{"id":73458,"date":"2023-04-02T20:30:04","date_gmt":"2023-04-02T19:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jazairhope.org\/?p=73458"},"modified":"2023-04-02T20:30:04","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T19:30:04","slug":"searching-for-my-roots-in-an-algerian-cemetery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jazairhope.org\/en\/searching-for-my-roots-in-an-algerian-cemetery\/","title":{"rendered":"Searching for my roots in an Algerian cemetery"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On the outskirts of Skikda, an agreeable Mediterranean city along Algeria’s eastern seaboard, my extended family owns a plot of land that sits on a slope.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For my mother and her siblings, the land was an idyllic escape from their cramped downtown apartment that was synonymous with the mental grind of the school year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On long summer vacations in the countryside, they cautiously picked juicy prickly pears, carelessly built large bonfires and invented creative outdoor games to pass time with cousins.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For my generation, visiting the land usually meant a day without a mobile phone signal and avoiding the orange-striped garden spiders that were the size of my palm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Nonetheless, all of us are unanimous in recognising the value of the land, mostly because of what sits on the slope’s peak.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A curving dirt path leads to the top, where our family cemetery sits in peace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Only the rustling of the fragrant leaves from an adjacent, majestic eucalyptus tree breaks the quiet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Every family trip to Skikda, without exception, is always punctuated by us visiting those who have passed on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A whole host of people who meant a lot to me now rest on the hilltop, including my maternal grandmother and grandfather.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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After taking a moment with them, I usually search for the resting place of my great-great-grandfather, Ahmed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Thick, green paint on the small boulder that serves as his tombstone indicates that he was born in 1845.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It always hits me that this is the furthest I can dig back into my personal history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Two<\/picture><\/span>IMAGE SOURCE,<\/span>MAHER MEZAHI<\/span><\/div>
Image caption,<\/span><\/p>\n
Maher fondly remembers outings with his grandfathers but would like to know more about his ancestors<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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\"1px<\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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It is not at all common for people in my country or on my continent to be able to locate the graves of their ancestors four generations up, and I quickly come to terms and appreciate that privilege I have.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In the absence of modern municipal registers and death certificates, the majority of us rely on oral testimony to construct our family trees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Across many cultures in Africa the ancestors are revered, but sometimes specific information is elusive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Over the past few weeks, I have been going through my phone contacts and took a straw poll from colleagues to see what their respective experiences were tracking their ancestry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Colleagues in Ghana and South Africa confirmed that the exercise was mostly oral and came from uncles or siblings of grandparents – they could climb the family tree but only reach three generations above them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Women left out<\/span><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n
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A friend in Ethiopia told me that in parts of his country “children are obliged to memorise the generations above them”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The naming tradition also remembers fathers and grandfathers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I also know from friends that it is customary in Egypt for children to be given their father’s and grandfather’s first names as middle names.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Yet, such techniques can be shallow and are often patrilineal, meaning that the women of the past are more prone to be forgotten than their partners.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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At times, I yearn for the wealth of recorded information available to populations elsewhere in the world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In France, for instance, the government has digitised and uploaded important documents such as marriage, birth and death certificates onto a database that is accessible on a government website.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In England and Wales there are records for all births, marriages and deaths registered all the way back to 1837.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Unfortunately, I believe that we are still decades away from African citizens gaining thorough access to digitised civil documents on a large scale.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Maher Mezahi<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The most important lesson I learned from looking into my personal history was a deep attachment to where I am from”<\/div>\n