Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25059
e next day is election day and I decide to play journo and sneak on the buses. s is a minor election-the race for regional councils, a rough equivalent of mayors-but it is important to the people. The winners will be the local authori that Algerians deal with in day-to-day life. Instead of the typical massacre-site tour the journalists will visit voting sta- ions around Algiers. The polls open and we wait, and wait and wait. An old n shows up and walks stiffly to the ballot booth. The journalists mob her and make her drop her ballot again and again. Bewildered by the attention she leaves muttering. The young people manning the voting offices sit bored. Ten minutes later an old man wanders in and is also baffled at being the focus of the media. We wonder where everyone is-the streets are deserted on a day the gov . ernment has decreed that all business must cease. We move on to four other stations. On one visit security guards drag a man and kicking into a side room. When we ask our escorts what the problem s, they say, "What problem?" The man reappears flushed but calmer. He takes great pains to tell us it was a simple misunderstanding. At another location an old man stumbles up to me and tells me he has a letter from Frankl in Roosevelt thanking him for helping out in World War II. The old man pauses to collect his words but our escort hisses to him in Arabic, "Keep talking, keep talking. " At another station an elderly woman lectures the journal ists: "Why are you taking my picture? You are just going to make trouble fo everyone. Go away. " Only the aged and the fearless have come out to vote. We didn't see any fearless people. Back at the hotel I step off the bus and walk smack into Mr Ray Ban. Busted. He gives me a smug look. And wags his finger. I offer to buy him a coffee and he When I prove to him that I am getting on a plane in a few hours he writes name down so I can send him a copy of my book. "I have spoken to other you are not a journalist are you?" he asks. I say no. I am just here to Algeria. He shakes his head and says he must get back to work. He smiles and my hand. That afternoon I catch a plane to Luxor, Egypt. Within days this safe place be running with the blood of 58 tourists. At the airport I am supposed to swap previously purchased voucher for a ticket but on election day everything is closed. At the counter I tell the clerk that I need to be on that plane. The on is they can't sell me one at the counter. He calmly pulls out an Emergency Manifest, fi lls it out and gives me a boarding pass. The extraor dinary is ordinary here. I READ ECTION ILE IN ABOUT THE RESULTS TAJIKISTAN. ERIA'S MINISTRY OF E INTERIOR REPORTED AT THE GOVERN-