Night is Falling on Kalâa-Djerda
As night falls on Kalâa-Djerda, the small town where I was first introduced to modernity through the French school I attended, I give free reign to remembrances of things past while KD (as we used to call it) takes its eyes to slumber away the days in order to doze off again all night. A pure creation of the French, the town was born when our ‘masters’ discovered phosphate in the region in 1903. In order to extract the precious commodity, they built a town, French in taste and Gallic in architecture: wide boulevards planted with pine trees on either side hence the idea of promenade late in the afternoon, in the summer in particular; manicured gardens where one, if allowed to enter them, could indulge in daydreaming; well-maintained schools where discipline was observed all day and part of the night; a state-of-arts hospital with French doctors from La Métropole; a theater equipped with the latest technology to host the latest fashion and show films fresh from la Belle Fouance; soccer, handball, basketball, and volleyball fields where one could learn how to play the game of their choice; a supermarket where all goods, including designer clothes, could be found as long one could afford to buy them. In point of fact, KD was then called ‘Le Petit Paris’—a way perhaps for the French to fantasize about a world they left behind.
Today, the town is ghost-like, a specter of itself. Even the cemetery where the Europeans buried their loved ones was robbed and desecrated during the 2011-so-called revolution, needless to add that the church, a beautiful building in the colonial style with visible beams on the inside, was turned into a café and then to a stable for horses. There is no respect for history, oppressive history in particular, in the colony.
In appearance, the town was French, but in reality it felt European. There were Italians who lived in the Village des Italiens, Maltese, Corsicans, Kabyle, Jews, and us (natives) at the bottom of the social ladder. There were, of course, the French. They held the major and most important posts. At my school the headmaster was French and so were all the teachers. The curriculum was rigorous. No one was permitted to slacken or fall to looseness. We all spoke French. There was no regard for our different backgrounds. Sunday was the most impressive and perhaps most intimidating day of the week because most Europeans would go out beautifully attired whether to church or to the cinema. They also played soccer with the neighboring teams who came from afar. The team from Djérissa (another mine (iron) in another Petit Paris) was the most talented.
As for us, natives, we always sat on the side and watched with envy, wondering to ourselves how could these ‘foreigners,’ who came from distant lands, rule us in the most orderly way. There was almost a mystique to the way they conducted their affairs. Some of them were kind to us, others were nasty, to say the least.
À suivre…