"The only thing I could do in Algiers was walk around, make friends with many street cats, and talk to strangers. In French brushed up from college with some recent Duolingo practice, I spoke with shopkeepers, chatted with security guards outside embassies and met people hanging out on the streets. I didn't always bother conjugating verbs and probably misgendered every noun."
"What I found were people who love their homeland and were eager to show me around. Even in a country that fought for independence in the 1960s, endured a bloody civil war in the '90s and now exists under a repressive government, pride endured. But I also noticed what wasn't there: easy travel, open political discourse, casual criticism of authority. Their pride lived alongside careful silence."
"In my layover on the way home, I struck up a conversation with a Delta employee from Algeria. I told him how generous and openhearted I'd found everyone I'd met. His face lit up. "It's good now. It's better." But when he spoke of the government and the civil war-even in the Minneapolis airport-his voice dropped to a whisper. He now lived in the U.S., scanning bags as"
A courier flew from Spokane to Washington, D.C., then accompanied a sister-in-law and one of her cats onward to Algiers for a government posting. Algiers proved unusually conservative and restrictive, with warnings against discussing religion or politics and strict dress expectations. Practical constraints included cash-only transactions and limited options for changing money. Language skills in French enabled conversations with shopkeepers, security guards and street acquaintances, revealing widespread pride in homeland alongside careful silence about political matters. Generosity and openness marked personal encounters, while mentions of government or civil war prompted hushed tones even in a U.S. airport.
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