cheeks.

“Oh, Ellie!” she said. She sat on the bed and hugged me, I clung onto her tightly sobbing my eyes out. “What happened?”

“Mum… She.. She.. Oh!” I said as if someone had just told me the news all over again. “She has cancer.” I finally blurted.

“Oh… Oh my gosh.. Oh my gosh!” she gaped. “Oh, Ellie! I’m so sorry.” she hugged me tighter.

I was so thankful, I had Katie. My best friend. After what felt like a life time of sobbing, I managed to go downstairs, I hugged my mum whispering “I love you so much.”

She was very strong, she looked in pain, and tired. But, I didn’t even see her cry. It was now my duty to stay strong for her, and help her, and be there for her.

TO BE CONTINUED

Ramadan so far…

theflowerofjannah — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:06:38 +0000

WARNING: If you read this post, you might die of boredom. So, you can just click “Back” and not risk your life . Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Ramadan has been very hard, and it’s literally crawling by. I simply cannot wait for Eid! I’ve been waking up pretty late, at around 2pm. Mainly because I’ve been staying up until suhour at around 4am because my poor mum is too tired to wake up. Then I wake up feeling nauseous, headache and starving. It goes on for pretty much all day, then I have to make the borek and I feel a bit better, then before maghrib I feel like I’m dying… again! It’s also being going by verrrrry slowly. I feel like I’ve fasted for 12 years non-stop. Wallahi, it’s really terrible. It doesn’t even feel like Ramadan, it’s so miserable and boring and hot and stressful and just akl;asjklgjkslnjaaa…. Undescribable!

Anyway! To more interesting stuff – I’ve been working on a book.. Yes! I’m writing a book . It’s pretty hard work, but alhamdulileh, I’m pretty proud. Insha’allah, if it’s good enough, I might send it off and try to get it published. Yay! Which is probably why I havn’t been blogging enough… Okay, I lied. I have not being blogging recently mainly because of my sad boring life, doing the same thing every day. I know.. Boring… very!

If you’re reading this, CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve survived THE most boring blogpost, ever! I’m hoping that mum gets her camera in like a week or two & I’ll be able to blog with pictures and possibly do a Khobz Khmir tutorial seen though some of you had no idea what I was talking about. Okay, enough, I’m wasting your time! Ramadan Mubarak everyone! I hope it’s going MUCH better then mine Love you ♥

Moving to Algeria.

theflowerofjannah — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:32:04 +0000

It was August 2004, I was 8, all I remember was sitting in the car, at night, feeling all lovely & snuggled up, we had suitcases in the middle car seat, so I was isolated from my brother. We made a little gap in between the suitcases & started playing with our cards. :’)

Me, Hamza & Billal, moved before mum did. She was pregnant & wanted to give birth in the UK before moving, so we moved early to start school. We started school by joining the Saudi school, Abi hired a guy to drive us to and fro everday, because he was in the UK with my mum & two younger siblings.
I remember not being very popular there at first, so I was pretty unhappy, I soon settled in & made friends with the “popular girls” so everyone accepted me. I was a good pupil & got excellent marks, masha’allah.
Living with my grandparents was no easy deal. In Ramadan, we weren’t fed, even if I fasted, they wouldn’t believe I did so I didn’t get food in time. Before my dad left, he made the mistake of his life, he told my grandparents that we love Pasta, so if they didn’t know what to cook, just make us some Pasta. We lived on plain Pasta for three months. We hated the milk (We drank a lot of it in England), it was so gross, my poor dad had to buy us this special milk that was okay.
We also had this neighbour that would take us to the mosque & teach us Quran. I absolutely hated it! I didn’t like her, nor did I like doing Quran in the mosque with other girls. During Tarawih, she dragged me to the Mosque everyday & I ended up being put with all the other little girls in a room, hot, bored & as annoyed as ever! As I’m writing this, I’m getting more & more memories on moving here!
I blame her for being afraid of the mosque & not wanting to pray Tarwih. I am literally afraid of the Mosque. Once, on a friday, we were sitting listening to the talk & a plane flew too low, the earth shaked furiously, I was terrified, People were screaming, running outside, some fainted, I was so afraid, I had no idea what to do, I tried to run & get out of there, but she pulled me down with her and was hugging me & saying her Shahada, I was crying terrified & the imam didn’t stop the Khutba. Ever since, I hear a car drive by & I panick.
I remember sitting on the stairs in my grandparents miserable house, crying my eyes out wishing my mum would hurry up & get here.
Finally, one afternoon, the phone rang one day & my grandma told me she had given birth to my brother, Omar. I don’t know what got into me, but I ran outside, climbed a tree & bawled my eyes out. I hated him. Until today, I still do. Mum says I blame everything I went through there on him without realising it. As much as I try to love him, I just can’t.

Alhamdulileh, it all ended when I remember running down the stairs and as I walked outside I bumped into my little brother, Abdullah and behind him I saw Sumaya, mum, dad & the baby. I was SO happy.
We moved home the night before Eid Ul Adha. Yes, believe it or not. Our whole huge family came with us. It was crazy! Mum had to go through the bags to find plates, spoons, bowls… We slaughtered the sheep the next day with everyone. Eid was pretty fun, esp I was little so I didn’t do much. Mum probably was very stressed out, miskeena!
That’s all I remember of moving to Algeria, a crazy experience. Though afterwards I moved into a local school & life was good again, alhamdulileh!

Ramadan Mubarak!

theflowerofjannah — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:19:59 +0000

Ramadan Mubarak to you, dearest reader! May Allah accept our fasting & grant us with his blessing. Ameen.
Fasting this month, is supposedly going to be harder. Fasting in August, in north Africa is no easy deal! It’s been really sticky & humid. Really terrible weather. But, alhamdulileh. Day 1 was pretty easy for me, not one of these days where you feel like you’re dying at the end of the day! Insha’allah it cools down!

We wake up for Suhour at around 4am. Mum has already put the bread machine on the night before, so we wake up to some delish Brioche with butter, jam, we also drink lots of water & eat some dates. We then pray Fajr & go back to sleep, well, we try to go back to sleep, all 5 of us kids wake up, and the three smallest end up being hyped, laughing, shouting, running around then fighting in bed (we all camp out in the sitting room with the a/c) It’s pretty stressful, I just wanna strangle them all sometimes! LOL. Yeah, I wake up pretty grumpy cuz I don’t get much sleep. We wake up at around 10-11 (I wake up at 12-1 shhhhh ). Then its the matter or doing some chores or just walking around the house bored out of our minds, I do some quran, then get online.. Then it’s time to run after the boys, get shopping done, keep on dealing with the kids coming in.. Me & my mum make the dinner (Shorba, soup, borek, bread & sometimes so chips or something.) & set the table, argue, tv… y’know! Then like 5 minutes before the adhan calls is the manic rush of watching everyone as we don’t want all the glasses & bowls broken or spilt. The Adhan finally calls and all the fasters sit around the table & break our fast, while the non fasters sit on the little table on the floor and patiently wait until we pray to have dinner. (The big table isn’t really enough for us all.). During dinner is pretty annoying too with the little kids sneaking up slowly and going “mum can I have more?” or “umi, I want some juice.” and that annoys me SO much. Mum never manages to sit down & eat. So, I end up yelling at them to be patient & sit down. (I’m a mean big sis.)
Afterwards, cleaning up, washing up, getting the boys off to Tarawih & the little kids into their PJ’s & into bed. Mum & I get online, boys come back home again, might have something to eat or just go to bed and trying to sleep with everyone giggling, fighting, being a pain…. LOL. And then it’s suhour and it goes on and on and on, and it goes on and on and on, I put my hands up in the air sometimes, saying ayooooo. OMG – Sorry. LOL, couldn’t help that (song!).

That’s it for now! Ramadan Mubarak, everyone!

Big famillies.

theflowerofjannah — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:22:39 +0000

I get asked so many times “How many siblings do you have?”. Everyone seems to have around 2-5 Apart from me! It’s so weird. I then answer the question saying “I’m the eldest of 8 children.” And people are like “Omg, wow. That’s a lot!” (Masha’allah!). Then they start saying how cool that is. When, honestly, there is nothing “cool” about that. Especially being the eldest. You’re responsible for everything. If we go out and the little kids get lost or they fall over my dad will be like “Batoul! Where were you? Why weren’t you watching them?”. It’s so annoying & very frustrating. I would do anything to be like the youngest or anything! Just not the eldest.
It’s also very frustrating at home, there is NEVER a moment of silence unless they’re all out. Not to mention it is IMPOSSIBLE to keep the house clean. It’s always messy, dishes, crap, just a huge pain!
Everyone is always crying, fighting or some drama happening! It’s very frustrating when it comes to sharing the computer, like everyone has their own hour, so I have to wait for 5 hours to use it! It’s really frustrating to many stuff in life.

But! It can be pretty fun, we can like play a good game of hide & seek, or be able to play games or any random activity. You know, the more people, the better it is! Thats the only good thing I can think off o.0
I have to get off and go and make Khobz Khmir. I don’t want to be late on the first day of Ramadan! Oh & Ramadan Mubarak

A British teenager in Algeria.

theflowerofjannah — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:39:15 +0000

Being a British teenager in Algeria is not at all something you’d want to go through. Algerian teenagers do get that sense of wanting to look nice all the time, they start being all trendy and fashionable, but they all focus on the same thing: Marriage & house work. Its like who can cook more, can you make cakes? Can you cook lots of different sorts off food? Do you clean? When British teenagers are all about fashion, music, hormones, going out and enjoying life. Algerian teenagers probably go through that too, but parents don’t seem to be aware of that! So not much attention is paid to that. They treat girls like house wives, practising to become a good stay-at-home wife. It is really annoying for me, when my dad keeps on saying “You’ve grown up so much! You’ll soon be married!” It’s so awkward and I just feel like telling him to Shut the hell up! By the time girls reach 16-17 they’ll start getting marriage propsals. I am dreading that because I won’t hear the end of it! I got my first one when I turned 14. My dad said I was too young, but I guess he felt a sense of pride & told like all our family & he wasn’t planning on telling me if my mum hadn’t! Then my brothers heard of it & they tend to tease me sometimes. It’s so awkward. I feel like walking outside with a sign saying “Too young for marriage.” or something like that!
When it comes to socialising, it’s…. Let me just say it depends. I can be very Algerian with Algerian girls & English with non-Algerian girls. Algerians focus a lot on gossiping, food, marriage, critising people for what they do/wear & talk about their crushes. It’s so annoying to me. Being the crazy, wild person I am, I tend to randomly shout in the middle of a group of girls “Shut up! Talk about something good, why do we gossip all the time?” Even my aunts and cousins have their own “secrets” I feel very left out when they are whispering & they even can read eachothers lips. I would love to fit in but my dad doesn’t like it because he doesn’t want me to be badly influenced in anyway. So, to be honest, I don’t have any Algerian I can call my “Best friend” or a good “friend”, just school girls. Even though I adore my school friend, you can never trust people, just in case. We talk alot & we keep eachothers secrets but at a special point.
I would LOVE to be an English teenager & go out with friends & stuff like that. It would be so fun. But, unfortunately, haram. So, I stick to my few half Algerian, half British/American friends. We don’t get to see eachother often as we don’t live very close & it’s hard to get them to come when a meeting or something is organised.

Recently, I have been chilling on the terrace wall, almost five floors high from the ground, chatting to my neighbours. It’s so fun, but, being bored young girls, they come like every five minutes begging me to go up to the terrace & talk to them, and I end up thinkng of excuses not to go because I don’t like hurting people & just saying “No, I don’t want to.” But, it’s the only way to talk to someone, even they just chatter about their lives, I just sit their laughing & nodding or shaking my head. They can be entertaining when I’m in the mood to listen. LOL. Yet, again, I can’t trust them cuz they seem to tell eachother everything that happens here & it’s a sign that you can’t trust them.
I have a great time talking to people online though . I know so many amazing people that I’m hoping to see/meet soon ♥
Alhamdulileh!

The Future.

theflowerofjannah — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 14:19:02 +0000

Quite recently, I have been constantly thinking about my future. Will I live to see it? Will my dreams come true? Or will I end up like a typical Algerian woman, married, serving an Algerian husband? Only the future will answer these questions.
I’ve been enchanted by dancing, it’s such a beautiful, artistic way of expressing yourself or simply moving to the melody or the beat. It can be so elegant and graceful, yet wild and fierce. If I wasn’t a Muslim, I would’ve probably begged my parents to let me take dancing lessons. But, it’s haram (forbidden in Islam), so I gave up on that.

Coming to my future, I don’t want to get married. The idea of loving someone who loves you back, being there for eachother & just having someone always there is really sweet. But marriage means children, children means responsabilties… Lots of them! I seriously don’t want to work so hard on having a proffesional career, then becoming a mum & having to stay at home to statisy my husband & children’s needs. I believe that a person can be perfectly happy single, surrounded by friends & family. I love children, and the idea of being a mummy is really sweet (Uthman, my baby brother & Auntie Kat’s son, Zaki, inspired that!), so I might adopt a couple of children & do my best to be the perfect mummy one day!
Speaking of a career, I want to be a doctor. A Paediatrician or a Psychologist. Right now, I’m trying to decide which one to go for, but I have at least 5 years to make that decision! So, I’ll just focus on reaching medical school & not just floating through school & end up not knowing much. Next year, I have my GCSE’s, so I’ll focus on getting top marks for that & making my family proud, insha’allah. (Congratulations to my dear friend Assiya for passing hers this year, masha’allah! Proud of you )

But, what freaks me out is the fact that I don’t want to live in Algeria & work here. I want to go to the UK and work there. I want to experience life out there, I don’t care how bad it can get, I want to try it out.
Learning here is in Arabic (obviously), so if I work there I’ll have to probably take a test to become a qualified Doctor in England in English. I just hope the education here is good & up to standard cuz I might die if I find out I’ll have to take courses & stuff! But, we’ll see what the Future brings, insha’allah.

So, insha’allah, some of my dreams will come true & I’ll live life the way I wanted and always dreamed of living. And not just end up like most young women do here, throwing away their education just to get married. I’m not critising! Everyone lives life the way they want it, so I respect their decisions even though it’s not a life I’d choose for myself.
Until next time, insha’allah! ♥