How to be king of the road

After two years of living in a country, few everyday things should be scary or intimidating. In Libya I have one major exception to this rule, and that is riding in Tripoli taxis.  For two years I have ridden in Tripolitanian taxis almost daily, and yet my fear never diminishes.

Once, when I was younger, I was sitting on a ride in Thorpe Park, waiting for it to start. I can't remember the name of the ride, but it was something that went upside down at great speed, knocked you around for about thirty seconds and then left you feeling slightly wobbly-kneed and nauseous for about half a day. In short, it was about the most thrilling sensation I’d ever experienced, before I discovered boys, cocktails and Kinder Buenos.  Anyway, just as the spotty teenager in Thorpe Park uniform announced that the ride was starting, I realised that my seatbelt was broken.  I suddenly understood the meaning of ‘blind panic’: I was so terrified I couldn’t see. I tried to scream, but couldn’t emit a single sound. I felt like I was floating above the scene, watching myself. And then I tried the seatbelt again, saw that it was working afterall, and felt faintly relieved that I hadn’t started wailing like a lunatic. The whole incident had not lasted longer than about half a second, but could yet cost me years of therapy.

In Tripoli taxis I am able to retain that same, blood-curdling level of panic for up to half an hour at a time.  And, unlike most of my phobias, this fear is perfectly rational. According to WHO, Libya has the fourth most dangerous roads in the world (behind Egypt, the Cook Islands and Eritrea.) All drivers in Libya must exhibit unusual amounts of creativity, idiocy and aggression on the road to survive, but Tripolitanian taxi drivers push the concept to new extremes.  For instance, whilst most Tripoli inhabitants consider stopping at red lights to be more or less recommended, taxi drivers would classify this rule as optional.  Whilst most drivers here would make a sudden u-turn if they realise that they have missed their turning, taxi drivers are more likely to simply reverse down the highway if confronted with this problem.

At least after two years I have learned to pick my taxis carefully to maximise my chance of surviving a journey.  Obviously, I feel a bit reluctant to get into cabs when their front bonnet has buckled in and they have a car-shaped dent on the passenger side.  I also try to get a feel for how much pride the driver takes in his vehicle.  A certain level of pride is a good thing: no one wants climb through the front passenger window to get into the back seat of a cab, nor do they want to spend their journey wondering if that wobbly wheel will fall off as the car picks up speed.  But too much pride isn’t necessarily good either. It can be quite disconcerting if the driver spends more time looking at music videos on a TV screen lovingly installed in the centre of the windscreen than they do looking at the road.  Another risk is that an overly car-proud driver might be a little over-zealous with his air-freshener.  I often find myself stuck in a car where the driver likes to spray his can of air freshener every five minutes.  If you can imagine sitting on Alton Tower’s Nemisis, in 40 degrees heat, whilst regularly having lynx aftershave sprayed into your face, you will come close to understanding how sickening the overall sensation is.  Fellow taxi users should learn the signs. Ahli or Ihtihad flags, rosaries and furry dice are usually a good thing, teddy bears and fake flowers on the back seat are the mark of a serial aftershave sprayer. 

I have come to the conclusion that my fear of Tripoli taxi rides is not something I will be able to overcome with time, but I do hope that I will get better at choosing which taxis I will get into.   If anyone has any further helpful hints, do get back to me.

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.