Algiers First Trip: Kasbah, Grief and Identity (1/3)

Par Gabriel Goldberg 26 April 2026 5 min read

My name is Delphine. I was born in 1992, at the dawn of what is discreetly called in Algeria the "black decade". My father was a child of that land. He left his birthplace in 1974, at the age of 21, to study in Belgium. He never went back. And above all, he stayed silent. He never spoke to me about his streets, his smells, his family on the other side of the Mediterranean. I grew up with dual nationality on paper (my father was Muslim, my mother is Christian), but with only one culture in my daily life. Over the years, I have explored the world. I know the buzz of Morocco, the gentleness of Tunisia, the depth of Egypt. But Algeria remained for me an immense blank space on the map of my identity — a silent, untouchable mystery. Then, my father passed away. That tragedy triggered an inner earthquake. I made the decision to repatriate his body to his homeland. By force of circumstance, I would have to set foot on Algerian soil for the very first time in my life, at 34, under the most painful circumstances imaginable. The flight into the unknown and the dread of arrival I bought my ticket to Algiers without the usual excitement of a great departure, but with a knot in my stomach and palpable anxiety. How would this meeting with a family I had never met go? Would they accept me, the "Western" daughter, the one who does not speak their language, who arrives in the middle of a family bereavement? I had even considered taking a hotel room to isolate myself, afraid of being a burden.…