Dear friends and family,
p.s. for more photos, go to: http://eikoikegaya.
I'm going to try and keep my promise of updating you regularly on my adventures in Libya. So here's the first installment!
I arrived in Tripoli last Monday, 16 April. As soon as I entered the airport terminal, I felt a little lost, as all signs were in Arabic and Arabic alone. I couldn't even tell which way the exit was, so I just followed the flow of passengers. The passport control was a bit chaotic. There was no one in uniform, but there were a couple of guys who seemed to be directing people, so I went up to one of them. I had a letter from the UN indicating that I should receive a visa upon arrival. The guy looked puzzled when I showed him the letter, and pointed me to another guy, who passed me on to a third guy, who finally brought me to a window where my visa was supposed to be processed. All of this took about 15 minutes and all I could think of was how I really should have taken Arabic classes when I was younger.
I was picked up by a super friendly UN driver (a local named Walid, who was a pharmacist before the conflict). The UN mission is in a gated complex called Palm City. It's an extremely luxurious place with furnished apartments and villas. I'm in a 3-bedroom villa, sharing with a colleague who is from Iraq but of Armenian origin. She is super sweet and has been very motherly, making sure I'm comfortable and teaching me how to make some Middle Eastern food. We'll soon get a third flatmate. The living conditions are extremely good. Getting electricity, water, the internet, fresh food, etc. is not an issue at all. The only restriction is movement outside of the complex. We can't just wander out on our own, so we need to arrange for drivers. We can arrange to go on shopping or sightseeing trips (curfew is 22:00). The other issue is that mission offices haven't been set up yet outside of the complex. So we all work in villas and apartments (except for a few who have desks in a large room).
This week was spent on checking in and getting settled. I didn't have any meetings outside, so I only left the complex on two occasions, one to exchange money and get groceries, and one to go sightseeing in downtown Tripoli. The availability of fresh food is really remarkable. My image was that Libya is a desert country, so I didn't expect to see any fresh fruits and vegetables. As you can see from the photos attached, there's plenty of both, and they are very good! At a bakery, they were taking fresh bread out of their ovens. I couldn't resist, so I bought a huge, round flat bread that was still piping hot. We ate it with tabouleh and hummus, and it was delicious! Supermarkets are very well stocked as well, with lots of imported products. Japanese ingredients are obviously impossible to find, but there are tons of products from Italy, Turkey, Egypt etc. In the past week, I bought pasta, canned tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, fresh yoghurt, milk etc. So, as you can imagine, I'm eating very well.
The weekend here is Friday/Saturday, though I ended up working most of Friday and a little bit today. I managed to go to downtown Tripoli this afternoon with a couple of colleagues (both went to Fletcher so we bonded over that!). We walked around Old City, where there were lots of little shops selling gold, jewelry, souvenirs, scarves, bags, household items, etc. Interestingly enough, you're not expected to bargain.
With such little exposure to the 'outside', it's hard to form an impression, but overall things feel pretty 'normal', at least in Tripoli, and especially during the day time (I hear night time is different). There are tons of people out shopping, there are traffic jams, there's an abundance of goods and products. You do see a lot of graffiti on walls, mostly in support of or celebration of the revolution. I haven't really seen extensive damage from the conflict, except when we drove past what used to be Qadhafi's compound. There, you can see buildings that have been destroyed and remnants of cars that were torched. I haven't come across too many brigades (described as 'militia' in most Western media). They were a bit more noticeable in downtown Tripoli, some of them openly carrying machine guns. The ones that I saw were mostly directing traffic.
I've also had very little interaction with the local population. The only Libyans that I've talked to are UN staff or shopkeepers, and I haven't had the chance to have any deep, interesting conversations with any of them.
Hopefully, this gives you a sense of my very first impressions. As you can imagine, I do miss Charlie, Sho and Saya quite a bit. We talk over Skype every so often, but the picture quality is quite choppy and we have lots of dropped calls. I am VERY happy to have Skype though, as it makes it easier to stay in touch.
Until next time!
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