The last day of my lightening visit to my former homeland was spent visiting my birth place of Bouira. The city is located in the high plateaus of Algeria on the south side of the northern Atlas Mountains also known as Djurdjura mountains. I was born here because our home in the mountains was destroyed by the French during the war of liberation. I am not going to reveal my age here but it is easy to guess based on the historic fact I just mentioned. Bouira therefore can be considered as my displaced home, or refugee home within Algeria ... My dad owned a business here for most of his life, and my younger brother still owns that store... I also went to school here for three years; first to third grade!! In addition, Bouira being a major city on the east-west Highway, it is a very busy trading post... it has now become the capital of the state of Bouira... Add to that all the family members that live here so it is a must visit place for me... I started the visit from my dad’s home where I used to live and my younger brother still lives there today. His wife made us a nice couscous for lunch... from there we went to visit my dad’s grave. After that we headed to my late old brother’s home where my nephews still live... there we had another lunch. One cannot refuse an invitation for food in Algeria... I was careful not to over eat, so I had half lunch at my brother’s and the other half at my nephews and everyone was happy.. after lunch we went to my older brother’s grave!
By 2:00 pm we were headed back to my suster’s home using a more scenic route through the mountains... Except for few bad sections of the road, the drive was awesome... very very scenic..
We arrived home at 5:00 pm and were all exhausted and ready for some rest... My niece from Algiers showed up to say good bye to me since I was to leave the next day... we had a great dinner and fun with all...
View of the Berber villages from the top of the mountains
Beautiful rocky peak in the Atlas known as “Main du Juif”
Views of the Berber villages from “Main du Juif”
At over 1700 meters above sea level, it is the highest soccer field in this area
Ghost-like mountain peak in the Djurdjura mountains
An Atlas Mountains monkey sits by the side of the road completely ignoring us
A nice town between Bouira and the mountains
My nephew cleaning up his dad’s grave
My dad’s grave under an olive tree (Rest In Peace Dad)
The water reservoir of Bouira
The city of Draa El Mizan where I went to elementary and middle school
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