A TrainRide to Oran

Thursday, 8h55 - It is not yet nine in the morning, but already I have left the white jumble of Alger la Blanche perched on the edge of the Mediterranean. Brock and I are now on a train pushing its way to Oran la Radieuse by way of the major towns in North-Western Algeria. When we left Les Glycines this morning, the sun was only just up, with bits of lavender sky peeking from between the tall buildings along l'Avenue Didouche Mourad. The sky was marvelously clear and the air almost crisp.

For 1320 dinars, we were able to buy first class train tickets from la gare Agha to Oran. And this morning, when we boarded the train, I was pleasantly surprised to find the first class car to be quite nice. The seats were large and comfortable, and the air conditioning fended off the humidity. Promptly at eight o'clock, the train took off from the station and I began my first adventure outside of Algiers.

We have only been on the train for an hour, so I cannot profess too terribly much knowledge of Greater Algeria, but certainly the scenes I have seen from my little window have been impressive. After leaving Algiers, the landscape quickly turned rural. We passed orchards of trees ladened with the large orange orb so commonly found in the markets of Algiers. Alongside the tracks, narrow footpaths cut sporadically through the bright verdure. Here and there, an old man or a group of children or a schoolgirl or young men pushing bicycles would appear for an instant along one of the footpaths or country lanes. And then a bidonville might appear, a mass of small plaster and wood shacks, corrogated metal, tarps, and laundry. But soon the foreground would clear and off in the distance would be a lone farmhouse or a small village, crowned by a minaret.

As I absorbed this varied landscape, I began to wonder about the people who lived in these non-urban areas of Algeria. What was the vie quotidienne for them, particularly for the women? While the men I could see from the train far outnumbered the women, the women I did see were quite interesting to see. Aside from one woman I saw briefly, they all wore hijab of some sort. Among the older women, I saw quite a few also wearing the traditional whit lace veil that covers everything below the eyes. I have also seen these veils in Algiers, but not nearly in such numbers.

Our first stop was in the town of Blida. I was already familiar with the name because in our Dialect class, a character from our first dialogue was from Blida (eeh! me-le-Blida!) After Blida, the distant hills became an immediate reality. We wound our way through the hills, sometimes going through the heart of a peak in a tunnel. At one point, a lone shepherd stood on a height above us next to his shack, surveying the train in an otherworldly way.

After the mountains, we descended back down into another gently hilly agricultural area. The burnt red earth was neatly covered with tidy rows of crops and olive trees. Fieldhands armed with hoes tended to the moist earth. Every once in a while, I even see fruit trees bedecked with the most luscious pale pink blossoms. But mainly it is the fallow fields, olive trees, lettuce and other vegetables, and pasturelands.

The birds are in abundance too. At Algiers, I hear them in the morning and marvel at the enormous size of the pigeons and the slightly different cry of the gull. But now I see flocks of tiny birds, egrets in the rivers, and even a couple of storks in their nest atop a minaret.

I am going to break for a little breakfast now, but shall hopefully continue this log once the scenery changes. - 9h57

12h05 - The color of the soil has changed. Instead of heavy clods of deep red, it now alterates between light greyish brown and orangish tan. Two hours have passed and we have gone through Chlef and Relizane. The landscape is harsher, but this is perhaps a reflection of the menacing skies above. The land is flat, rimmed in the distance by sparsely-vegetated hills. Olive trees dominate, sometimes interplanted with artichokes. Roaming shepherds and their flocks scramble alongside the tracks and even herds of black and white cattle scavenge along the rocky hills. Bright yellow wild flowers poke up among the rocks in the fields.

The people are poor. We go through towns with mired dirt roads and houses without roofs. And yet still the people look happy. Young girls sporting hijab trot along the sides of streets. In empty lots, groups of young boys play soccer with old bottles for goalposts. At the edge of one bidonville, a young father lifted his son up to see the train, smiling happily. And along a narrow country road, paralleling the tracks, a young man sat sideways in his donkey cart to watch us pass.

Now we are less than half an hour from Oran, inchallah, and the still heavy sky is reflected in the bright green of the fields below. It has been quite a journey. - 12h27

Note: The pictures accompanying this post are actually from the return trip, because I took better pictures on the return. The ones from the trip to Oran were through the window, whereas on the return trip, Ahcène and I actually opened the door so that I could hang out and take unimpeded pictures ;-)