Camping, Fireflies, and Algeria

Found an obscure fact today. The first novel to be written in Arabic by a woman in Algeria, Ahlem Mosteghansemi, was published in 1993.

1993.

In 1993, my parents took my brother and I "camping" in the backyard. We roasted hot dogs on the grill and built a tent. My dad, brother and I crawled in the tent and my dad told us stories while my mom filmed home videos. The sound is broken, but we watched those videos last night. My dad's lips moved and his face contorted as he told us the story we can no longer hear. And I, in pigtails and a funny summer shift outfit, sat crossed legged on the green plastic, rocking back and forth as I listened. At parts my eyes widened, and at other parts I rocked back and forth so hard from laughing that I fell over and my legs went up over my head. My brother was sitting up so straight and tall with his legs underneath him, totally enraptured. Every once in a while he would glare at the tent door where my mom was filming and try to zipper the flap shut against her so he could listen in peace.

The footage cut to my brother and I outside the tent in the twilight, running frantically to catch fireflies in the tiny backyard. My brother ran with fists flying, whacking the little bugs out of the air instead of catching them. I ran from side to side as fast as I could, following the evasive blinking lights. Each one I caught I brought proudly to my mom and her camera to show off, and then let it go, only to go running to find another one.

It almost hurts to see how happy we were then. I was the blond child, eyes filled with wonder and grilling my hot dog with pure determination in my face. I would NOT let it drop in the fire, as my mom would warn me could happen. I held it steady and tight, and even when my dad took the skewer away from me, my hands stayed in tiny tight fists, still forcing my will on the hot dog not to fall.

I wonder if  Ahlem Mosteghanemi ever caught fireflies.

In 1993, I was living out a happy childhood, while women's rights were unfolding in a completely different part of the world. It's not that women didn't write in Algeria before 1993. It's just that the first one was finally accepted in 1993.

Watching the video, I wondered about all the people on the outside. I wondered if a neighbor girl my age poked her fingers through the fence, one eyeball focused between the diamond shaped wire, like the little match girl looking at the warm hearths inside the warm homes. I wonder if the girl turned around and hid in the tiny stretch of concrete on the side of her own house, and tried tentatively to catch her own firefly. And when she did, I wonder if she held out her cupped hands to the wall and said, look, look at what I caught, and if the wall looked on in silence.

Privilege is a tricky subject, so its easier to use the word blessed. I am blessed with a family and safety and love. I am blessed with the honor of being a woman, a beautiful, whole, woman. I am blessed with the freedom to write, and to come from a culture that while, withstanding patriarchy and voicelessness, still freed slaves and gave the right to vote.

We've come a long way, and there's still a long way to go. Fences still need to be broken down, not only in the United States but so many other places. Fireflies need to be chased and caught and let go all over the world.

I've never met Ahlem Mosteghanemi, and I've never been to Algeria- not yet, at least. But I honor her, and I honor the women who are finding a voice even today. And so I begin to write, for

"to write means to think against yourself, to argue, to oppose, to take a risk, to be aware from the start that there is no literature other than the prohibited, no creativity outside the forbidden, and only large questions to which there are no answers." Ahelem Mosteghanemi, "Writing Against Time and History" In The House of Silence.