Sale No Mobarak !!

Iranian New Year 1386 began on Wednesday Farvardin 1st,03:37:26 AM Tehran Time (March 21, 2007; 1:07:26 AM)

In harmony with the rebirth of nature, the Iranian New Year Celebration called NOROOZ always begins on the first day of spring. Norooz ceremonies are symbolic representations of two primordial concepts - the End and the Rebirth (Good and Evil). Few weeks before the New Year, we clean and rearrange houses. We start making Samanoo, kind of cream dessert. We bake pastries and germinate seeds as sign of renewal. We also get reading buying new clothes and lots of presents for our relatives. As catholic would do it on Christmas time.

Troubadours, referred to as Haji Firuz, disguise with makeup and wear brightly coloured outfits of satin. This Haji Firuz, singing and dancing parade as a carnival through the streets with tambourines, kettle drums, and trumpets to spread good cheer and the news of the coming new year.

The origins of Norooz are not clearly known. However, they can be several thousand years predating the first Persian Dynasty. The ancient Iranians had a festival called Farvardgan which lasted ten days, and took place at the end of the solar year. It appears that this was a festival of sorrow and mourning, signifying the end of life while the festival of Norooz, at the beginning of spring signified rebirth, and was a time of great joy and celebration.

The other ancient symbolic representation of Norooz is based on the idea of the triumph of good over evil. According to the Shah-nameh (The Book of Kings), the national Iranian epic by Ferdusi, Norooz came into being during the reign of the mythical King Jamshid; when he defeated the evil demons (divs) seizing their treasures, becoming master of everything but the heavens and bringing prosperity to his people. To reach the heavens, Jamshid ordered a throne to be built with the jewels he had captured. He then sat on the throne and commanded the demons to lift him up into the sky. When the sun's rays hit the throne, the sky was illuminated with a multitude of colours. The people were amazed at the King's power and they showered him with even more jewels and treasures. This day of great celebration was named Norooz, and was recognised as the first day of the year.

Sicca Veneria

My parents were planning a weekend with their friends in one of the most unknown part of Tunisia, the North West. I decided to join them and last Saturday, a bit after noon, we were heading to the Algerian border.

El Kef is an Arabic word for 'the rock'. Some wants to believe that El Kef is a diminutive of El Keffar, miscreants, for that there were more Jews and Christians than Muslims. I don’t know if it’s true but that actually seems to be a very convivial harmony between these communities on that old city called la medina.
It wasn’t always called that way. This area went through diverse names since its establishment.

In the 5th century before J. - C., a Sicilian colony would have been established by Carthage on the perched site. Water was abundant which brings on the city the protection of Astarte, Punic goddess of fertility (called by the Greeks under the name of Aphrodite). This veneration might be at the origin of the first name of the city, Cirta (Chirta = Kirta). Most probably to name a sanctuary devoted to Astarte. Cirta was a city originally settled by Numidian people (a Berber people) as a city-temple. It soon became a centre of pilgrimage allowing the creation of political alliances with the other big cities. It later became Roman under the reign of Julius Caesar with the names of Pertica and Castellae. Polybe was the first to mention, 300 before J. - C., the name of Sicca Citadel Punic and the city will be known throughout Antiquity under the name of Sicca Veneria.
This was what our guide told us and a lot more about the endless story of his native city, with its imposing history.

The town is built around the Kasbah, kind of fortress, perched on huge outcrop of rock on a hilltop some 2200 metres above sea-level with a spring emerging below the summit which has both provided water and been the focus of various religious cults. It's the obvious place to put a fortification to control both the surrounding area and east-west communications and is additionally blessed with a spring, and as one would expect from a site of such obvious strategic value it's recorded history goes back to Phoenician times.
And even more, fragments of bone identified as homo erectus have been found nearby.

Driving from the main road, we arrived at a square next to the bus/taxi station in the new town, which with its suburbs sprawls down the hill. It’s a short walk up to the older part of the town, where the place d' Independance divides the newer development from the old medina, a maze of alleyways ascending to the summit taken by the Kasbah.

Memoirs of an elephant

It has been more than half a century that I dandle myself all day long carrying my weight from side to side. Summer or winter time, one comes to wake me up in the morning to push me out of my shelter into that small enclosure bordered of concrete on three sides and a large ditch on the board where runs sometimes an unclear water that is supposed to protect me from the intrusion of some rowdy freaks who do not weary gesticulate on my direction shouting meaningless insanities and throwing various projectiles to me.

They can't understand that if I had large ears like those, it is to perceive the least whisper from hundred miles and therefore it is useless to bawl toward me. And as I do not have anything to say, I never answer them..
But I do know what is going on around. I have no TV or internet connexion but I am aware of every single affair that is going around. I know that the city is not anymore the same one I had crossed in my youth, quite a long time ago.

I wasn't born here, you know.. When I was little, gangsters had kidnapped me from my native forest and had required a very big ransom to release me. My mother, who was not rich and who loved me, had dark on them to shred them, but they had weapons and did not hesitate to murder her. Her remains were used as food for other captures and her big canines were carved in various objects to decorate the racks of some fortunate housewives.

I was told that the city counts henceforth few new fun spots : bars all along the coast, "salon de thé"s on the bottom of coupled high buildings that are covering hills, as formerly these were covered of verdure, all those hills where one could pick nick on Sundays when the weather was nice.

The city is changing but I can tell you that still the same lovers come here to sit behind the ditch. They come to stare at each others, in the dust. They meditate on their fate when watching wild pigs. They look for a fugacious inspiration while having the smell of a locked nature on their nose or they simply want to kill time..

Lucky we elephants are not as complicated as humans!
We do not focus all the time like they do on the "thing" and when the heats come we copulate straight away without worrying about the future. When a new born comes, it is already on foot almost immediately. Very quickly, it becomes adult and takes its life in hand.

Don't you dare think we do not have any feelings!

I had several partners, but my favourite is still the first one which had never been pregnant despite all the tries we have been doing in front of a shameless crowd. They ended up separating us to protect our health. They didn't get it! It was not useless eagerness. That was love we had to each others.

You must be bored listening to an old elephant talking about his memoirs. Anyway, no one stays in front of me too long besides some regular visitors who do not even have a look on my side.
The daylight is weaker now and the sun is setting down. The visitors are checking their watch, running back to the exit door to get back to their boring monotonous daily life. Here is the zoo employee, holding up a small rod to show me the way. He's yelling odd sounds which he must think are similar to my mother tongue that I myself forgot.

I will be back tomorrow, to tell you other stories or maybe the end of the story.

Be patient and come to see me again.