A Visit to El Ghoul Brahim Patisserie
My third visit to the Algerian El Ghoul Brahim Patisserie ended with me walking away, stomach growling.
I had been waiting in line since 4:20 pm. It was a Monday in the Guillotière neighborhood of Lyon, France, and while waiting, I remembered my first visit when an old woman told me, “This is the place to go for Algerian beignets.” I could not have agreed more and had in fact returned twice more to indulge in those delicious, way-to-affordable (only 1.50€!) beignets. However, as I stood in line and soaked in the smell of cigarettes and sugar, and the buzz of Arabic and French that mingled through the streets, I wondered if I would be eating this third time.
Although small, El Ghoul Brahim Patisserie was packed. Upon finally stepping onto the threshold of the open glass door, I watched as people talked, rearranged tables to fit their group size, and indulged in delicious looking baked goods and tea. Beside me, a toddler tried to sneakily eat the broken bits of bright yellow pastry from the window display. His father saw what his son was doing in the wall of mirrors to his right, and broke away from the conversation he was having with another man in French to gently pull the child away and scold him in Arabic. The toddler shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the broken pieces he was trying to eat as if to say, “what’s the issue? These pieces were going to be thrown away anyways!” Such a simple interaction summed up the experience of being in the patisserie. Multiple languages were being exchanged, both verbally and non-verbally, there was a sense of community and family in the air, and there was no such thing as waste. No wasted food, no wasted space, and no wasted moment to not converse and be together. Eventually, when a man squeezed past me and took the seat I had been waiting 20 minutes for, I decided to sneak some pictures and leave. I say “sneak” intentionally because it felt like through taking pictures, I was imposing on a sacred moment. But I took them anyway, faked a call, and all but sulked away, stomach empty. The smell of sugar, the sound of frying beignets and boisterous conversations, the feel of other people brushing by, and the taste of sugary goodness that lingered in the air grew more distant as I walked home.
Within El Ghoul Brahim Patisserie is a world of its own. However, there are times when the outside world bleeds in, and the necessity for a safe space like this patisserie becomes evident. El Ghoul Brahim Patisserie is situated firmly within the Guillotière neighborhood. Here, there are shady cigarette exchanges, hushed, private conversations, and the frequent patrol of police vans. Within the Guillotière neighborhood is a primarily immigrant and minority population who have similar to the experiences to the many other Mediterranean Francophone communities we have learned about who try to make spaces of their own within another country or under the power of a different authority. The attempts of the people of Guillotière to make a space of their own is often met with over policing, and now, the people of Guillotière have the distinct air of being wary towards those who might threaten the community they have built. However, it is in spaces like the El Ghoul Brahim Patisserie that the importance of said community is emphasized. The ability to commune, discuss, and in general just exist in a safe space is shown in the popularity of the bakery and how people, specifically people who belong to those minority groups, act as though they are at home in those community spaces.
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| Police van going through Guillotière. |
When I go to places like El Ghoul Brahim Patisserie, and more broadly, when I enter the Guillotière neighborhood, I think about how there can be such a difference in the community depending on where one is in Lyon. I’m reminded of the differences between Rainer Beach and Seward Park back home in Seattle, WA. Rainer Beach is a neighborhood known as one of the “hoods” of Seattle. There is gun violence, a plethora of police activity, and it is where most of the black community of Seattle live. Separated by a couple of residential blocks that become lined with larger more expensive houses the further away one goes from Rainer Beach is the neighborhood of Seward Park. Here, there is a gigantic lake that bleeds in the Puget sound, vast parks and green areas, and it is home to some of the wealthiest people in Seattle. Like Rainer Beach, Guillotière is home to the overpoliced, more impoverished, minority populations that differ significantly from its neighbors and wealthier counterparts who are only separated by a couple of blocks. In class, we learned about how it is a necessity for communities under a dominating power or in a different country to make a space of their own, and often how this action of communing by minorities is interpreted as threat by the dominating power. In response that dominating power often responds by over policing that area, and in turn, a sort of tension and rift is created between the minority and majority populations as they grapple against each other. This is the case in Guillotière, the neighborhood of El Ghoul Brahim Patisserie. However, despite the tension, I would recommend visiting there at least once with friends and being mindful of the space you enter. Community is sacred, and in communities where the ability to safely gather together is often threatened because of their minority status, that sense of community is also something those minority populations will protect.
I love how you paint the portrait of this patisserie, capturing the sense of community. When you said that taking pictures felt like imposing on a sacred moment, that felt so powerful to me. You don’t want to take away from the genuine connection happening in that moment, or intrude as an outsider in one of their safe spaces as you described. Instead, I think you wanted to immortalize them in a way, and pay respect to the community they’ve built. I can see this also in how you took care to blur their faces in the photo where you see how crowded it was. You can tell that you’re coming from a place of curiosity and respect, which I think were both important values for us to hold in our class this semester. Learning about cultures other than our own is so important to expanding our thinking, and building better and more equal societies. I also found the context you added about the Guillotière neighborhood being over-policed while primarily immigrant and minority residents to be really important too. I think you connected it back to class really well--it reminds me of the effects of Algerian colonization we talked about a lot this semester, with how differently the pied-noirs were treated than the Arabs, like how closely they were being watched and policed during the battle of Algiers. Of course, it’s not the same, but it’s important to have that perspective and understand the problems with this over-policing and lack of resources available. The parallel you drew to communities in Seattle helped bring this point home for me, because it’s absolutely an American problem as well, and something we would all do well to have on our radar.
ReplyDeleteSuch a wonderfully thought out and incredibly written blog. Everything you wrote about really makes me sit and think about it for a moment; do I agree? How so? What does it mean to me?
ReplyDeleteI remember when we first arrived in Lyon and we were slowly learning the areas around the city, multiple times I was told to avoid Guillotiere and I followed the advice pretty seriously. I have begun to regret it as I read about my classmate's experiences in the area. Even people outside the class have told me about the amazing food and lovely small stores. I wish I could have had my own experiences there, but I am a bit too paranoid to have enjoyed it after hearing horror stories of the area.
But you have enchanted me with this feeling of community. I love sharing and experiencing other cultures, I've never been scared to try something. And I know how important community is to everyone, not just me. I think your paragraphs on community is so well written, I couldn't have said it better myself. Not only are communities a safe space to relax in shared experiences, they are also a shield against those who could meddle with the people inside. There is something very important to be said about how a community treats it people and how the people treat its community, and I think you really understand that and summarized it very well.
This blog post is so well written! I loved that you fully embraced the people watching aspect of this visit. It felt like I was truly there with you. There are so many parallels to places in the United States, as you've pointed out. My college town of Kalamazoo is very similar. From freshman year we're told "don't go past the train tracks" because it's "sketchy." What's really happening is the history of redlining, pushing Black and Brown populations to low-income housing, where there's not a lot of money circulating in that area or economy. It's then over-policed and, as you said, a tension and rift is created. Then, literally two blocks down the street you've got two predominately white universities where students come, study for four years and then leave without any sense of long-lasting intergenerational community.
ReplyDeleteYour discussion about community definitely reminds me of what we have read and watched in class on the subject of Algeria. For example, in The Art of Losing, when Ali's family came to France they were pretty much forced into these camps, and later housing projects. That was certainly a sort of forced community, but I remember the story recounting that they did what they could. They educated the children to the best of their abilities, and all of the families looked out for each other. Same with the film Papicha. When the students were constantly being threatened by the terrorist group, they banded together to support each other through the difficult time. Their défilé, though ruined horrifically, represented their love for each other, and the sense of community that they worked to maintain.