Tripoli Tales

“Are you a Muslim?” a teenaged girl asked with exclamation, while giggling and elbowing her friend.

I explained that I was just visiting. I can’t describe the friendly eagerness on her face. At once I felt out of place not for not being Muslim, but because I can’t remember the last time I felt the youthful exuberant energy this girl was projecting. She was like the Sun.

Today I had my first set of meetings to discuss women’s issues in Libya. I got a pretty good glimpse of the challenges to women’s participation that exist. For example, while there are more women in University than men, most women graduate and get married and never work, because that is the cultural expectation.

As I try to digest these opportunities and challenges for my job, my mind drifts to personal interactions I had today. The young girl stood out. Also, my guide for the week, Halima, who is a lovely woman born and raised in Virginia of Libyan parents. She returned to live here about 6 years ago. She told me her story of living through the “liberation of Tripoli.” She told me that she convinced her 8 year old child during a visit to the hospital 3 days before the liberation that the bloodied soldiers being carried in where actors in a movie. He bought it, since he’s a Sylvester Stallone fan. She said her children cheered with each precision bomb dropped by NATO. It sounded like a scene from Life is Beautiful.

 

We drove past the beautiful Mediterranean Sea, whose brilliant unique color blue does not judge if it laps at the shores of Libya or Italy. The only sadness is that there is nothing, NOTHING built up on the waterfront. The real estate mogul in me says “buy now in Tripoli!”

An exciting moment came when I got back to my hotel room. As I always do when I visit a Muslim country, I studied and studied and studied the covered women today. I figure the skill to perform the perfect head wrap is genetically predisposed in Muslim women. I’ve never been able to do it. But every time I try, I discover a new trick. So when I visited the Islamic Cultural center today I was at least a step ahead of my colleague who could not keep her scarf on her head. Mine was static (which was good, because it’s humid here and covering the hair is a good thing.) Anyway, I caught something about the wrap today – an extra loopdee loop that I had not tried before and I think I’m now pretty darn close to the perfect wrap. I’ll never tell now that I know the secret!