Les Glycines, Algiers,
February 2, 2017

︎︎︎Founded in 1966 at the initiative of Cardinal Léon-Etienne Duval, Archbishop of Algiers, Les Glycines Centre d'études diocésain originally trained personnel within the Church of Algeria, and prepared them for the linguistic, social, cultural and religious realities of a young, independent Algeria. The center, established by Henri Teissier and Pierre Claverie, was supported by requirements set by the Second Vatican Council, which committed the Catholic Church to be in solidarity with the human and cultural environments. In particular, the Church was interested in Islam, not for the purposes of proselytism, but to appreciate the Muslim tradition in its spiritual and religious dimensions. It is in this spirit that the Centre of Studies provides training in Islamic Studies and promotes inter-faith dialogue since 1970. Since 1973 Les Glycines has had a research library bringing together various private funds established during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The library’s collections comprise unique research materials on linguistics and Maghrib Arabic and Amazigh dialects and literatures, anthropology, ethnography, geography and cartography, archaeology, architecture and Maghreb literature in both Arabic and French. The library includes about 90,000 records and more than 1,100 titles of journals and periodicals. Besides other activities like Arabic language courses and The University for All, Les Glycines works also as a residency for artists and researchers in the humanities and the Social Sciences. The residents have full access to the library and archive as well as to the studio and garden. The community of researchers gathers at meal times.

Not far from where I am - sitting in front of a small brown table in a monastery-like room with a window overlooking the Embassies and the cold day of an almost attractive Algiers - there is the archive; and a group of old men, deep connoisseurs of so much, drinking coffee.

The subtle connection, framed by an austere and insufficient meal (as recommended by The Book) has been almost instant.

While walking through the absurd tasks and my worries, whispering, He soon knew me.

This He is an 80 years old man, white-collar, green eyes, almost transparent.  

︎︎︎I later learned that the man was Henri Teissier, Bishop of Oran, Archbishop of Algiers, awarded with the Légion d'Honneur for his ecumenical work inspiring the dialogue between Christianity and Islam.

Looking at me, towards an indefinable somewhere, his words were like the desert he was telling me about: Humble, exact, conformed by the intensity of the silences and the no-times.

— You should go to Ghardaïa. He said,

A few hours later, between the sunset of Hypnos and the new day, a storm.

CCDS, Ghardaïa,
February 17, 2017

︎︎︎CCDS ︎︎︎ The presence of the White Fathers in Gardaïa dates back to 1884. With the White Sisters and a few lay people, they form the small multinational parish community. The White Fathers community went from 4 to 6 members in March 2016.  Apart from other activities such as visit to Sub-Saharan Migrants and to the center for the disabled in Touzouz, they try to be a bridge between the different populations. This is done through the CCDS - Center Culturel et de Documentation Saharienne. The CCDS offer support courses, in French, English, and German, and many other activities such as photo exhibitions, conferences and cultural or study days.  The center also has a research and learning library  with valuable documents including a collection of maps, travel-journals and expert literature on anthropology, sociology and architecture from the region as well as a huge photo archive with valuable documentation dating back to the White Fathers’ first expeditions in the region. The center also hosts religious men and researchers in residence

︎︎︎Ghardaïa is part of a pentapolis, a hilltop city amongst four others, built almost a thousand years ago in the M’Zab Valley, in southern Algeria. It was founded by the Berbers Moabites, an Ibadi sect of non-Arabic Muslims. The original architecture of the semi-desert valley dates back to the 11th century when villages were fortified in such a manner that they were inaccessible to the nomadic Arab tribes.

After a ten hours bus trip down south, I finally arrived in Ghardaïa. Slept in a humble room and a quite basic bed provided as part of the residency for researchers run by the small community of Pères Blancs.

︎︎︎The 'Pères Blancs'' or the Missionaries of our Lady of Africa of Algeria are defined in 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia as follows: ‘This society, known under the name of 'Pères Blancs' or 'White Fathers', was founded in 1868 by the first Archbishop of Algiers, later Cardinal Lavigerie. The famine of 1867 left a large number of Arab orphans, and the education and Christian instruction of these children was the occasion of the founding of the society; from its inception the founder had in mind the conversion of the Arabs and negroes of Central Africa. Missionary posts were established in Kabylic, Gardaïa and in the Sahara. In 1876 and in 1881 two caravans from South Algeria and R'dames, intending to open missions in Sudan, were massacred by their guides. In 1878 ten missionaries left Algiers to establish posts at Lakes Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika (…) The costume of the missionaries resembles the white robes of the Algerian Arabs and consists of a cassock or gandoura, and a mantle or burnous. A rosary and cross are worn around the neck in imitation of the mesbaha of the marabouts. The society depends directly on the Congregation of Propaganda. The White Fathers succeeded in establishing small missions among the Berbers of Jurjura (Algeria), there being at present nine hundred and sixty-two Christians. To religious instruction the missionaries add lessons in reading and writing, and teach also, in special classes, the tongue of the European nation governing the country’ in the New Advent.

The next day I spent it at the CCDS - Centre Culturel et de Documentation Saharienne fascinated, some would say in a pseudo-colonial way, by the diaries and accounts of pilgrims and adventurers that, from the start of the 19th century, hosted here by the small community of Pères Blancs, retraced the ancient trans-Saharan routes driven like me by curiosity, ingenuity and an orientalizing gaze.

The evening falls, it will be a cold and dark night. We are four on the old car that is slowly climbing the hill when I ask one of the Pères Blancs about what seemed to be a slump I saw on my afternoon walk.

Besides the Moabite woman dressed in their white haiks and showing only one single eye, what caught my attention are also a few black youngsters keeping themselves busy, arranging shoes, and the black women wrapped in colourful dresses on the corners of the narrow streets, begging. But what has surprised me the most has been to find what seems to be their provisional homes: a camp built with wood, plastic and all kinds of debris half hidden outside the ancient defensive walls, between the cemetery and what is now a dry river populated by plastic bags.

He answered:

— They are the Nigerians. They come from Uyo and Owerri escaping from scarcity after the war.

In 2014 the Algerian authorities realised a new law forbidding the access of Nigerians without valid passports to the regular buses that depart from Tamanrasset, at the border with Niger towards the North, to Ghardaïa and Algiers. If Ghardaïa is known as the door to the Saharan desert, Tamanrasset, a city 2000 km further south, is in the middle of it.

For what I saw, the governmental measures didn't succeed in stopping the migration of Nigerians towards the North. Instead of using the bus though,


The community of Nigerians in Ghardaïa is formed by three different groups:

The first one, which is a minority, used to be blacksmiths back home, and thanks to their skills, have become either shoe-makers or workers on building sites where some also live. The building industry in Ghardaïa is prosperous as in recent years there has been an important flux of Arabs moving into the city, changing the status quo and the predominance of Moabites, the original settlers. The second group are women, children and elders, and they usually beg in the dusty streets around the market. And the third group is conformed by young boys and men that have become some kind of an alternative health system. Besides selling all sorts of advice and herbs, they also provide aphrodisiacs for the local sexually handicapped. All of them find in Ghardaïa the exit door from the desert becoming though the lower social class in a rigid system of a community mainly formed by the old Berber Moabites and the Arab Chaamra, also newcomers that slowly are colonising the newly built suburbs. The relationship between the Moabites and the Chaamra are far from being fruitful. Since the discovery of petrol in the late 1950s, the population of the region has been substantially altered. The area has also been destabilised by external actors linked to economic interests and an increase in illegal trafficking.

In 2015 riots erupted in the mud made city, causing great distress, destruction and 22 casualties. Since then, the population shares the public space with the army: Overprotected with guns, shields and military clothes 10.000 young Algerians arranged in groups of three or four spend their time browsing their phones and sipping mint tea.

I look through the window. Ghardaia slowly changes again and amused, incapable to process,