REFLECTIONS OF CONFIDENCE

During most of 1975 and 1976 I was working for Bechtel Corporation in Algeria on a feasibility study for the development of that country's industrial capabili­ty. The cost of that study was over fifty million dollars and took over two years to complete. Along with several other team members that were working on this project, I made eight trips to the country over a one and one-half year period. The project that we conceived and planned would have included a large grass roots industrial city with thirteen major industries that would produce vital equipment for the mining industry, electric power distribution, the shipping industry and agricultural development. When the project was handed over to the Ministry of Heavy Industry and the Minister presented it to the other heads of government, it was during a time when Agricultural Development seemed to be a higher priority for the country’s leaders than was Industrial Development. So the project was declined. Had that project been realized Algeria would have successfully pushed itself well into the Twenty First Century with its vast natural resources and industrial potential. The project seem­ed feasi­ble, but the vision the planning team had was not shared by the majori­ty of the country’s leadership. At the time only a few of the country's bur­geoning mil­lions of people that crowded into the major cities and the country’s leadership at that time had a clear vision of the country's real potential. Instead of being able or willing to work in some logical fashion to achieve this potential, most of the people I saw just lan­guished in their uncer­tainty and confu­sion about what to do about their lives and their verdant nation. They just rushed about, pushing and shoving each other, running helter-skelter especially on the streets and in all the public places where people seemed always to be congregating.

I saw people crowded into the cities where they believed work would be avail­able, while the beautiful country-side lay fallow and mostly empty. I looked at statis­tics of Alg­iers' popula­tion and found that on the average, ten people were living in two rooms of the houses and apart­ments in the city of Algiers. It was not much different in the other large cities in the country. In the Algiers' ghetto called The Kasbah, people were so crowded in the homes and villas that most of them stayed on the streets and in the alleys the entire day and night just to have some free­dom of movement. The narrow streets of the Kasbah were playgrounds for children, a hangout for beggars and the place where most of the shops and markets were located.

The city of Algiers was constantly like a beehive of activity. People rushed from place to place in their cars and along the sidewalks and they filled the broken-down smoke-billow­ing busses until they had to hang from all sides of the outside of busses to get where they were going. In the days and weeks that I lived and moved about the country I saw people that were barely surviv­ing . . . cling­ing to life like their present moment was their last.

These impressions of the country were not easily forgotten and they crowded my mind with their visages. But the sights I had seen in Algeria made no particular lasting impact on me at the time. How­ever, some thirteen years later on a Sunday morn­ing in March 1989 all those pictures came back to me and literally caused me to turn my life around. This one morning I had remained in bed enjoying a few idle moments before getting up when all that I had seen and experi­enced in Algeria suddenly came back to me. Once again I saw all the confusion, the crowding and pushing and the frustration the Algerians were experiencing, but this time I realized it all mirrored my own life like it had been for the previous six or more years. I had been going through a rather crowded and confusing time. Over and over again I had found myself clinging to sur­vive like the passengers I had seen in Algiers on those rattling, smoking busses bumping along the broken streets of Algiers. I had felt depressed. I had watched myself playing my games of life to try to bring it back into some order after years of frustrating shuf­fles. But my experience, like that of the few Algeri­ans I got to know while I was there who had fought for what they wanted and won strength­ened me. I knew with some confidence that there was power enough for me to change . . . enough, in fact, to do more for me than just survive. My fears and doubts had been real and I was reminded over and over that I had been out of control like the Algerians I had seen on the streets and in the ghetto of Algiers. But like those whom I knew and had the opportunity to work with, I had grown from my efforts to survive. I knew I had gained some ground.

That morning was a milestone day for me. The point I had reached became clear to me almost like it was being written down in a page of my book of life. I was lying on my bed on my one side doing all this reflecting and self-evaluation, and then I rolled over and looked the other way. At that moment, the pictures of confusion and chaos suddenly cleared and I saw through them. In only the time it took for me to roll over, I knew I was strong enough to do more than just survive. I knew with the surety of my experience I had a way to move on . . . no longer stuck in my present existence.

I had come full circle. For a mo­ment I looked back to see where I had been, then quickly looked ahead at where I was going. My long journey around the preci­pice of despair was no longer threatening me. I knew that even if I had to go back and have some les­sons over again, I would more than survive them. I also knew that I would no longer have to do it alone. With friends and kin, into whose lives I had gained a place, I could travel in either direction without fear and desperation. Without hesi­tation I could call upon my own strength to see me 'round again if that need be. At that moment, at the onset of my new journey, I looked ahead at what was to be my next step and rejoiced. Now, many years past that time I look with joy and proud reflection at where I am in this life.