KhadijaTeri

I've been pretty busy the last few weeks. I'll try to fill in all the blanks with some of the pictures I took along the way. First I'll start by sharing my quick trip to the lovely Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. I was there last June and found myself back there again for a short work related trip.
It took a while to get to Guadeloupe as there are no direct flights from where I live, so I spent a few hours in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico might become the 51st state soon, at the moment it's a US territory. My cell phone worked there and they use dollars. My hamburger and French fries in the airport cost $25!

Last year I stayed in an all inclusive resort... this time I stayed in a studio apartment. If I have to go back again for another short stay I will go back to the resort simply because it had a restaurant and I didn't have to go anywhere to hunt down a place to eat. But there were some bonuses to my accommodation. My little apartment had a view of a small cove wit…

I've always said that naming my children was harder than giving birth to them. Their names were important - more than likely they would have them all of their lives. It was hard to decide what they should be called. My name, or at least what I am called, has evolved over time. 

Officially, my name is Therese Martin, when I married my husband I decided that in traditional Muslim fashion I would keep my surname because after all, I only married him, he doesn't own me. Keeping my name meant keeping my identity. Since I was a child my family and friends always called me Teri or sometimes Teri-Anne. Therese was always kept for official things and that turned out to be quite useful. For example, if anyone ever telephoned asking for Therese, I immediately knew it wasn't friend or family and I would reply "Can I take a message?'  However, after I moved to Libya things changed and I became known as Khadija.
The name Khadija needs a bit more explanation. When I became Muslim…

Today is the first day of Ramadan. I have been looking forward to Ramadan for months. It is as though it is a respite from all of the world's problems as I plan to avoid watching the news and instead look inwards and focus on my spiritual life. I'm looking at it as time to recover from everything that has been thrown at me this year. A lot of prayers this month for myself and my family and many, many, many prayers for Libya and Libyans.  Best wishes to all for a peaceful and safe Ramadan.  Ramadan Kareem!

I came across a page that someone created on Facebook where they are uploading 360 degree images of Libya. So far it looks to be primarily from the Tripoli area, but hopefully the collection will grow. No mention is made on the page as to who is the creator. I think it's a fabulous idea!
I added the link to my Link List and a sample below. You can find the Facebook page here: 360 Around You


Click on the picture to go to the 360 image

We took a day off last week to spend some time at the Rainbow River in Dunellon, Florida which is about a two hour drive from where we live. The water is a refreshing 71F  all year round. We swam and snorkeled and the kids went off in the kayaks to look for alligators - and found one! They said it was a small one, but I could hear a larger one downriver on the other bank where there was some tall grass growing. 

It was a lovely day. Sometimes you just need to get away for a while. 

Recently, I made a few updates to my Link List. I started putting together a Links List about 15 years ago. I come across so many interesting blogs, websites and news sources about Libya, when I find anything new I add them to share with my readers. A few of the links are in English and Arabic (or other languages) but the list is primarily sources about Libya that are in English. 
The list keeps growing and changing. I am calling out to my readers for a little help:  Do you know of any links that are not on the list? Let me know and I will add them. Have you come across any of the links on my list that are broken, or pointing to the wrong place? Let me know and I will fix or remove them. A few of my readers have mentioned that they have bookmarked my Links List page for easy reference. That's a good idea! You can find my Links List in the tabs at the top of my Home page, or find it here: Links List

Way back in 2007, I gave my friend Tara a kitten. We had just come back from the Nalut Spring Festival so it seemed only fitting that she name the kitten Nalut. 
Ten years have passed and Tara still has Nalut. After she left Libya she lived a while in New Mexico, then spent quite some time in Cyprus. Now she is back in New Mexico... but she is still very much a Libyan cat! 
The picture below is from 2007 - Nalut as a kitten on the day I gave her to Tara. Has it really been ten years? So much has happened and so many things have changed. I wonder if Nalut dreams of Libya like many displaced Libyans ... She is a diaspora kitty.

Mom hates pizza, but she agreed to go have pizza the other day. She decided that she hated pizza after my son Adam came to the US in 2008 to live with her. She said he ate a lot of pizza... pizza till she felt it was coming out of her ears. Now she seldom eats pizza, but on this particular day she said 'Let's get pizza' so we did!

Sometimes we eat out on the back porch. This particular day mom decided she didn't want to eat on a plate, instead she put everything in one bowl. Mom likes to eat on paper plates, but we had run out. Real dishes seem to annoy her for some reason. She drinks her coffee in paper cups too. When we were growing up we never used paper plates, but she insisted on us using paper cups when we were kids. She said they were more sanitary. Dixie cups... I always hated them!

One day we decided to have sandwiches at the park. After we ate we had a walk, I pushed mom in her wheel chair. She wasn't sure where we were and that seemed to bother her a bit. …

Before I went back to Libya last September, I noticed an advert in the local newspaper about a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training course. It looked interesting for more than a reason or two. Above all, I liked the idea of learning how to be prepared in case of an emergency. I wanted to do something for my community, to help others and meet people. Also, I thought that this would be a way to learn about civic programs that might one day be useful should Libya ever become peaceful again and needed to rebuild – maybe I could help in some way, or maybe I’m grasping at straws, but it didn’t really matter because that wasn’t my sole reason for becoming involved. I emailed to see if there was any space left on the course. Unfortunately, the course was full, so I asked to be put on a list for the next course. Then I became busy with travel preparations and my trip back to Libya so I shelved the idea for a while.

After I returned to Florida I was notified that the next CERT train…

Mom's had more surgery since I last posted. All went well this time, and she is home recovering. We're mostly staying home and mom gets a bit stir crazy from sitting in the house all the time. Occasionally we go out, but we're pretty much limited to places that have motorized scooters because mom can only walk for a few minutes and then has to sit down. We have a wheelchair, but mom doesn't like to use it. She says it's low and she has to crane her neck upwards to see things. Apart from the scooter issue there is the problem that mom has difficulty hearing so that limits what we can do too. 
We try to keep mom as comfortable as possible. To make life a bit easier we got her an electric lift-recliner. She's been having trouble getting in and out of her chair so we hoped this would help. The only problem is that she hasn't been able to learn how to use the remote control for the chair. It has two buttons... up... and down. Push the up button and the chair pu…

The following article was written in collaboration with my friend and colleague, Susan Sandover who is the author of the book ‘Libya a Love Lived a Life Betrayed 9/36’ 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Daily we (an American mother with a Libyan husband and a British Libyan widow) read, hear and see the ongoing tragedy and horror of the war in Syria and yet Libya barely warrants a mention in the British and American press. It seems as if the Libyans are the forgotten. Photos and video footage are seen periodically of migrants being saved in the Mediterranean but we have yet to read an article on the potential tinderbox situation in Libya.
The 17th February marks the anniversary of the commencement of the fight to overthrow Gaddafi but will this date warrant a mention in the international media? Most likely NO. The war finished quickly in just 8 months. Today what remains is the daily episode of the Libyan Game of Thrones represented by an assortment of grey-haired men in their expensive suits with allegiance …

So far 2017 has been a whirlwind. In my last post, which was about a month ago, I mentioned that my mother was scheduled to have surgery. She checked into the hospital as planned for what we thought would be morning surgery and home by the afternoon. 
Unfortunately there were complications. She had a reaction to some of the medicine that was used and went into anaphylactic shock. Her blood pressure dropped to almost nothing and then when they gave her other medicines to help with that her BP went sky high - her blood pressure was up and down, up and down. She also started to develop pneumonia. She was in ICU for two days while they stabilized her blood pressure, but to complicate things the steroids she was given caused her to go into steroid psychosis. 
Psychosis.... another word for crazy. She didn't sleep for 3 days straight. The whole time hallucinating that she was in Paris, in California, at a spa, there were water taxi's floating past the window and hundreds of dogs on…

The end of the year is fast approaching. When I look back it seems like it was a long year, but it passed so quickly. Since we got back to Florida it seems I have been running non-stop. 
First, there was Ibrahim to get settled in school. He's been changed to a different school, this time one that hopefully has a program suitable for him that will address his autism and ESOL issues. After a bit of a runaround, he finally started, but only a week before the Christmas break, so we won't know how things really go until he goes back after the holidays. 
Mom had a whole slew of doctor appointments, check-ups and tests scheduled for when I returned. Some of which had positive results, but unfortunately, there was the disappointing news from the cardiologist that an artery in her left leg has a blockage that needs to be cleared, so next week she is scheduled for surgery. I'm glad that I'm here to help my mother through this. It's a bit overwhelming and right in the middle…