Housing

When we first arrived in Libya, we "inherited" the villa that G's colleague used to live in. It was grand, under furnished and in the middle of nowhere. Think - big columns at the entrance, foyer where you could easily play football and curling staircase to the first floor. There were 4 bedrooms in the house, most of them having their own bathroom, and all of them on the first floor. Not all bathrooms were actually in working conditions but that only made living there more interesting.
The kitchen was actually in 2 rooms connected with a door. All kitchen cupboards,sink and fridge were in one room (no windows there) but cooking plate was in another room. If you would look closely you would notice that this room was sort of sticking a bit out of the house and had a window so I guess it was sort of a summer kitchen.. I will not get into questionable efficiency of that kind of arrangement. But it is sure good for burning calories while running between sink (6meters from the stove) and fridge (10meters from the stove) and back to the stove.
Needless to say, the living room, for me the most important room in the house was small, dark and full of sand. Actually, since the house was on the unpaved street (very common in Libya) sand was not only on the ground floor but it would get blown up all the way to the second floor. I tell you, polished marble floors and sand make very bad combination to walk on.

Due to break-in that his colleague had few months before, the owners installed over sized metal bars on all the windows of the ground floor which equally prevented possible intruders and the light to come in . I guess they wanted to show poor Brit (who, BTW was sleeping so soundly on the first floor when thieves came that he missed them taking his brand new 32" LCD TV and all kitchen appliances) that he would be safe after all. Maybe motivated by that event or just by the fact that Libya is not all that nice to live in, soon afterward he and his family made a speedy gateway back to UK. And since we arrived in the country around that time, G's company put us there until we find something better.

With the house came Sam - nice little guy from Mali who spoke a bit of English and once told me that he likes to listen to christian gospel music and Mariah Carey. Why Mariah Carey, I do not know, but I later noticed that every CD shop here has many many albums and compilations of her. She is very popular here.
Before I could react he run back to his living quarters and brought me the CDs so I can listen to them myself. He either thought I am christian and that I need to listen to gospel music each day or that I will become one after listening to them. I did not want to hurt his feelings so I took the CDs and had them playing the rest of the day on my laptop. It was a loooong afternoon.

Sam was sweet. He has family back in Mali and he proudly told me that he goes home once every 2 years for sure, and sometime even every year! I can not even start to imagine how this trips of his looked like since he was illegally in the country. Runing from sand dune to sand dune over the border to Niger or Algeria or some other country springs to mind, but again I can not know. It is not something you casually ask. When I would get bored at the house alone while G was working and wanted to go to center of Tripoli for sightseeing (it took me a while to admit that there is nothing there for a blond girl on her own to comfortably see) he would walk me to the "main" road (it was paved so it took most of the traffic in our part of the town) and hail a taxi for me - madam, they cheat on you, i tell them not cheat you. Then he would proceed to argue (very loudly and with lot of arm movement) with the driver over the price. Apparently since I was foreigner and Woman I was likely to pay 3 times as much for taxi. Sam made sure I paid not a dinar over 2 times as much. It would take him a while to get to that price and by that time both Sam and taxi driver would be very upset and most shopkeepers would be out of their shops staring at us and cars who were passing on the road would stop and their passengers would come out to see whats happening. By the time Sam was happy with the price and dispatched me on my way, I was 100% sure that agitated taxi driver would dump me around first corner and speed off. Of course, that never happened. Taxi driver would change his mood as soon as we would start moving and I would get to the center fine. And paid what Sam told me to pay.

In Libya, many foreigners have a "Sam" living with them. "Sam" is a illegal immigrant in Libya from countries like Benin, Mali, Gabon etc. I will write more about them another time. Most of the time when someone builds a house they will attach small living quarters to it. Our Sam had his own entrance which led to a bedroom and bathroom. However he did not have proper kitchen so he cooked on a little portable gas stove in the garden (!). Sam is supposed to guard the house (he was sleeping as well when thieves came), clean it, wash and iron clothes and take care of the garden. He did a very good job and he made me laugh, but I just couldn't get used to living with someone who works for me. I would feel bad to ask him to wash our clothes (the washing machine was in his bathroom) and I hated that he would always run to open the door. Of course if I would try to open the door then he would get offended. So we jumped around each other for a while, but it soon became clear to me that I don't feel comfortable living like this.

When we decided to find another house, preferably sized for humans not giants, and closer to the centre we decided against finding a guard or gardener to live with us. That was met with some resistance from our new landlord whose opinion was that we need one. Why, he could not explain very clearly, but apparently it was important.

House hunting in Tripoli coming soon.

Missing Green!

If you come to Libya between May-January the first thing you will notice when you get few km from the airport is (heat) sand. There is occasional palm tree and some other flowering shrubs, but they are growing directly out of sand. There is no grass in sight and even the existing trees are covered with fine layer of sand so they look kind of dusty. To top that up the architecture here is not what one might call appealing. Houses are surrounded with few meters high walls so people from the street can not see woman inside. Not that there is much to see anyway - most houses I have seen have their "gardens" almost completely tiled. So there is little of the natural green to look at around the town. Makes you really appreciate those few trees you see.

Anyway, that is my personal black spot for Libya. I love nature and I do enjoy beautiful beaches here (will post some pics on that sometime), oasis and desert, but when you originate from mountains covered with lush forests and green meadows it is hard to not miss it.

But since one can not have it all (as G always says) I choose "Hot and Sunny" over green forests. At least for now. And in the meantime we moved in the house with quite decent garden which is getting nicer and nicer. It is amazing what little bit of water does in this heat.

Past in Numbers

I was thinking last night (couldn't fall asleep, any thought was fine) how many times I moved so far in my fairly short life. And I could not count it because I had to establish what qualifies as "moving".

So the threshold is set at 2 months - any place I lived in for more than 2 months and where I bothered to bring my trinkets.

Countries lived in: 6 (4 continents)
By the time I turned 23 I lived in 10 different houses only in my home country.
In the last 3 years changed 9 houses.

All together I moved 24 times. Sometimes I was going back and forth....

And you know what? I think I am addicted to it. Its a bit like virtual life, only it is real. I get to try different countries and houses, people&cuisine, see how they fit and then later I get to pick the best one.
I could even miss&match. ;)

Right.

Maid of the day

My Cleaning Lady has been here today. So after she left, I spend substantial amount of time to put things where they should be. It took me half an hour to find only the kitchen sponge. It was in the cupboard with clean glasses. Go figure.

She also managed to completely destroy fresh patch of grass that we were waiting to sprout for a while now. I am upset. But did I tell her something? Of course not. I handed her 50 dinars (just for comparison, average monthly salary in Libya is 150dinars) and thanked her.

I could have told her not to touch the garden. Not to use kitchen sponge to wash toilet, there are other sponges for that (Instead of telling her, every time she leaves the premises I go to the shop and get new sponge. We spend 6-pack of sponges a month). Not to wash dishes with that sponge afterwards. Ok, now I am over reacting. Kinda.

Instead of doing those sensible things I deal with it like a adult that I am not. I think about them all afternoon and then when G comes home I will take it out on him. Healthy, eh?

So why I can not stand up to my Cleaning Lady?
I will skip all the usual answers and say this - she is scary. Sometimes I feel like she is the one living here and I am unwanted guest.