Someone decided that every Libyan family needed an new family book. The family book is a small book, somewhat resembling a large passport, that has family records in it. A page for the man of the household, and numerous pages for his wife/wives and kids. All the records are in there - birth date, marriage/divorce, death and whatever else they can think to put in there.
I guess it all makes sense to have such a book but I wasn't sure what they needed to change them for. Hubby mentioned something about state of the art technology or something was going to be involved (yeah right!). He also said I had to have 6 pictures with blue backgrounds. Sigh... why does everything in this country require a picture... or lots of them? They must have enough pictures of me to fill a shoebox (or two) already. Libya is obsessed with photos and rubber stamps! Ugh.. so third world!
Off I went to have my picture taken. The professional photographer knew his business - his shop was full of blue curtains.... and he looked so happy. I'm sure he must be making a fortune off this new family book deal.
Click and flash! Come back in about an hour. I told him I'd pick up the photos the next day. 'What time do you open?' I asked. He replied that he was always open early and to come at nine. So the next morning I went at ten o'clock, giving him enough time to be late. Of course he still wasn't there yet and I had to wait around for him to come.
The pictures were in an envelope and I just glanced at them to make sure they were mine. Later at home, when I looked closer at them I noticed that the photos had been photoshopped. So totally creepy too! He had filled in my eyebrows with little reddish brown lines. That just really creeped me out. Who would waste time doing that? I mean really - if he was gonna spend time photoshopping my picture you would have thought removing my double chin would have been a more interesting (and useful) challenge.
I'm not going to post my picture here. If you want to see it you'll have to wait your turn at the family book office.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
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After living in Libya for twenty-six years you would think my Arabic would be perfect, but it is far, far, far from that. I do get my point ... -
In my last post I wrote about how I felt on the first day of my arrival back to Libya after a month's absence. I said it was dirtier and...
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The rains have finally come, accompanied by lightening and thunder. The weather is cooler and the dust has settled. We'll see how treac...
The Libyans do LOVE their rubber stamps in every color....
ReplyDeleteHad to have papers ' stamped ' - ran all over town to get stamps of every possible shape and form - photos too - oh and lets not forget bloodwork.....
We just got our family book in 2009. It took entirely to long to finish the paperwork. How often do they ask for new family books?
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