An Introduction

Ingliziyya means English girl in Arabic. I never thought of my Englishness as very important, but in Libya it is often considered my defining characteristic. My colleagues call me el-ingliziyya out of affection; most others do it because they have forgotten my name. Sometimes, people who do not know me at all simply call me el-ajanabiyya, or the foreigner.  I usually pretend not to understand.

My second year anniversary in Libya passed by almost unnoticed a few weeks ago. At times I feel like I have lived here in Tripoli forever, at other times it’s like I’ve only just arrived.  My attempts at cultural immersion have been met with mixed results. I can swear like a trooper in the Libyan dialect, but the simplest exchanges in the local supermarket often defeat me.  I took like a fish to water to the Libyan cuisine, but storm the pub as soon as I make it back to the UK. I have accepted the need to dress demurely in public, but insist on wearing impractical heels on my walks around town.  In 4-inch patent court shoes I pick my way over the pockmarked pavements, potholed roads and overflowing rubbish bins, studiously ignoring the disdainful expressions of passers-by.  

A lot has changed in Tripoli since my arrival in November 2008. In my local district of Hay al Andalous, a well-heeled area in downtown, property prices are booming. Old, crumbling villas have been knocked down and replaced with palatial properties, complete with Roman columns and wrought iron balconies. These fanciful additions were no doubt at the customer’s insistence and to the architect’s despair. Further down the road, new chain stores such as Mango, Next and M&S set my consumerist heart a-flutter, even if I tend to avoid these shops in England. The sweet looking boys who play football on the corner of my road have grown into teenage brats, with an incredible aptitude for picking up US slang off the new satellite TV channels. Yesterday they discovered the word “asshole”, so they greeted me with the words “hello asshole you have a fat ass.” I waved back, and swore to myself that as soon as my Arabic got good enough I would broach the issue with their parents.

The rest of town is changing too. New, sleek European-style cafes are springing up around the city, as are sort-of-swanky restaurants.  I am more of a fan of the city's grimy, old man cafes, serving toxic shisha and heart-stoppingly sweet green tea in paper cups, but this is just a selfish folly of mine. Few Libyan women would agree to sit on a wobbly plastic chair in Algeria Square, encircled by chain-smoking old men and the heady scent of perfumed smoke mixed with testosterone.  The city's new Starbucks and Nero's carbon copies offer a more comfortable space for women to socialise outside their homes.

When I first arrived in 2008, there was only one five-star, internationally branded hotel in Tripoli. The Corinthia dominated the city’s skyline, and the market for luxury accommodation. The tall, curved tower rose up high over the higgledy-piggledy whitewash streets of the Old Medina. It was able to charge extortionate rates to foreign oil workers, who preferred the 5 star pretentions to government hotels.  Libyan elites raved about the lunchtime buffet and the roof-top restaurant. But between 2009 and 2010, three more luxury hotels sprung up in the city and like a frumpy housewife, the Corinthia was pushed aside by fickle Tripolitanians for the newer, sleeker models. Today, breakfast at the Radisson and the buffet lunch at the Rixos are de rigeur.

So this new blog is in part motivated by a sudden feeling of sentimentality, a tinge of nostalgia even. But I have felt for a long time that I should be keeping a blog of my time here, because the country is transforming before my eyes, and because so few people know anything about Libya beyond its politics. The fact I haven't started one until now is mainly due to my natural laziness, and the fact that I am a teensy bit of an idiot when it comes to technology. I hope you enjoy my posts.