March 9, 2011

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

Jenny Matlock

16 comments :

  1. Oo la la I would love to go to Paris.

    What a trip! It sounds like it became home for a while... You even had a little kitty!

    I love vanilla bean ice cream Mmmmm.

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  2. Isn't it wonderful how children can see things as a big adventure? Thanks for sharing your story!

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  3. So, I've never been to Algiers and given my inability to deal with rodents, maybe that's a good thing!

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  4. This sounds like a wonderful place to vacation.

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  5. What a great experience for a child to have. Thanks for sharing the memories. (I liked living vicariously a bit through you.)

    =)

    PS. I'm pretty late for Alphabe-Thursday this week, so here's my link:
    Vistas

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  6. What an adventure, although now as a Mom I can only imagine the Vexing experience that would have been for her! Your comment on my blog (re: Vital Statistics) was very helpful! Thanks for taking a minute to share your thoughts.

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  7. great share for the letter V
    thanks for stopping by
    ~victoria~

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  8. This sounds like an absolutely amazing experience! (the rodent part sounds horrible, though)
    ~Amanda

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  9. A very interesting post, Jackie. And no one is going to sue you for not reading, but you do miss out on a lot of good literature.

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  10. Oh what fun childhood memories (well maybe not your sister's rat dream! ew!) haha...just read House Rvivals comment...yep...all good! and good thing that your sister's rat was just a dream.

    But how sweet it is to see photo and then recall things from that time.

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  11. What fascinating childhood memories Jackie! The world can be quite different through the eyes of a child ... so i have no doubt that you saw your childs version of God ...you certainly saw something that was beautiful to you!

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  12. It sounds like such a happy memory!

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  13. Oh Jackie. What a vivid picture you painted here for us with your pictures and words.

    I was so charmed by this post. And so charmed by the fact that you 'saw God'.

    This is one of my favorite links so far on my journey through Alphabe-Thursday's letter "V".

    Excellent!

    Thank you.

    A+

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  14. Very cool trip for kids, except maybe the rats, but I guess it didn't bother you much if your mom had to point them out. I'm not a big cockroach fan, either. Thanks for stopping by The Simple Life.

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  15. kids learn stuff during vacations. lovely shots.

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  16. Jackie, just popping back over to reread this post :o) That is great that you do have the one photo of you and your cat when you lived here. I wish that I had more photos of some of the places we lived when I was little.

    Whew! Hope your weekend continues to be blessed! :o)So many amazing blog parties,hops, memes this week! My friend, I wanted to say thank you again for stopping by my place, following and commenting. I had some giveaways on my post and on Apr 14th, will be listing the comments that were drawn to win one of the giveaways. Although your comment wasn't drawn for one of the 5 giveaways, like my post mentioned, those not selected but had commented will be able to receive 10% off art drawn entirely with your choice of name and your choice of image. If you are interested, please email me. Thank you so much! mgbotelho21@gmail.com

    Blessings & Aloha!

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Thanks for reading my blog!