Chapter 2. Organising a villa
Then our Chemist friend succumbed to
our eagerness to see his villa.
(Jan’s letter home, July 76.)
The Omar Khayam hotel was an international style hotel and, as it turned, out was the only one in Benghazi that could be so described. Even so, I could never get used to seeing an excellent bar setup with the top shelf serving only soft drinks.
The problem was, as we found out in the next couple of days, is that it was also very expensive. It didn't take a genius to figure out that our three months allowance for settling in would be used up in about three weeks. Although we were not desperate, we really needed our own villa.
During the first few days in Benghazi I was very busy at Benina airport, making myself known, (Benina was the name of the airport serving Cyrenaica, previously referred to as Benghazi airport). Meeting all the people I would be dealing with, or working with, obtaining and moving into an office, and all the other things that go with taking up a new post. When I returned in the early afternoon, Jan and I would commence villa hunting.
Our only contact in Benghazi apart from the airport people was Suliman. We hadn’t yet met any English-speaking expatriates. The airport people, particularly Abdulrahim, did their best, but to no avail, renting a villa just did not seem to come within their area of experience.
We got in touch with Suliman as soon as possible and he proved to be a very friendly and approachable person. He knew several people who were villa landlords and contacted them, but it soon became apparent that villas for rent were in short supply.
The first week went by and our money supply dwindled alarmingly. I mentioned this to Suliman and he suggested we move to a different hotel, which he said would be quite adequate and would cost much less than the Omar Khayam. He was certainly correct there - the Omar Khayam cost 15 Libyan dinars a day whereas the Anice cost LD8 a day. The Anice was quite pleasant, we had two connecting bedrooms and a bathroom. So we settled in there and continued our search for a villa.
Several things made the job more difficult. Firstly, there were no real estate agencies. No advertising. Word of mouth, rumour, friend of a friend, was the normal everyday approach.
Villa renting, it turned out was done at a high level. It was part of the agreement that housing was supplied when any large business contract was arranged with a foreign company. Apparently, the UN people in Tripoli didn’t think we warranted such an arrangement. Hence the “Here, take this money to live on while you organize your own house”, approach.
As we had drawn a blank so far, I decided to ask in every shop where I found an owner who spoke English. One warm evening I was wandering in an area a little away from the normal shopping precincts. Here, I found a bookshop whose proprietor, Ben Omar, spoke good English. We talked for quite a while enjoying a cup of the strong black coffee the Libyans favoured. Ben Omar suggested I try a certain chemist’s shop, whose owner was landlord of some forty villas.
I could never understand why no one else had suggested approaching this man.
He must have been the biggest landlord in Benghazi. Early next morning I visited his shop where the following conversation took place.
“Salaam alikem” (I was learning basic Arabic!!)
“Likem salaam” At least he understood me, but that was my total knowledge of Arabic greetings.
"I understand you have villas to rent"
"Maybe”.
"I would be interested in renting one".
"No villa is ready".
"When do you think you might have one".
"Oh, maybe a week".
This seemed promising, but dealing with an Arab is never straightforward. The conversation continued.
"I would like to see it".
s
"No, someone else wants it".
" Oh, do you have any others?"
"No, you come back tomorrow".
That was it for the time being, but for some reason I felt hopeful.
“Shukran” ( Thank you) I said.
“Afwhan” (You’re welcome) he said, smiling.
His name was Salem Salah and was typical of the educated Libyan. Pleasant, obliging, and astute when it came to business.
This is our first villa.
I went back the next day and he seemed a little surprised to see me so soon, I had not yet learned that when an Arab says tomorrow he means in the next few days.
Anyway, it seemed the original villa had now magically become available. I imagine if there was another prospect he was an Arab, and that I was probably a much better proposition as a paying tenant. We arranged to see the place, and I left there much happier. We went out that night and celebrated with shishkababs.
Showing tfhe front garden.
Other events were lightening our feelings of gloom. A few days before, a Scottish chap, Angus Murray, had called to see us. He had heard we were there and came to see if we were OK. Later on an American couple, Pat and Richard King, arrived at the hotel. I think they had been talking to Angus.
They were really marvellous and were able to tell us a lot about Benghazi and its expatriate population. They called again a couple of days later and offered us the use of their villa for a couple of weeks while they were away on holiday. This was great, it meant we could get out of the hotel and return to a civilised mode of living.
Imagine it, our own washing machine, a refrigerator, a garden.
A closer look at the patio area.
We managed to find the place, and it was something of an eye opener. It was quite large, with plenty of garden area and completely surrounded by a high wall. A railed patio ran around two sides with a roof supported by marble pillars. There was even a garage. Most impressive. Jan particularly liked the marble pillars.
Inside there were three bedrooms, one or two living areas depending how you arranged things, two bathrooms, kitchen, and another central living space. The floors were tiled throughout, as is usual in Libyan houses. The downside was that the place was filthy, but that was something we could sort out as we had a couple of weeks before we moved in. Another thing that surprised us a little was that everything removable had been taken, even the light bulbs!!
When we left New Zealand we had air freighted all our household stuff that could be packed into tea chests, on ahead, as unaccompanied baggage. This should have arrived about the same time we did or at least within a week.
However repeated checks with Abdulrahim and the customs people brought no luck. So here we were about to move in to a new house but with nothing to move in with. We knew we had to buy heavy furniture such as tables, beds, chairs, and such like, but it would have been nice to have our own bed linen and kitchen implements and all the other small things that makes a household work.
Furniture tended to be sold on and passed around the expatriateriate community rather like hand me downs round a family. A family preparing to leave when their contract ended usually sold off their surplus furniture. It was just a matter of finding who was leaving and making them an offer.
In our case as luck would have it no one seemed to be leaving, however staying at the Kings house gave us time to look around and price items such as refrigerators, washing machines, and the like. We also checked out the used furniture market.
This was an open area of several acres where the local people brought their used furniture to sell. There were plenty of bits and pieces there, but 90% of it was just a little too worn for our liking.
Apparently, a year or so before there was some very good stuff to be had, but a fire took out the lot, and it was just now getting re-established. There was new furniture in the shops but it was Italian design and far too ornate for our simple tastes also far too expensive.
It only took a couple of days to get used to the Kings villa. It was absolutely marvellous to be a family again in that we only had ourselves to worry about and were not restricted by the conventions of living in a hotel.
Guy and Anna missed the hotel maids, who had really spoiled them, but being able to play outside and come and go as they pleased they soon forgot their hotel friends.
In fact, once they discovered that the Libyan soil when mixed with water made a lovely sticky red paste they forgot about almost everything in their single-minded desire to make a million mud pies.
Time went by quickly now, each day I went to work, came home in the afternoon, went to our villa, and continued the big cleanup operation. I had to fix or re-place all the insect screens, which took a couple of days, then help Jan scrape every individual tile in every room. This was because the painters who had enthusiastically painted walls and ceilings had not bothered to cover the floors, paint was splattered everywhere.
Eventually we got it all done, though plumbers were still messing about in the one of the bathrooms.
On one of the fairly frequent visits to the landlord, he mentioned that I had to get the electricity meter installed. This was a bit of a surprise, for two reasons, firstly, we had already been using electricity in the house so it must be connected, secondly, we still tended to assume the Libyans did things the same as the rest of the world and would have an electricity meter permanently installed.
The only area they could ride their trikes.
We are talking 220volts ac here and I shudder to think how they managed to twist live wires together without electrocuting themselves. Another lesson learned - The sight of those bare wires in the fuse box worried me a bit - It was fairly essential that I get a meter installed as soon as possible. So, it was “confront the bureaucrats” time again, but I got absolutely nowhere when I tried myself, I had to find a Fixer to help me.
A Fixer is an absolute essential; every expatriate had one, or access to one. Fixers were usually Arabs who had a basic command of English. Their job was to help expatriates in their eternal confrontations with the Libyan bureaucracy or officialdom.
I had no permanent Fixer and usually talked one of the airport staff into helping me. In this case Omar, one of the drivers, did the job. Omar took me to the various departments where we amassed an impressive pile of papers dealing with my application.
The procedure was, Omar would escort me, carrying the pile of papers, to a small window and present me to a clerk there. Omar and the clerk would hold a long conversation. The clerk would then take the papers, look me over, unstaple the papers, shuffle them, add his own, stamp them, restaple them, and finally have me sign them. We would then repeat the process with another clerk.
Now and then, something would not be right and it would be back to a previous department to get it straightened out. I just tagged along behind Omar who seemed to enjoy the whole process. Eventually it was done, I paid the deposit for the meter and that was it.
Next day, Omar and I were back at the electricity department where we collected a man who had our meter and took him to our villa, watched him install it, and took him back again.
At least we were legal, and this is very important, because if we wished to leave the country, one of the clearances we had to get was from the electricity department. If there was no record of us paying for electricity there would be no exit visa. This could delay our departure by weeks, even months.
While all this was going on the plumbers who were still working in the bathroom, were not getting anywhere, so off I went once again to visit our landlord, who was getting less friendly with each visit.
I told him things were getting urgent, as we had to move in during the next few days. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Maybe ready may be not". I hauled out a wad of 300 dinars (our deposit), and said. "Maybe you get this maybe not"
I think he got the message because next day when we arrived at the villa, his father was there, attacking the bathroom wall with a pickaxe. He worked all that day and the next, eventually replacing all the piping. The way the father worked, I think he must have had a vested interest in the property.
At last, we could turn on the water, although the bathroom was a shambles and re-tiling wasn’t completed for several weeks.
We had arrived in Benghazi in mid-July and already it was mid-September. There was still no sign of our missing and now desperately needed, tea chests. I had been checking with the customs department at the airport almost daily, with the almost inevitable result. A shrug of the shoulders, a shuffling of papers, a " No nothing," reply, delivered with a “don't bother me any more” look.
As a last resort, I arranged with Abdulrahim for someone to take me through the customs warehouse. We went in and there were, of course, piles of goods of every description, but no sign of our seven tea chests.
I continued looking and finally, there, right in the most remote corner almost hidden by other goods was the corner of a tea chest. It was one of ours, and the rest were there too.
No one apologized or offered any excuse as to why the boxes had been overlooked or lost. I think it was just a little complicated for the customs people to get in touch with me and it was easier to just forget about it. - Sooner or later, someone would find them - and that is just what happened.
I think they were quite pleased with themselves that it all worked out.
They had to have their little drama though. I was filling out a declaration form with the help of the customs Officer. The form was in Arabic of course, he just questioned me and I answered.
“Any guns?”
“No”
“Any whiskey?” (The normal term for alcohol)
“No” and so on.
Then the question.
“Any machine?” This threw me.
“What”
“Any machine?” I looked bewildered, “machine” he kept saying. He wiggled his fingers on the desk top. Light dawned.
“Ah typewriter” I said.
“Yes” he said “machine”
It turned out typewriters were forbidden because they could be used to write subversive literature.
As it happened, Jan had brought her portable along and I thought it better to admit that we had one. I was told to produce it.
This was not so easy as there were seven tea chests and I didn’t know which one contained the typewriter. Some considerable time and much frustration later I found it.
Now what!! Everyone looked at the little Olivetti! A gift from Jan’s father. What was to be done with this terrible thing?
They wanted to confiscate it. I did not want to go home and tell Jan her typewriter was now in the hands of customs. Eventually a compromise was reached, I could take the machine away as long as they had a sample of its typing.
I waited as the senior customs man labouriously typed every letter on the keyboard both upper and lowercase and triumphantly stored the sheet of paper in his desk drawer.
Knowing how they worked I bet that piece of paper was lost within a week, or maybe it is still there!
Eventually we finished, everyone was happy, I borrowed a van and Omar from the airport and arrived home triumphantly with our long lost tea chests. It was like Christmas had come to the Spinetto’s villa.
The children found toys and books they had forgotten about, Jan found all sorts of house hold goodies including a cake a friend of ours had baked and given to us just before we left. I found tools and work manuals.
Eventually it was all unpacked and put away, another step towards a normal family life with less of the old ‘make do’ syndrome.
Next page Chapter 3 Benghazi as we found it