V for VILLA

daily drop cap illustration by Jessica Hische

Vaguely do I remember our trip to Algiers, but I do remember the Villa we lived in . In 1969 we went overseas Via a big 747 . I remember our cousins being with us ,and we stayed in a hotel in Paris overnight . We couldn't sleep . Can you blame us? A new country , different bed , new jammies and jet lag. It was all too overwhelming not to mention the fact we had our cousins to visit with. I think my aunt and my mother were so tired of hearing us giggle and laugh that we were scolded more than once .

I was only 5 and I remember looking out the window of the plane exclaiming "I see God!" but all I saw were clouds and blue sky . It's still a mystery to me . Both my cousins must have thought I was crazy and my sister called me a liar . My mother didn't know what to believe . poor mom. That was about all I can remember about our trip to Algiers. I'm guessing it was sometime in the summer of 69'.

It's strange I can remember names of hotels and seemingly insignificant details about the trip; like The Jamilla Palace. It was the hotel we stayed at when we arrived in Algiers . I think the next day or soon after, my dad had to go to the Canadian Embassy to pick up our house keys , because it was up to him to find the place we were supposed to move into.
I don't know how he got a Vehicle either but it was a Renault 5. I imagine everything was part of the package .

Wherever it was THAT was going to be our home . To me it was an exciting adventure, but to my mother , it was a Vexing experience ! If she had not pointed out the vermin such as mice and cockroaches I would have never realized any of that. Of course I had never seen a mouse or a cockroach before . It was a beautiful Vacation Villa from my point of View! The house was made of whitewashed cement . It was a few steps away from the Mediterranean in a tourist center . All the other villas looked the same . Except ours was the biggest ;to fit a family of six . It was perfect!

The first night or so my sister had a wierd dream and she said there was a rock with 'what she thought was' a piece of string coming out of it and she was trying to remove it, as it was laying on her stomach . Can you imagine what that rock with a string was? a RAT! mwahaha. We don't think she was dreamin .

Anyway, we adopted Minou, our cat, who took care of the rodent problem and the cockroaches soon left because they were getting overun by humans , that , or my mom poisoned them all . We soon found out we had lots of company : with the frogs croaking and the crickets chirping .

Our Villa had a nice little kitchen garden , I guess you could call it that, and a terrace with stairs . It was built like a horseshoe; with one bedroom on one end and a hallway and a bathroom with a separate room for the toilet. Then, another big area where my mother decided to put 4 bunkbeds . Close to that was the front door entrance leading to the kitchen, and round the other end , we had a living room with windows that opened on to a big veranda. [here I am on the veranda with one of Minous litter ]↓

There was a cool firepit outside off the wall, where the bugs gathered at night :p, and a yard that wrapped around the entire villa from front to back . The thing was the grass was like camel grass . big chunky , ugly camel grass . It stained your clothes and we didn't like the yard , but the places to play was yet to be explored and we couldn't wait to go to the beach . I spent the majority of the time outside .

Thank you for visiting today and for reading. Pax Vobiscum