Jenga

As the sun demanded its attention of me this morning, Lord Hypnos gradually released his hold and demanded that I go east to shores never before visited by these impatient feet. This journey, I thought, would take place in the full knowledge that the coast was north of Tripoli, and so the city was south of the sea. Unfortunately, as the morning wore on, and the heat increased, I forgot that Libya was south of the Mediterranean so when I turned south to go home, I was actually going deeper ....well, I won't go on. At least I didn't get blisters this time. I think I had let my desire to walk into the sun to maximise the tanning experience go to my head.

The journey started along the harbour wall:

As I plodded on, I happened upon a huge open air market by the harbour edge, ostensibly for fish, but there were also cars for sale, dogs (vicious, big, angry, noisy dogs, bred for chewing my legs off if they hadn't been tied up), and most surprisingly caged pigeons, goldfinches and canaries. I had always thought that animals were not big in the lives of Muslims, except for food, but how wrong I was. Here's a particularly bad and uninformative pic of the chaotic venue:

One stallholder called me over, offering me calamari - I think he must have thought I was Italian.

On I walked, the heat increasing, aiming to get to the part of town where our new flat is sited, so I could check out the general area. What a stupid idea. It was a bit like going east from Notting Hill to check out a new place in the Isle of Dogs without knowing where the Isle of Dogs was apart from east. Needless to say I didn't find it. However, as always, I did see plenty of other things - better housing, many embassies and consulates, and a part of town I didn't know. On one street, as I walked past a bloke sweeping his garden, he mumbled 'I expect you're English' to his brush. I told him that yes, indeed I was, and it turned out that he'd lived in the US since just after the Revolution, and had returned home last year. He'd kept his businesses in the States, and had started some new ones here, one of which was running English classes, and another was working as a tour guide. Needless to say, we have exchanged telephone numbers, and I shall be arranging some trips with him.

In the course of our conversation, he warned me that all was not as it seemed in Libya - there were some sharks. Now, I told him I found that hard to believe - everyone I've met has been delightful, but he insisted that if I stayed around I would see a different side of the country, particularly if I get involved in any business deals. Safe enough for  me then - I've no intention of entering the commercial world here or anywhere else. The last time I ran a business it took me three years to pay off debts generated in the single year of operation.

This has been quite a heavy week, and I think everyone is glad it's over. There have been a lot of new students this week, and not a great deal of planning of their workload, so there's been quite a bit of firing from the hip. I'm OK with that, but it does involve being very alert to moodiness in the class, and nipping any wandering thoughts in the bud. Still, all great fun.

I do like to keep up to date with the news in the UK, so I check out the Guardian and BBC websites most days. I can then bring my classes up to date with oil prices, the housing market in the UK, off-shore investment rates, and so on - all very important when teaching Business English. A particularly interesting article caught my eye today - if you click on the link below, you'll be taken to it:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7095134.stm

Laugh?    I was nearly sick. Shame I couldn't use it in any classes.

And here's another which is partcularly relevant to my present living arrangements:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7117581.stm

This is the one downside of working here.

Off now to NOT have a drink, more's the pity. Oh, that's another downside....

I'm thinking of going on stage to demonstrate my command of Arabic - it'll bring the house down. Every time I practise on my students they burst into laughter - even with inshallah. I think it's my accent - I'll have to lighten up a bit. I probably sound like Ted Heath speaking French. However, I have mastered a word today on which I was complimented: it's pronounced saga'leyik with the stress on the l, and it means 'cool', or 'right on'. Try it out on a Libyan friend, and they'll be astonished. It only works in Libyan Arabic, so bear that in mind.

Our passports are being handed over again tomorrow for the Exit Visas to be entered - again. Apparently there is still some debate about whether it's really necessary, but I said that regardless of their (the Bank's) view, I wanted one, and would pay the necessary 5LD (£1.75) myself if that's what it takes. Not that I'm getting stroppy of course.

The numbers in the classes are increasing by the day - we've just been told that the maximum per class will be 25! I don't mind teaching that many students, and for some topics it can be very invigorating, but with small rooms, prayer times to meet, and very tight timescales for lesson delivery (dictated by the course books and exam timetable), things are getting a little fraught.

I'm OK with it, of course, 'cos I'm not in charge, but some tempers in the teaching team are getting a little frayed. Now doesn't this sound familiar to those of you in the profession?

On a more positive note, I continue to be amazed by the amount of building work taking place - and the scary safety arrangements. You can be walking down a road, and suddenly find that there's a trench in front of you with no warning. Only this evening my short cut to the cafe became a building site - through which I was able to walk without let or hindrance:

I also found this page on Michael Palin's travels:

http://www.palinstravels.co.uk/book-1983

I must say that my impression of the city is very different from his. Admittedly he was here 8 years ago, but surely the buildings haven't shrunk - there are some tall buildings (certainly not skyscrapers), just as in all major cities, but the monstrous hotel is the biggest and most expensive in Libya - his visit was paid for by the BBC licence payer, so it's a bit rich him complaining: there were other hotels to stay in; and the chemical factories can't have all been demolished (the only whiff I get when by the shore is of the sea, and maybe some diesel fumes from the ships in the harbour - hardly surprising). As for meeting people and talking to them, he is just plain wrong: I struggle to avoid meeting people, and stopping them talking is my biggest headache. What a shame Palin peddled the old lies, and helped reinforce prejudice. Perhaps he should come back, and let me show him around.

Back at last, and it's a delight to be here after all that cold weather you have in Northern Europe. We're having something of an Indian summer here - temperatures over 30 degrees which, I'm told, is unusual for this time of year.

I'm sitting in my favourite cafe drinking mint tea again, and have just tried out my new wireless Skype phone. It works well, but everyone I've called is out, so not a terribly exciting new experience.

The flight back was quite uneventful apart from my fellow passengers being extremely irritating (see what spending time in the UK does to my tolerance levels?) - a baby cried all the way back, and there were hoards of massive Ghanaian and Nigerian families talking non-stop - and there were no films to distract me. Never mind, it's all over now.

It was good seeing people last week - and luckily all my boys were in one place at the same time, so we went out for a most enjoyable meal at Charlie's workplace:

Aren't we lovely? And all smiling too!

I heard today in one of my classes that the indigenous population of Libya is about 5 1/2 million, and there are over 8 million migrant workers, 5 million of them Egyptian. Astonishing numbers. I suppose I'm one of the migrants, and I must say I feel most welcome, so I hope the other 7,999,999 are just as lucky.

I'm please that those recalictrants who had refused to read my blog have had second thoughts - it's meant to be entertainment of a sort, but informative in a Clarkson-like manner too. Thanks for all the feedback.

Ah well, back to the mint tea.

I'm in the UK at the moment, dashing around like a mad thing...well, more accurately, cruising and doing things which I didn't get round to doing before the rushed exit to Africa. Apologies to all I haven't seen or spoken to, especially my brother Richard. 

Commitments just continue to expand to fill the time available!

Libyan services will restart as soon as possible. And I mean AS SOON AS POSSIBLE - the weather here in the UK is dreadful!

Salaam.

0700: I'm sitting in the Departure Lounge at Tripoli Airport, having sailed through all the checks! Here's the airport:

Although I didn't have an exit visa, my baggage was accepted without any hassle. Then onto Passport Control. I started to sweat when the official kept flicking through the pages of my passport; eventually he asked where my exit stamp was, and I explained that I'd been told by my employer that it wasn't necessary...whoops!

He then called the next person in the queue (a queue of two members, me being one) over, and showed me the stamps, the stamps, the stamps, the stamps....get the picture?.... in his passport, thus identifying for me what they look like for future reference. He waved through the person whose passport was as it should be, flicked through mine a few times more, held out his hand, smiled, and told me I could go. We shook hands, and that was it. Absolutely fine. I love this country.

Next thing I knew - on the tarmac, looking out the window from my bright green Jamahiriya window seat:

10.20 Libya time/12.20 UK time - landed, no sweat. Watched A Night in a Museum, and a Hugh Grant movie in flight whilst eating the most delicious airline flight ever. Those of you who have learned to love Libya as I have will not be surprised!

Off now to collect my delightful EBC bag, and face the challenge of London Transport.

13.00ish: In Wycombe, astonishingly. Off to catch a double decker.

14.00: In Penn. At last. Sitting down with Mother to enjoy pork pate and a glass of a very jolly, alcoholic, red, sublime, (with pork pate), delicious, mouth-watering, alcoholic, tannic, alcoholic glass of alcoholic wine with pork pate. Here's Mother post-glass:

She was actually asking me to arrange to change her passport pic at the moment this was taken. Or perhaps she was berating me for having bought such an expensive Sony digital camera as recommended by my mate Nick? It's all getting a bit hazy.

Off for dinner now with the vicar. It's all go here in the Shires.

It's great to be back for a few days.

Ciao.

 and

What a mess this visa business is. The British Embassy is open from 8.30 to 2.30; we work from 8.00 to 3.30, so to get an Arabic language template stamped into our passports to comply with the new regulations, one of the teachers had to take a morning off. We then had to find someone to write the Arabic transliterations in the template because the Embassy didn't do that (and there was me thinking they were there to help their nationals whilst abroad). That done, it then transpires that the stamp the Central Bank should have arranged to have put into our passports within one week of our arrival hasn't been done, so we are all in the country illegally. This means that we cannot get exit visas without being fined at the airport. However, we are not allowed to take dinars out of the country, so we must only carry the exact amount on us at the point of exit. But, we don't know how much the fine is - it varies. 

A certain book comes to mind….

Once we get to the UK to collect our visas (now there's a surprise in store – will they be there?), the People's Bureau is only open for visa applications from Monday to Wednesday from 9.00 to 10.00 - no other time. And you can only pick up completed visas between 1.00 and 2.00 the following day - again, no other time. There are also various bits of paper needed.

There's some sort of spat going on between the Libyans and the Brits, and we seem to be caught in the middle. 

So far, so frustrating. But there is a solution. Find a man who's respected by the bureaucrats, and all the requirements are waived. I'm meeting him at the airport at 6.30 Friday morning (the Sabbath here), and he will whisk me through side-gates, bypassing emigration and luggage checking, and onto the plane without any fuss. Then I've just the London end left to sort out. 

Oh the joys of travelling! 

On the work front, however, all is sunny. A group of students came up to me today at the end of a class and told me I was their best teacher - 'better than the others', they said. It was very flattering, of course, but also misguided - the other teachers are much stricter than I am, and rather more serious, so my students are confusing having fun with learning. But I'm still going to bask in their compliments! 

I so love this job! What else could you do which gave you time to learn a new language, time to explore new places, practise the language on people in their home environment, learn about and live their culture at first hand, and get paid? I got paid this week, and for the first time in years, I have more left at the end of the month than at the start. In fact, I'm not even spending the living allowance I'm paid each month. 

Anyone else for mint tea?

More info since I got home:

Here's a picture I took in Green Square today for those who like cuddly animals:

People come to be photographed with the antelope for the family album - then it's slaughtered, and eaten to celebrate..........no, just joking.

An extraordinary thing happened on my way back to the house. I was stopped in the street by someone who, I thought, wanted to practise his English on me. This in itself is far from unusual - it happens two or three times every day. What was unusual was that he was a translator of Arabic into English, and he was trying to set up a business manufacturing Scrabble sets for the Arab world, so he was looking for tips and contacts. He'd tried the British Embassy commercial section, but no joy - stifle that snigger at the back.

Well, we talked for a while, and he, Latif, ended up inviting me to his home town near Benghazi where one of his friends lived. Between them, they would take me to the place where St Mark wrote his Gospel. Apparently his friend is the archeologist who discovered not just the place, but also the table (probably a rock) at which the Book was written. I've got his phone number and email address, so I'll be in contact with him to arrange dates. Who knows? Perhaps I'll spend Christmas Day sitting at St Mark's table. Wouldn't that be amazing!

It's never all over till it's over.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7071153,00.html

I'll just keep my fingers crossed for Friday.

I'm just in the middle of booking a trip back to the UK for a few days in order to get a new visa - apparently Malta won't do. Never mind. Maybe I'll see some of you next week.

Whilst surfing the net earlier today, I came upon a picture of the ship I sailed in last time I was here - it looks a lot smaller now than it did then:

Hasta la vista.

No visits to Leptis or Sabratha this weekend unfortunately - I blew my budget yesterday with a visit to the Museum in Green Square. Entry was reasonably priced (3LD), but then there was extra for the pamphlet (essential for those who can't read or understand Arabic), and a licence to take photographs. There's a lesson there I think.

Now that I've done Tripoli city centre and the souk to death (I got lost again yesterday, and found a cheap Internet cafe - 50 piastres per hour, or 20p) - I've smelt the smells, enjoyed the energy, tasted the titbits, and seen the sights - I thought I'd venture out of town for a change.  So I got up early before the heat set in, and walked about ten miles along the coast road.  Well, I never made it to 'out of town' - Tripoli is much bigger than I thought. All I found was more of the same, but rather lower buildings than in the centre. In the end I caught a taxi back to the centre to have something to eat - it took half an hour, so I must have walked quite a way. A wave of happiness hit me when I saw Burj al Fatah appear!

On the way out, I'd crossed a flyover which reminded me of a scene from the Grapes of Wrath - people waiting for work, hoping to be picked out by gang bosses. They stand or sit on the pavement or under bridges with their tools set out in front, looking hopeful, but there are so many of them:

Before settling down for some grub, I thought I'd try and find the cheap cafe again. Of course I couldn't find it for ages today, so walked even more miles retracing my steps. I'm absolutely shattered - and the heat is well and truly up now.

On getting back to Green Square, I finally succumbed to a fast food joint - Libyan variety, mind - and it was very good. I felt I deserved it after my hike.

When I write my companion book to Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence, called surprisingly A Year in Tripolitania, I'll subtitle it That'll Do. Everything here seems to be half finished. There are rusting bulldozers on abandoned building sites, new walls of buildings with rusting scaffolding holding them up, holes (two foot diameter holes down into drains, not potholes) in the roads, wires coming out of lamp posts - to feed shacks by the side of the road. 

This is a country of such extremes - with great potential. It's oozing with opportunities of all sorts.

Gosh, the weekend's here again already. The days are just flying past. It'll soon be time to renew my contract.

Unfortunately I won't be going to the desert this weekend - my student has some family business to deal with, and family comes above all else here - much as it used to with my Pakistani students at EBC. In its place, I've considered going to Leptis Magna - a must do trip for everyone who visits Libya - but nothing's firmed up yet.

I'm still having trouble remembering names, so I took some photographs today - here are some of my students:

One of my jobs this weekend is to put names to faces - I'm being tested next week.

As always seems to happen in my classes, we've been talking about mobile phones and computers over the past couple of days. Yesterday, we were discussing manners and etiquette in business, and I asked the class what they thought about mobile phones being left on in meetings. After much debate, it was accepted that phones actually ringing were unacceptable, but it was OK to leave them on silent, as long as if they answered the call, they excused themselves, and left the meeting. As I've just mentioned, families are very important, and if Mum, Dad, sister, wife, or husband phones, it would be rude, in Libya, not to answer the call. Equally, if the boss calls, it's best to answer - one of my more obedient students rejected 4 of his boss's calls in one lesson, and got a rocket afterwards - "I'm paying for you to be on the course, so I expect you to answer my calls." It was also agreed that they would put their phones on the desk so as to minimise disruption when checking incoming calls.

Quite a result, I thought. So, first lesson this morning, all phones appeared on desks, all on silent, one or two calls were received, and none was accepted. I was feeling pretty good. Suddenly, an ear-splitting call came in, and the whole class cracked up - one regularly forgetful student had been caught out. Class pressure has shamed him into mending his ways. My techniques are working!

I've also started to bribe them into not speaking Arabic - I'm allowed to, but not them.

Salaries for Libyans are unbelievably low. Because I'm teaching bankers, we often talk about money, and yesterday I was giving examples of average income, and how to calculate it. Having determined that they were paid on a daily basis, I asked them to work out what they would get, per day, if they were paid 20LD per hour. Chaos ensued, with them challenging this rate with me, and amongst themselves. It turned out that their average pay is 20LD per DAY, and 10,000 LD per annum is a good income - that's £4000 to us. And yet houses, cars, IT kit, and other expensive items are about the same price as in the UK. Quite an eye-opener.

An excellent bit of news today - I now have my passport back in my sticky mitts. This means that I can leave Libya for a short trip somewhere to renew my visa, this time so that it will last a year, and allow multiple entries. I think I'll probably go to the People's Bureau in Valetta, Malta, and spend a couple of days there taking in the sights whilst the visa is completed. I was last there in 1973. On that occasion I went 'down The Gut' with some Merchant Navy colleagues. I won't go into the unsavoury details, but I plan to see if anything has changed.

Timing's going to be tight - I'll have just returned from the desert, and will then fly out in the evening, so I'll keep my fingers crossed that the desert doesn't get the better of Salem's car. I suppose he thinks about these things......inshallah.

Yesterday, and for the rest of this week, we will be finishing teaching earlier than normal because the students, and staff, of the Institute, and most other people in the country as well, all go to meetings to discuss and vote on various political and social issues. There are no political parties in Libya; everyone is entitled to participate in these assemblies, and everyone has a vote, apart from foreigners. This reflects Brother Leader's view that government of the people should be by the people - more details of this can be found in The Green Book, copies of which can be sent to you if required.

On Sunday, my students are going to update me on what they discussed and voted on.

I'm using my additional free time sensibly - visiting more sights of Tripoli, drinking copious amounts of water, and generally enjoying the carnival of life in the capital of this captivating country. Another student has just invited me to travel 600 kms to his home village in the desert to stay for a few days in the middle of November. Of course I've said yes - what better way could there be to experience Berber (pronounced Burpa for those who didn't know) life in the raw? It'll take us about six hours to get there, and I'm not asking too many questions ahead of time. Best to go in cold, I think.

On the way home from work, the skies opened:

Quite a downpour, and not what you'd expect in one of the driest countries in the world, with rivers which flow only rarely.

There's a picture below of the primary school I've mentioned in earlier posts. This is their early morning assembly, much like we had at Cheadle Hulme School in the mid-60s. The difference here is that there are several students at the front, one of them holding the Libyan flag, addressing the students. Later in the day, corporal pumishment was handed out in the playground to any miscreants.

I asked one of my students what he thought of beatings, and he told me that they had been banned in Ireland since the early 1980s - something I didn't know, so I was suitably impressed.

Walking down to the cafe just now, I was called to from across the road by a shifty-looking chap in dark glasses. I went over, and he asked if a worked for a nearby oil company. I told him I didn't, but I did work for a bank, teaching English. He asked if I knew x, y, or z, and he gave me the names of some teachers I work with! He wasn't shifty at all - just being friendly, and practising his English.