The sun is setting and I'm sitting in the orchard, under the shade of my relative's olive trees. I'm sulking my father's trees, we've just argued. Again. As I turn to watch our lot to give me some sense of filial responsibility, I see my cousin's wife and her 4 year-old daughter awkwardly hiding behind tree trunks and picking the olives that have fallen on the ground after the harvest. My olives. My harvest. Next to me, my relative is working hard on her garden. We chat while I munch on 'tassememt'. "Have you seen what they're doing..." she tells me while she digs the ground to make space for her future onions. "Yup". "She told me she's teaching her daughter how to earn and save money. So at every sunset she comes down with her, and picks the olives that are left on the ground. Then they go by the roadside where vegetable merchants set up shop to sell on the highway, and she sells the olives there. She doesn't take the olives from under her trees, she takes it from under all of ours. She's stealing basically" "You're going to tell her off?" "No, I can't, we already argued years ago and didn't speak for one year. We can't do that again. When she's done stealing yours she's going to run off home, so am going to clear the ground under my trees then. She'll be a lot more upset to find nothing than to be told off."
I am over the moon to have found a PDF version of the original Algerian Ilyad by the great Algerian war poet Moufdi Zakaria. As it is the original version, it is in Arabic HERE (thanks to archive.org, a fantastic e-resource for old books, you should check it out). You can access the book in other formats too HERE . The Algerian Iliad - إلياذة الجزائـر - l' Iliade algé rienne is a 1,000 line poem retracing Algeria's history in great historical details. Throughout, Cheikh Zakaria recounts all the names that have shapped the Algeria's history. He goes through all the regions' history and their greatest most emblematic figures. This poem is so valuable and beautiful. It should be on the curriculum of any Arabic and history cursus in Algeria. Perhaps it is and/or you know this poem? Who is Cheikh Moufdi Zakaria? Well, on 5th of July, three days from now, Algeria will celebrate 50 years of independence. A tremendous poem was composed during
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