A church and a saint’s grave

Mr C is 82 today. It’s dry till we are back in Algiers so I might stretch to a bottle of coke for him. We left at 8 for the 620km drive south to Timmimoun. Unfortunately for us the big festival of Eid al-Adha ( Feast of Sacrifice) starts tomorrow so everyone is on the move to be with families, hence coffee shops etc are closed. This is the second of the two main festivals of Islam, the other being Eid al-Fitr at the end of Ramadan. The ritual sacrifice of a goat or sheep is performed to celebrate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Isaac) in obedience to God’s command. This festival lasts 3 days and is celebrated at home with family. (Friday - Sunday) so we’ll not find anything open. M’Hamed is concerned we might not get people willing to do the desert exploration in jeeps tomorrow as per itinerary.

We left later than planned. First Mr Know-All couldn’t find his passport so he had to go through all his bags then Transmit Only found it in her bag. Then she couldn’t find a little bag so that was searched for and found. We made it out the gate and M’Hamed got a call from the guest house. Janine had left a bracelet. These things can happen to any of us.

Visited the church (blipped) to commemorate Charles de Foucauld born in 1858 and became a hermit in the Hogar mountains. He joined the French cavalry fighting against locals. But he hated authorityso didn’t adjust to army life. He travelled and wrote books before becoming a Trappist monk in France then Nazareth. He lived simply. He wanted to go back to Morocco but couldn’t cross the border from Algeria. so stayed near Timmimoun and established a hermitage among the Toureg till 1916. He was into Ethnography and wrote a Berber-French dictionary. He was murdered but in 1929 the chapel was built to him but before he could become a saint a couple of miracles were needed. Someone in Italy was cured from cancer and in France a carpenter fell 15m but the hospital saved him. This was declared a second miracle so he was Declared a saint by Pope Francis. The keeper of the key was away for Eid so we couldn’t go inside the church.

Our lunch stop was in the same town, El Menae. We saw the zar fortress on top of a hill. The town was originally on the caravan route from Niger and Mali. There are more men wearing the cheche head gear, a large piece of cloth wound round into a type of turban.

Lunch was nice - the salad of beetroot, cucumber, tomato, lettuce and boiled egg, followed by chips and fried aubergine and courgette slices. There was also chicken and a bowl of stewed onion and tomato. The peaches were delicious, being juicy and tasty. When we left at 1.30 we were almost half way. There wasn’t much to see, just flat sand though occasionally we saw wheat or barley. The government is trying to encourage people to move south by giving them free land. However they need the finance to dig a well to irrigate the crops. The government can give a permit if a really deep one is needed and then they’d need a loan. They have a huge water sprayer that rotates.

We stopped for loo and coffee but all was closed for Eid except the loo which was about £1 for 4 people. They are all quite clean squat and drop types. Although no escort turned up today we came to a police checkpoint on entering the Timmimoun region about 150km from the town. They weren’t happy about there being no escort so we had to wait three quarters of an hour for the military police to arrive. They came at the same time as a sandstorm followed by quite heavy rain. This only lasted 10 minutes. After a while they pulled over and told us to go ahead and someone would pick us up at Timmimoun. We arrived at 6.15. This is a government hotel and had seen better days. The aircon is just coping as the room is so big with a view out to palm trees and desert beyond. We are not eating here - we are being taken to a guest house. It is 42 degrees and the flies in the bedroom are annoying me.

I’m hoping to try to get enough WiFi so that I can sort out a birthday chat for Mr C with the children.