Having been driving past and through Tocra (formerly Arsinoe - stifle that snort please) ever since I arrived in Benghazi, I thought I'd better spend a little time here. It's the fourth of the Pentapolis cities that I've visited (Cyrene, Benghazi, Tolmeita being the others, leaving Barce, or al Marj, outstanding). The caretaker spoke good English, so gave me a good rundown of the history of the place - there's not very much in the Lonely Planet. I asked how much the entry fee was, but he said we'd discuss this on my way out. Most visitors come in the winter, he said, and usually from a cruise ship moored in Benghazi for a day trip. It was unusual to see people on a hot day in the summer, and I had the place to myself.
It's a sort of boutique city, less excavated even than Tolmeita, and short on significant identifiable buildings, so not terribly interesting at the moment. Some excavation was done during the Italian occupation (in the photograph, you can see the railway tracks used to remove the debris, as in Lubda), and during the Sixties there were a number of British expeditions. During the Turkish and Italian occupations, a part of the site was built as a fortress using stones from the Graeco-Roman city:
In the early part of the invasion, there were inevitable clashes with the locals, and, very unusually, there is a memorial on the wall of the fortress to the Italian soldiers who died here. Most other war reminders of this period have been removed:
The city was built with only three walls, the fourth being the coast. It's off the beaten track a little, and there were no visitors apart from me, unlike most stretches of coast on a Friday, so maybe this is the bolt hole I've been looking for to get out of the hurly burly of Benghazi after a busy day at work:
After I'd finished my exploration, I went back to the gate to pay. I was waved to a seat in the shade, and stayed for a while chatting about Libya, the heat, Britain, work, and so on. Broaching the subject of the entry fee, I was told: "No charge. You're a Libyan citizen now." I think being a teacher in Libya must be one of the most appreciated jobs in the world.
On my way home - I'm being sensible about distances travelled now - I saw this piece of roadside debris. It's the first time I've seen a cow, with its back legs still hobbled; sheep, goats, even camels are quite common, and all are left for nature to take its course. I didn't stay very close for long - it looked like it was about to explode.
It's been an exhausting week at work. I've instituted mini-exams on Thursdays now to prepare the students for the rigorous exam conditions they will be subjected to in November. We're doing three short tests with strict timings - comprehension, writing, and another skill at random. Before we started, I repeated the rules and ran through the techniques: no talking, no phones, no 'helping', and always answer all the questions, even if you need to guess. Half the class did OK, but there are still some students who miss questions out, spend too long on others, and don't follow the instructions. We've got about eight teaching weeks before the BEC exam, but only four weeks to the end of term exam, so the practices will be very valuable. Those who don't make the grade this term will not go forward to the BEC.
James, the new teacher, is settling in well. He is well-travelled, and has a genuine interest in Libya's culture and people. He seems very knowledgeable about Islam and Arab history, and has gelled with his students. My students refer to his class as the Irish Class. We have a few minutes each day to exchange news and ideas, and our approaches are quite similar - laid back, happy to go off on tangents whilst keeping to the core topics, and interested in English culturally and linguistically.
