He informed Pete that we had one week from the
day before, to get out of our villa
(From Jan’s letter home Feb 1980)
For some time now the expatriate community had been in a turmoil. Particularly those who had nice villas in desirable areas, which were almost all our friends and us. Edicts had been filtering down to us over the last few months, at first they were treated as yet another rumour, but a few facts started to emerge. < br> Stories of people being called on by an Arab, asking, “When are you going to move out of my house?” became all to common.
It was all too true. All expatriate housing had been taken over by the government, and was to be distributed to Libyan families. The expatriates were to be housed in the apartment blocks which had been built along the Benina road. This was bad news. The one thing that allowed expatriates to live the good life was the freedom we had when living in our own villas, the thought of being cooped up in small flats in anonymous high rises sent a shudder through our collective spines.My own situation had become a little shaky too, we were in our fourth year and Montreal had extended our contract for six months only, while they decided whether to go for the whole year. The Libyan authorities had assured me that they wanted me to stay on, but Montreal was being cagey. In the last six months or so I had not had the freedom to work as I had during the first three years.
My work had indeed changed. There were now six expatriate technicians working at Benina. Four Indian technicians, Pete Corner and myself. New equipment had been installed, and was working well.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect had been the appointment of an airport engineer who took it on himself to use his position as the senior ICAO man to report constantly on perceived shortcomings of the technical staff. This gentleman had little of his own work to do, and to justify his existence tended to question most aspects of my own work though it was quite alien to him, as he was a civil engineer whose expertise was fixing pot holes in the taxiways, rather then fixing faulty electronic equipment.
Perhaps I had become too entrenched in my ways, perhaps it was time to go, and as it happened, a cable from home made up my mind for me. This cable from my own head office in Wellington, simply said, “Pete there is still a job for you at the Aeronautical College if you want it.” I took this, rightly or wrongly, to mean that if I didn’t come back soon the job may not be there when I did.
Montreal came up with the final six months about this time, which with my accumulated leave meant only about three and a half months left in Benghazi. So that was it, I cabled Wellington that I was coming home and it was a real relief to get it all settled.
More and more of our friends were being eased out of their villas, the Carters our next door neighbours decided to leave, and as soon as they went a Libyan family moved in. The French people on the other side had long gone and several tenants had come and gone, till finally another Libyan family settled in. Pete Corner had to leave his very nice flat and had shifted to the Benina complex and was very unhappy indeed.
We had our share of unwanted callers. The gate bell would ring, I would go out to find a Libyan chap who would try to tell me that we had to move right away as he had been given this villa. Suliman had told me not to take any notice of these people as they were opportunists, and that when the time came it would be done in a more official manner.
The time did come, and as it happened we fell on our feet again. One afternoon the bell went and I resigned myself for another confrontation. A young Libyan stood by the gate and an older man sat in a car.
“Yes” I asked politely.
“My father would like to talk to you” the young man said
The father looked at me from his seat in the car, I was thinking he could at least have the courtesy to stand up and talk face to face. I was being a bit rude in saying, “OK so what do you want” The older man beckoned me over and said in good English.
“I am sorry but I can’t get out of the car my legs are not working too well.” He seemed a very pleasant man and I immediately felt sorry for him. He went on to explain that he had indeed been allocated my villa and he gave me a sheaf of papers to prove it. He went through the papers and explained what each meant. The crucial part was the date at which he could move in. It was about a month away. That was a relief, but we still had just over two months to go. I explained this to him and he said.
“We wont make a decision right now, can I come and see you again in a few days?”
Most reasonable, so we made an appointment for later in the week. I went back inside and told Jan what it was all about and that we had better speed up our preparations for leaving.
They returned on the appointed day. The father and two of his sons. With their aid and a couple of walking sticks, he came in and looked over the house. He seemed pleased and assured us that he was unhappy that we had to move out, but if he didn’t take the place it would be allocated to someone else.
He then gave us the best news of all, and that was, we could stay on until the time came to leave. This was good news indeed, it meant we had plenty of time to sell up and put our affairs in order. It also meant no more hassles from opportunists. Our friends were very envious, and we watched over the next few months as more and more went home or were dispatched to the Benina road Gulag.
Some like the Rosses who had lived in the same villa since before the revolution managed to hang on, they were still there when we left, but returned to England the following year.
Just a few weeks to go. Now that it had happened, we couldn’t wait to get away. In one way it was good that the great expatriate way of life we experienced when we first came had virtually disappeared. (Even the hash house harriers went into recess). It would have been sad to leave during that time. Now we were more then happy to go. We sold everything in the house, and moved to a friends place for the last few days.
We were sorry to leave our villa as we had many a happy time there, but our thoughts were turning more and more to New Zealand, the sense of anticipation increased as the days went by. Also a sense of dread was creeping in. We had heard so many horror stories of people being detained right on the eve of departure, even right up to the moment of boarding the aircraft. That we couldn’t help worrying some small fault in the vast amount of paper work needed for a final departure would cause a hitch.
Finally the rounds of farewell parties were over, the day came for our departure. We were driven to the airport, it was the usual mayhem, but eventually we got our boarding passes, said goodbye to Abdulrahim and the rest of the staff who had come to see us off, and headed for the relative peace and quiet of the departure lounge.
We still had to negotiate emigration, but had no trouble as we watched our various papers getting the rubber stamp treatment. I thought that was it, but no, seated at the entrance to the departure lounge was another official, something to do with currency. This was a major worry as I had accumulated a considerable amount of cash from the sale of household goods, the car and so on, plus final payments from the UNDP that I hadn’t had time to remit home. I had converted these into travellers cheques and the total came to nearly 12 000 US dollars.
I had put all this down on the form provided and it had passed the rubber stamp test. But this man wanted to see the actual cheques and any other forms of currency I had. He took all this and disappeared! I told Jan to go on into the lounge with the children and to get on the aircraft even if I didn’t appear. She went on into the lounge looking more then a little worried.
After about ten minutes the man reappeared and gave me my money back without any explanation. I rejoined a relieved Jan and spent the next few minutes counting our money, it was all there.
We waited with tension mounting, not helped by a Greek lady who was on her own, and kept coming and going, looking more frazzled each time, the last time she was in tears. Jan tried to help but there was a language problem. Finally the call came, Jan and I were separated, women and children one way men the other. The men had to undergo a body search, when this done we were allowed out onto the tarmac.
I thought, ‘that’s it no more hassles’. Wrong, further along by the tarmac gates was another check point and another body search!! Finally I reached the aircraft, one last duty, that was to load our baggage into the aircrafts hold, yet another security thing, it ensured that if I had a bomb in our luggage, I would be blown up with it. Up the stairs and into the aircraft under the eagle eye of yet more security people. Jan was already settled in and I took my place a few seats away.
As I sat down a hostess passed, I caught her eye. “As soon as you can bring me a double whisky” she smiled and nodded.
At last we took off, there was a deep feeling of relief as first Benina airport and then the Libyan coastline fell behind the Olympic Airways aircraft. We had hardly crossed the coast when the hostess arrived with my double whisky, heaven indeed, next stop Athens then a week in Bangkok.
A culture shock awaited us, but that’s another story.