Nalut, Voted One of the Most Beautiful Places for Mountain Bikers

First my news... 

On Thursday morning my husband said to me "Don't even think about going out today. There's trouble expected and you don't need to get caught up in the middle of it." So I've been hanging out at home for the last two days. Actually Tripoli seems a lot quieter these past two days than it has been lately - for a few days the house was vibrating, windows shaking and doors rattling with what seemed like non-stop explosions of heavy weaponry in the distance - even though it was about 20 kilometers away it was still frightening. Now it is quiet and has that eerie 'before the storm' kind of feeling. Maybe, hopefully, it will all blow over and we can go back to our 'normal' lives here. It's amazing what you start to consider as normal!

Miraculously the internet has been working for the last few days. So of course time has been spent checking all the social networking sites to see what, if anything, is happening in Tripoli. There's been a big focus on whether or not there are flights in and out of the country since Tripoli's main airport is closed as that's where the main clashes have been taking place. Pictures of damaged planes and the airport itself have been posted. and flights are being diverted elsewhere or cancelled. One minute there's an announcement that Libyan airspace is closed to all traffic and minutes later someone is posting that a flight has just landed or taken off at Matiega Airbase in Tripoli or Labrak Airport in the east of the country. People are stranded outside Libya hoping to get back and others are wondering if they can leave.

It's depressing. Libyans killing each other is bad enough, but doing in in Ramadan... sigh.... needless destruction of the infrastructure, damaging homes and hospitals and disrupting lives... sigh...

When will there be peace? When will Libya get back on it's feet again? When will things improve?

And now for the good news....

Way back in 2007, it seems so long ago, I went with my family and my friend Tara to Nalut for their annual Spring Festival. Tara is an avid mountain biker so she brought her bike along. Nalut proved to be a fantastic place to ride. Honestly, Nalut is just fantastic period. The people are hospitable, the air is fresh, the scenery and it's history are marvelous - I can't say enough nice things about Nalut.

While we were there I took some pictures and posted them on my blog here: Nalut Spring Festival - 2007 and here: Mountain Bike Heaven in Libya! and ever since the site statistics show that they are two of the most visited posts on my blog. This week I got an email from action sports website Mpora to let me know that Nalut has been chosen as one of the most beautiful mountain bike trails in the world. They've used the picture I posted of Tara and her mountain bike overlooking the escarpment.

You can see the site here:  The World's Most Beautiful Mountain Bike Trails - 10 Routes To Ride Before You Die

They are right! It is beautiful!

Libya is a land of treasures... I'm praying for peace and a bright future for Libya.

Almost to the halfway mark

We're getting through the second week of Ramadan. Here's our news:

• Ibrahim is bored and that means he's picking on everyone and causing trouble. How much longer until school starts again? 
• Nora's been working from home because her employer says the security situation is too unstable at the moment for employees to go to the office.
• Yusef's miserable because he's craving cigarettes which in turn is making everyone miserable. Ramadan and cigarettes don't go well together.
• Jenna sleeps all day. The life of a teenager!
• Sara's inventing new dishes and trying out recipes she's found on the internet or seen on TV- thank God there's one cook in the house. I used to be an enthusiastic cook, but when you are forced to feed 7 or 8 people everyday cooking becomes more of a chore than a pleasant pastime. 
• Hubby's grumpy and depressed - he's been watching too many Libyan news channels.
• Me, I'm fine. We're into the second week of Ramadan and I'm up early in the mornings and keeping myself busy working on some projects. 
• The garden is looking good. We still need to have grass put in the side garden in the spot that we were saving for the swimming pool, but I think it will have to wait until after Ramadan. We've decided against the swimming pool - too much headache with all the sand here. We have an above ground pool that we put up in the summer next to the terrace and take down in the fall - that's working out fine.
• The electricity - it's off about 4 hours every day lately which is not so nice when the weather is over 40C.
• Internet - slow as usual and off when the electricity is off. 
• Mobile phone service - spotty... I suppose this is due to the power cuts.
• Gas - there are still lines at the gas stations and the lines seem to be getting longer as there are rumors that the gas supplies aren't going out because the drivers of the supply tankers are being kidnapped - more than likely just a rumor, but that's all it takes for the lines to start forming. I'm topping up whenever I get a chance. 
• Banks - I see crowds of people in front of the banks in the mornings as I pass by. Not a good sign... 

I'm my last post I mentioned that we had two new pets, but then only wrote about one of them. The other one is a spiny-tailed lizard that we named Spike. Spiny-tailed lizards come from north Africa and are kept as pets all around the world. They're vegetarian so no need to worry about providing insects for them. Spike likes vegetables and weeds I pull up from the garden and a bit of cacti. The kids put him out on the small balcony next to  my desk. Our house is starting to feel like a zoo. My kids came home a few weeks ago saying they wanted a monkey that they'd seen somewhere.  No! I draw the line at monkeys... but I wouldn't mind a parrot. 

Ibrahim with Spike

My news and two links about Libya

I haven't been able to update my blog for a while because my chair has been hijacked! Sandy has taken over my spot in front of the computer. Today I had to push her off the chair so I could sit down and she immediately jumped up on the desk and stood up on top of the keyboard.

I'm taking things easy this Ramadan. I've cut way back on my work hours , and I'm mostly chilling out at home - chilling out! It's been pretty hot these days, one day last week it was 45C (113F), but as long as there is electricity there is air conditioning and when the power goes out I lay down and read a book and take a nap.

Sadly, we still have an electricity situation here... last week I read in the news that one area of Ainzara had no power for 44 hours. Thank God it wasn't my area! Also, there are still lines for petrol, they're a bit shorter but a line is a line - a waited almost 2 hours one day last week and about a half an hour a few days ago. My internet was out for five days last week and the mobile phone services are on and off. 

A positive note: I've noticed that there are teams of workers cleaning along the sides and medians of the main highway and they have street sweeper trucks cleaning the edges of the road. It slows down traffic a bit - but everyone is driving too fast to begin with. It's nice to see something positive happening. 

Two interesting links to share about Libya:

• This is a pretty good analysis of the situation here lately - I'm not sure who is behind this website or how often they update the news about Libya: Libya: Surviving The Curse Of Entitlement  
• Another sad, but interesting site that has recently been set up: Libya Body Count - The purpose of this site is to provide a reference point for the extent of violent crime and deaths in Libya, starting in January 2014 (three years after the 17 February 2011 uprising and civil war). The site relies on media reports as the source of data. Libya's media is in its infancy so in most cases only a single news source is used and in a few cases social media is also relied upon. No distinction is made regarding victims: all deaths are counted.

Enough of depressing news! We've got two new pets; a ginger cat that is about 6 weeks old that a girl had rescued but was unable to keep. We've named her Sally. She's very friendly and fit right in with our family from the moment she arrived. 

Taking a break from playing. She's sitting on a hand woven blanket that I brought back from a recent trip to Algeria.

 A few months ago I bought an ultra-violet flashlight from the hardware store to use for looking for scorpions. It's similar to this one: Scorpion Master We ended up buying a second one and have been going out scorpion hunting on our farm most evenings. The scorpions glow when you shine the torch on them - and there are hundreds of them out there! Eeek! We pick them up with a pair of barbecue tongs (long ones!) and put them in a big water bottle. Needless to say I no longer go out for walks with open shoes or flip flops. We check our garden nightly and seldom find any scorpions, maybe because we water the garden and pull weeds.  

It took about an hour to catch these. They are every where out there - watch where you step. 

 Another thing I am up to is trying out a program called Scrivener. It's a kind of word processing program used by writers... maybe I will write a book someday.

Three more weeks until the end of Ramadan. Where does the time fly? Happy Ramadan to all who celebrate! 

Driving Down the Highway in Libya

In the mornings I drive my daughter to work which almost always involves some kind of adventure as the way there includes having to drive down the main highway. Nearly every day we pass accidents, many of them very serious ones. There are always trucks carrying heavy loads, often precariously and hazardously balanced. I try to stay far away from trucks, not just because of the danger that the goods they are carrying could fall or fly out the top (and they often do), but mostly because the truck drivers drive dangerously fast, swerving in and out of traffic.

Yesterday we noticed a yellow truck hurtling at breakneck speeds down the highway. We could see that it had a load of something hanging out the top and as we got closer we noticed it was a truck full of people. It's so sad to see how unskilled workers are treated here. No thoughts at all for anyone's safety. My daughter took pictures:

Maybe tomorrow

Ramadan is about two weeks away. Normally by this time or year I have stocked up on everything I need to get us through the month (apart from fresh veggies and fruit). Not this year... I've had just enough gasoline in my car to get me back and forth to work every day. We've used up our reserve jerry-cans that we'd been saving up.  No side trips around town... not a chance.

Maybe tomorrow we'll be able to get some fuel? I keep saying that. It's frustrating because I have a long list of things to do, and none of them are getting done. The gasoline situation feels like a bad sit-com rerun - the first time you laugh and after that it isn't so funny anymore. I'm not going to sit in the lines, it's too dangerous. When I run out of gas I will just stay home.

What is more, the electricity has been going on and off again, but so far not for more than 2 hours at a time. A few weeks ago the Minister of Electricity announced that it was prepared for summer. We've heard that before...  I guess that means he's gassed up his generators.

There is some good news.... The good news is that the kids have passed their final exams.... and the sunflowers in my garden are blooming.

Almost Summer in Libya

The kids are in the middle of final exams. They'll finish next week and then it's a whole exciting summer ahead. I've noticed for the past few years that final exams always seem to coincide with a crisis at the gas stations and this year is no different than the last.

One evening this week my husband tried to fill up, only to find eight of the nearest gas stations closed. Of course he wasted precious petrol driving around to look for an open station. My car was nearly on empty and I was doing what I could to preserve the petrol I had - I'd stopped using the ac and made sure to turn off the car if I had to wait for any length of time. Yesterday in the morning and afternoon there were long lines and I didn't have time to wait, but last night I found the lines were a bit shorter and pulled up to the back of the line. 

It was actually a double line and for the most part it seemed to be moving quite quickly. That is, until a bunch of young boys (about 20 of them) arrived with plastic bottles and containers. They had parked across the road from the station and descended upon the pumps in front of the cars waiting in line. Drivers started honking and people were shouting - no one wanted the boys to jump the queue. Finally, the gas station attendants decided to allow the boys to use one pump for filling up containers and the rest of the pumps were left free for vehicles. For the most part this seemed to work well and the lines continued to move.

By the time my car moved up to the pumps the boys with the containers were pushing and fighting one another to be the first to fill up. Suddenly, a guy brandishing a machete jumped out of nowhere and started shouting "insert really really really bad language here". The machete cut through the air making a whooshing noise the the boys scattered away in all directions. 

While the lunatic ranted and waved his machete about like some kind of magic wand, it was my turn to fill up. The attendant asked me how much I wanted (what a stupid question!), sarcastically I told him 'A dinar will be fine' and he looked at me questioningly. Then I said 'Fill it up, please!' While we waited for the tank to fill the guy with the machete continued his rant. I stuck my head out the window and yelled 'Watch your language please!' and my daughters who were in the car with me shouted 'Mom! Shut up! Get your head in the car! He might kill you!'

Now I have a full tank of gas, but we aren't going anywhere because there is another week of exams ahead of us. And then it will be officially summer!

Plodding along...

I've been doing a bit of traveling for work lately. My travels aren't taking me very far away - just in the Maghreb, but it's been enlightening.

On a visit to our next door neighbour,Tunisia, I discovered that the capital has become rather messy with overgrown public gardens and trash strewn about everywhere. There were hardly any tourists to be found, but the people seemed optimistic. They haven't lost all hope.

It's hard to leave Libya and then come back again. Hard to go to nearby countries and not compare. There's a lot of work to be done....