Helwa ya baladi

Sitting on the window sill, looking out the window, la grisaille, la pluie battante, le froid, écoutant Dalida chanter:

املي دائما كان يا بلدي

اني ارجع ليك يا بلدي

و افضل دائما جنبك على طول

My hope has always been, my country

That I come back to you, my country

And always remain by your side, forever

et les larmes coulent d'elles-mêmes. The tears roll down, I can't help it.

Spring (or lack of) in Northern England

I feel silly. I feel a fool. I left of my own accord, I was eager to discover what lay out there, my destiny.

What's stopping me from going back? Nothing and everything. What's drawing me back? What's tying me to my country? Everything, primarily my parents; they spent their lives raising us. They are now left by themselves, facing old age without the daily joys that grandchildren bring. Guilt.

I am nostalgic, I guess as much as any 30 or 40 something parent. I long to replicate what made me happy when I was a child myself. The difference is my childhood memories are inextricably linked to the sun, the heat, the noise, the smells, the conversations, the white veils, the music. And none of it is here, neither in place nor in time. Double whammy.

When will I be content with my destiny, that of an exile? Probably never, according to Dalida, Enrico Macias, and Dahmane El Harrachi. It is a slight consolation that my feelings have been sung and shared for such a long time.

The thing is because I know where I come from, I feel I know who I am. What about my children? A question I did not ask myself when I fell for a foreigner in a third country, then moved to a fourth.

Now, I am acutely aware of these identity questions. My children are not; they are busy being children. Will they have trouble later figuring out who they are, not sure where they came from?

Whether I like it or not, the identity question is catching up with me, and will certainly creep up on the girls.

In the meantime, BK3 keeps pressing replay on Salma Ya Salama. A song by an Italian by blood, Egyptian by birth and French by adoption. Still Egypt, the place of her childhood, remained her bilad, to the end. I wonder how much of her troubles in adult life were linked to any feelings of being cut from a tree, uprooted...

Oh Guitare Guitare

BK1 has taken up guitar lessons at school. The BabelDad is being all posh: "guitar players are so tacky! they sit around the fire and strum on their guitars to get the girls". He is unswerving, even when reminded that our own respective fathers play the guitar.

To counteract BK1's enthusiasm for the proletarian instrument, the BabelDad has splashed on a second-hand electronic piano, which apparently used to belong to Peter Gabriel; he even composed Sledge Hammer on it. Yeah right.

So, for the last week, we have been listening to Oh Guitare, Guitare by Enrico Macias. BK1 was intrigued by some unfamiliar words, reminding me how powerful songs can for learning a language:

Si j'ai mis dans ton coeur andalou

trop de soupirs à ton goût

chasse au loin tes sanglots superflus

This takes me back some thirty years ago; my parents have a collection of Enrico Macias' vinyls, and my dad often strums Enrico's songs on his guitar. Incidentally, I can't help being touched by Enrico's complex identity, a topic for another day...

The girls seemingly enjoy the oriental rhythms and catchy lines of Macias' music. They particularly like Les Filles de Mon Pays. I have told them that they are themselves some of Les Filles Enrico praises. After all, he is originally from Algeria, and they are Algerian too.

BK2's favourite bit of the live version of Les Filles de Mon Pays is a surprising verse at the end of the song... in Kabyle!

Sharing the music of my childhood with my own children gives me so much joy!