At least they don’t wear guns as their adult counterparts do!
(From Jan's letter home. July 76)
Libya is a wealthy country; it sits on lakes of very high quality crude oil. Its income from the sale of this oil is astronomical; consequently, by the trickle down process the average income is quite high. So everyone has a car, but they don't have the tradition of a car, unlike your Kiwi or Brit or Yank there is not the mechanical knowledge that we, as youngsters gained, by owning a series of older cars, that then have to be maintained to keep them roadworthy. This maintenance we did ourselves, we had to: we couldn't afford otherwise. Its something that is inherent in our upbringing, its not there in theirs.
I was talking about this to someone once and he made the rather derogatory comment that "These Guy's had fallen from a date palm and landed in the driving seat of a Mercedes". I knew what he meant and their driving habits certainly bore out what he said. Here is another quote from one of Jan's letters home.
This is a country where you are either thrilled by a small triumph or right down in the dumps. Nothing is done in what we would consider a normal way. Everything is by rumour or through friends. No advertising. No information.
Peter hired a car on Friday for the day, but no insurance. They don't have insurance here. If you hit someone else, you pay the repairs. If you knock someone over you could stay in jail while they are in hospital. If you park in a no parking area and get fined you can only pay it on Saturday's and Wednesdays.
They have what the expatriates call "kiddy cops" here. Trainee traffic police, young 10 to 12 year olds learning the ways of their adult supervisors, white uniforms, truncheons, swagger, arrogance and all. They can pull you up for anything, although there is usually an adult nearby, but you have to see them to believe it all. At least they don't wear guns as their adult counterparts do.
The driving of the Libyan Arabs really was incredible, when we were in Tripoli, Thorsten or Graham usually took us around. They were careful drivers, but listening to their comments and watching the rest of the population of Tripoli as they drove, it was fairly obvious that driving in Libya was not a restful occupation.
When we were staying at the Anice, I was picked up each morning and taken to work by an airport driver. This started my day off really well, as I arrived at work with all senses on full alert.
One of the drivers was a young man called Omar Sharif, whom I have mentioned in the role of fixer. When I was introduced to him, I must have looked a little startled because he grinned and said "No not him". However, Omar was quite pleased to be associated with his more famous namesake. He actually was quite a handsome chap.
Omar was quite proud of his driving ability. - If, for instance driving along at 100 K, about 1 meter behind the car in front, slouched comfortably with one hand on the wheel a cigarette in the other and talking to the back seat passengers - constituted good driving, then he was one of the best.Omar was quite irrepressible, he drove with great flair, always as fast as he could go, he never gave way, if a gap appeared that was just big enough to take his car he drove through. Omar was typical of all the younger Libyan drivers.
Early on I made an elementary mistake; I did up my seat belt. Cars imported into Libya came with seat belts already installed, but the Libyans don';t use them, its not compulsory.
The very idea goes against the belief of the Arab phrase Insh-Allah. This means God willing, and is a vital part of Arab thinking. No Arab would wear a seat belt because Allah may have decided it was time for you to enter heaven and putting on a seat belt was in effect defying his wishes.
I was a little more realistic, and always did my seat belt up as tightly as possible. I am afraid Omar took this as a slight on his driving and only served to make his risk taking worse.
Later when I was driving my own car, I came to enjoy the challenge, and in fact came to be as bad, or as good? as they were. I had to really, it was a case of - if you cant beat 'em, join 'em - The rules were, avoid eye contact, don't leave unnecessary spaces, drive as fast as possible, remain totally alert, expect the unexpected, understand that no one will deliberately drive into you.
Insurance, to all intents and purposes is non-existent, if you have an accident you settle then and there, who is at fault and therefore who pays. In the couple of cases I was involved in, I was lucky in that there was someone on hand to translate, and come up with a figure that I could afford. Both times it was just a bit of panel work, it was all quite amicable, maybe because I was a foreigner and had someone to speak for me, I was probably being diddled any way!
When two Libyans had a confrontation, it was something to see, and sometimes ended in a physical fight. Two combatants I once saw do battle, did so by throwing stones at each other, when one ran out of stones he threw his shoes, they get very excitable.
I mentioned the Arab method of queuing; exactly the same applies when they are in their cars. At a set of lights for instance, which they more or less obey, the first car pulls up, the next will pull alongside, the next alongside him, even if he has to go into the oncoming traffic's lane, and so on. They work on the principle that if any part of the road is not being used its their right to use it. It's not unusual to see drivers in their anxiety to get ahead charge straight over a roundabout. All very exhilarating but it really is a relief to get home safely.
When I first started working at the airport I was told I had to get a Libyan driving license. I wanted to get one of course, as I intended buying a car as soon as possible. This entailed the seemingly simple process of applying to the police, presenting my New Zealand license and obtaining a Libyan one. The process however was anything but simple, several departments were involved, photographs were required, and so on. It took over a week, and would have taken a month or more if I had not had the help of a Fixer. Omar again.
Eventually I was given a license to take part in the mayhem of Benghazi's traffic. Each day I drove to and from the airport, which entailed driving through town, I would see at least one accident sometimes three or four.Not long after we arrived, Jan and I were driving into town along one of the good four lane roads when as we approached a sweeping turn I realised that the car in front was upside down. It was skating along on its roof at quite a good pace, but came to a halt about the same time that I did, (the kombi's brakes being as worn as the rest of the car.) Half a dozen Arab youths crawled out of the up turned car and as far as I could see, treated it as a great joke. I drove on.
The open road was something else again, this really was dangerous. I have mentioned the concept of Insh Allah, and I am sure that the Arabs drove with that in mind. Why not overtake on a blind corner, if God wants me to die then so be it. If He wants me to live then that's okay too.
Apart from that philosophy they were just bad drivers, with little concept of the mechanics involved in keeping a car on the road at high speeds, they pushed them to the limit and sometimes over, as could be seen in the wrecks lying at various distances from the roadside.
The road that followed the coastline was part of a highway system that connected all the countries in North Africa. That part through Libya was in really good condition, probably because the Italians had built it. The major problem apart from Libyan drivers was wandering stock. We would often see a recent wreck on the side of a straight stretch of road and wonder what happened to cause it. However, we also began to see that several times there was the mangled body of some animal nearby. These were mostly donkeys, sometimes horses, and occasionally a camel.
The road I traveled most was the Benina road. This ran from Benghazi out to Benina airport and was the usual way I went to and from work. It was a good wide four-lane highway with no bends, but still managed to produce an almost daily accident. Particularly in winter, when it rained.
One incident bears mentioning, as it highlights the thinking of both municipal planners and the unsuspecting drivers. There was a school half way along the Benina road, motorists sped past this with no consideration for the children.
The authorities decided to use "sleeping policemen" to slow the traffic down. Sleeping policeman are what we call speed bumps, or humps in the road that can only be negotiated safely under a certain speed.
These humps appeared overnight and they were fearsome things. They were about 30 cm high and only about 1 meter across and stretched across the road. There were two of them about 10 metres apart, I found I had to slow down to 10 kms an hour to negotiate them safely.
The early morning travelers coming into Benghazi from the out lying farm areas, didn't know they were there and hit them at their usual 100 Ks, with spectacular results. Most of the heavily laden pickups had their undercarriage destroyed. The first three or four vehicles blocked the road, fortunately, as this ensured the rest of them slowed down.
This went on for two or three days without much reduction in the damage count. Then the humps disappeared as mysteriously as they had appeared, and everything returned to normal.
The idea was a good one but the execution was terrible. I don't know if there was advice broadcast by radio, TV, or the newspapers, as we could not understand them, but probably not. There was certainly no warning signs put up, and the bumps themselves were far too high, more suitable to car park drive ways and the like, not a four lane highway.
The Benina road was a never-ending source of amusement for us, something was always happening. Another time, someone was given the job of re-painting the central white line near the airport which had disappeared in places. This was a man with a bucket of paint and a large paintbrush, working free hand as it were. He started off okay for the first 20 m walking backwards as he went, but soon realised he was going off line, he corrected by working back to the correct line but soon wandered of again, he again corrected and so on.
Driving to work that morning, we were greeted by a freshly painted wavy white center line for the last half-kilometer. Luckily, someone stopped him before he had done the whole 10 km.
On another occasion, somebody decided to beautify the roadside outside the airport. A group of men spent all day planting trees and bushes along the roadside. The next morning a goat herder, who had probably been bringing his goats through this area from time immemorial, did so again.
Instead of the usual scraps of weeds and grass and paper and plastic the goats usually ate, they found lovely green leaves on shrubs and trees. Goat heaven indeed, by the time they had passed on not a scrap was left. It was a good try by the authorities but again not carried through properly.
About a week before the event while going to work one morning I noticed a man with a portable drilling rig alongside the road, he was drilling holes about a meter deep into which he inserted a pipe ready to take a flag pole later. I spoke to him but he did not understand English.
He was starting from the city end, and by the end of the day had covered about 1 km. Next day he had done another kilometers worth. I began to worry a bit and that morning I went to see Abdulrahim to get his assurance that the man with the drill knew about the new cables and would avoid them. Abdulrahim understood the problem and reassured me all would be well.
Yes. The inevitable happened. A couple of days later, after the Friday break, as we drove to work I saw the drill man had passed the point where the cable trench first appeared alongside the road. I stopped and went to see where he had drilled.
My heart sank as I saw the drill holes were exactly where the cable trench was (it was still plainly visible as it had only been filled in for a couple of months). I reached down into the hole, and at the fullest extent of my arm, I felt the cable.
What I felt was not the smooth outside of the cable but the chewed up remains of the 200 pairs of wires inside. Each of the next ten holes had done the same thing, 100 metres of cable totally wrecked.
Worse, he had crossed the road and drilled another ten holes on the other side and so wrecked the other cable. If he had only stayed on the one side of the road it would not have been so bad as either cable could carry the load. Destroying both cables was a disaster.
It took several months to get the Japanese cable people back to affect a repair, luckily they were still in Libya as they were doing a similar job in Tripoli.
To this day, I don't know why no one supervised the drilling process. I certainly warned them.
Probably my worst experience behind the wheel of a car occurred when coming home from work early in 1979. Pete Corner - remember him - had arrived and was working with me. We were in a Volkswagen - not the Kombi, that had been retired - but an ordinary VW though it was in just as bad a condition as the Kombi.
I was driving and had just navigated the roundabout coming off the Benina road, when this old Libyan man ran out in front of us. I was only doing about 30k but couldn't stop in time. There was a bang and the old fellow disappeared, all I saw was one of his sandals flying through the air!
I stopped and what happened next became something of a comedy, though I didn't think so at the time. The old man was lying on the road completely motionless, for all I knew he was dead, a crowd quickly gathered. Some shouted at us and things were not looking too good.
All I could think of was getting an ambulance. I tried to tell this to the people there.
This got no response from the crowd, only more shouting.
Then to our disbelief, A couple of men picked up the old guy and stuffed him in the back of the VW!!. Not easy to do as there is not much room in the back of a small 2 door car. He was obviously our responsibility.
Pete and I looked at each other, a look that said lets get out of here. As we got back in the car a man said hospital, you go hospital.
So that was it, the Libyans, pragmatic as always, had the simple solution. You ran him down you take him to hospital.
There there, old man, you'll be all right.This seemed to work as he then just lay there. At least he was alive!
We drove on, now what? Where was the nearest hospital? Then I remembered there was some sort of hospital not far away. I went there and pulled up outside an office.
As luck would have it a couple of Pakistani orderlies were on duty, I told them the story and they took charge. We looked on as they extricated the old man from the back seat. To our amazement, the old boy stood up and walked unsteadily into the hospital flanked by the two orderlies. They breed them tough in Libya!
We returned to the car but just then a police car arrived. They took particulars and one who spoke some English told me to report to the police station next day. They took my license and drove off.
Over the next month, I made several visits to the station gave more details and tried to find out what was going on.
Apparently I had been charged with some sort of misdemeanor though I never really found out what it was. There was an investigation and a court case, none of which involved my presence.
Eventually I was called to a meeting where I was ticked off for bad driving, but I was not charged with anything, as I was not really at fault. Best of all they returned my license.
And the old man? He suffered extensive bruising but nothing broken and made a complete recovery.
One thing in my favour I found out later was that I showed concern for his welfare, and wanted to visit him. I was not allowed to, but apparently, his family noted my concern and didn't cause a fuss, which they could well have done.
An interesting episode which could have turned out a lot worse then it did, I appreciated the work of the police, and I am sure Abdulrahim put in a good word for me during the investigation.
Airport to Home.
Its 1400 and as there are no operational problems around the airport it's time to go home. Lock up and out into the blistering heat. I am getting used to it now though it is a nuisance not being able to wear shorts. Shorts are just not worn by the Arabs, and the staff I work with would be offended if I wore them.
The old kombi is waiting so I sit gingerly and get going as soon as possible to create a breeze. Turn left at the airport gates to go to the village of Benina and its Post Office to check the mailbox. Then back onto the Benina road and head for home.
This is the journey I did every day after working at the airport. Benina airport was situated directly inland from Benghazi town, it was on the low plateau that separated the Jebel Akbar (Green Mountains) from the sea.
It was an ideal site for an airport having almost unlimited visibility from all directions. The Jebell Akbar were relatively low hills and well to the West.
After leaving the airport environs the road passed through a mixture of farm, wasteland and market gardens. There were some smaller factories and a large milk processing plant. 2.5 kms down from the airport was the HF transmitting station, where I spent a considerable amount of my working time. Coming closer to town there was a school. (Of sleeping policemen fame).
There was also a large army barracks. (Bombed by the Americans several years later). Housing estates on one side, and apartment blocks on the other now appear.
The apartment blocks were ten stories high and there were at least 200 of them. They were clustered in blocks of ten. Roading had been started among the blocks but seemed just to peter out.
There were few facilities, no shops, no parks, few, if any gardens. Just huge apartment blocks rising out of the red Libyan earth.
The Benina road ended where it met the cities ring road. It did so at a large roundabout, the roundabout was just a large concrete ring filled with earth. When the roads became congested, cars were often simply driven over the roundabout to beat the queues legitimately waiting on the road.
If we were going into town we would go ahead at the roundabout, if going straight home it was turn left. Turning left took us along the ring road toward where most of the expatriates lived. The road was two-lane and quite good, small shops on either side with the occasional factory. The main item here was a shopping centre known to the expatriates as suicide corner. It was a popular shopping area, as it was the closest to where most expatriates lived.
I don't know why it's called suicide corner, the actual corner was nothing out of the ordinary, but that was its name. Another half a km down the ring road was an intersection that did cause problems. It was here that five major streets joined together, the ring road, first of September street, an unnamed street down which we later lived, and another unnamed street that went down past what was once a zoo.
They all came in at different angles and made a wide-open space. Road markings were absolutely minimal so once on the intersection it was a free for all.
After safely negotiating this intersection I would normally proceed on down the ring road. Unfortunately the road was impassible due to the enormous trench being dug for the drainage system. So it was detours through the side streets.
This meant slowing to a crawl so as to negotiate a path through the potholes. If the streets had ever been sealed that sealing had long since disappeared and the ground was just hard packed dirt. The continuous traffic had cut this up to the extent that every square meter contained at least one major pothole.
Even open spaces looked like a battlefield, you simply aimed for what looked like the smoothest path regardless of where you thought the road might be. In the first few months, I was able to regain the ring road for the last km home, but later even this luxury was denied us as the trench works marched on toward the sea. I finally turned right at a Pepsi factory, negotiated a couple of narrow streets and thankfully arrived home to our cool quiet villa.
As far as non-Arabic speaking expatriates went, the streets of Benghazi had no names. They were not signposted, and if they were it would have been in Arabic script. All non-Arabic signs, building names, shop names, etc. had been removed.
Everything was in Arabic; it was as if the authorities had purposely removed any reference to the rest of the world. There was not even any Italian signage even though Italian had been the countries second language. I queried this once, and the answer was, "well you don't see signs written in Arabic in London or Rome do you". He had a point.
This meant that we expatriates had to give our own name to important streets and areas. These place names were known throughout the community regardless of what language you spoke. I have mentioned Suicide Corner and First Of September street and the Ring road. Also well known, was Christmas Tree Square, so named for a large conifer that grew there. The Street of a Thousand Plumbers, named because of the cities habit of having similar shops in the same street. Consequently, there was the Street of a Thousand Electricians, and even the Street of a Thousand Car Parts. ( the term street of a thousand: will be recognized by anyone who sang one of the more bawdy ditties of world war two).
More prosaically perhaps was Fish Market Square, and Town Hall Square. The main hotel, the Omar Khayam was a good reference point as was the catholic cathedral (now a warehouse).
Given these easily recognisable landmarks it was quite possible to direct anyone to fairly precise points around town.
Giving directions to places in the suburbs was a more difficult matter, the streets and squares all looked much the same and of course, there were no street maps available. The easiest way was to draw a map showing the relevant streets and including other well-known reference points.
These references, at least in our area, included the Ring Road, the Pepsi factory, the Tripoli Road, the children's hospital, the Shebco area, and so on. As the houses were not numbered, they also had to be described. This usually meant describing the enclosing wall and the gate therein. Something like, the fourth house down on the right with the yellow plastered wall and green gate.
Next page. Chapter 8 We shift house