So, the weekend's been and gone, and I'm stuck back into work - I've been so busy in my spare time, it's a relief to be able to relax a little.
On Thursday, as planned, I went to Akram's home for lunch. His father writes books on the struggle against the Italians, in Arabic only unfortunately, but he speaks excellent English having spent three years there as a PhD student. Akram was born in Exeter, and would like to return at some point so he's very keen on improving his English, but he has quite a bit of studying yet to do to reach his father's standard.
Then, on Friday, it was a class trip, sadly sans ladies, to Jebel Akhtar and the coast, eastwards. Starting off at crack of dawn, we almost retraced my steps of last weekend, but travelled the old roads, so seeing another side of Libya. Whilst the Turks were here, before the Italian occupation, under the control of the Karamanli family and their acolytes, amongst others, castles were built to keep the locals under control; this one is on the plateau of Jebel Akhtar:
On we carried till we dropped down into the valley over which the bridge I visited last week sits. We stopped for breakfast beside the original Omar Mukhtar bridge which features in the film Lion of the Desert (a must-see for all budding Libyan explorers):
It was in this valley that al Mukhtar and his supporters hid whilst they were fighting the Italians, and where he was eventually captured. He was tried and executed in 1931 in front of 20,000 Libyans, and has since become a defining character in the Libyan psyche.
After being sated on olives, harisa, and halva, we travelled on to the enormous city of Cyrene, after which this province, Cyrenaica, is named. Originally Greek, it was absorbed by the Romans into their empire. In the absence of an official guide, I took it upon myself to explain the significance of the place and its history to my students - one said that he was ashamed it took an Englishman to explain his country's history, but I was pleased to pass on my knowledge. Only 9% of the city has been excavated, so we can only imagine what still lies beneath the surface waiting to be shown to future visitors. It was in a fantastic position, built on and into the hills, and overlooking the bay.
After trawling round the ruins, we went off for a swim to cool down. The sea here is so clear - I remember it from my last visit in '73, swimming around the ship whilst moored outside Benghazi. I vowed then to return, and am so pleased to be here again.
Having spent a very long day travelling the back roads, we rounded the day off with a picnic/barbeque back in the woods near Cyrene:
and eventually got home at gone midnight. Luckily I was being driven - the road we took was the one on which my landlord, his wife, and his sister-in-law had all been killed just after I moved into the flat, so it needed an experienced local eye to keep us all safe.
The Institute is just beside the harbour in Benghazi, opposite what was the largest cathedral in North Africa at the time it was built. It's in the process of being converted into the local stock exchange .... moneylenders, temple, expulsion ...
Late last night I had a visit from my estate agent and one of his clients, an Austrian who is looking for flats. In the course of the conversation, it turned out that he, the Austrian, will be looking for English language teachers for his new business here in Benghazi - his workforce is universally monoglot in Arabic. So, maybe there could be an opening here for a new language school, servicing companies directly from a base in Benghazi.
