farish mindeelak firrumla....

well, it proved a little difficult to run the streaming-blog expose on mr mohamed didnt it. not enough time. in fact, i didnt really tell yu anything about him did i. so mr mohamed's english was a lot better than my arabic but that doesnt say all that much unfortunately. he loved to laugh, along with mr ahmed and his oafish giggles... 'haw haw hawww', at us or with us we were never really sure.

after engaging conversation in the middle of the desert with an italian girl we had come across, after many long days of single-gendered solitude (forgive me Leena but your sexual status is null and void in this story for reasons u will understand), the conversations became centred around me and the italia. however, a further meeting never took place despite ahmad and mohamed's proclomations that this would happen. however, in the pain of not being able to arrange this meeting the fellas created a song entitled 'farish mindeelak firrumla'. this song consisted of these words repeated to a fun, twareg melody over and over and over again, often interupted by incessant and childish fits of laughter on their part. for me on the other hand, i laughed at them laughing but the exact joke was a little lost on me although i had my suspicions. in translation it meant: 'spread your napkin in the sand'. was i to use my own incisive powers of deduction to intrepret a whole lotta seediness? hhmmmm....... or perhaps this was twareg humour, the likes of which not known in the west, but not at all dirty a'course.

nevertheless, despite this meaning or... ah, another one, the spectacle of two grown men laughing like little boys was enough to please all. and all were truly happy.

while ahmad was happy making tea and driving, mohamads greater command of english - and his unique mind - enabled him to share with us a wealth of information and facts. for instance, dinasaurs never existed. yup... according to mohameds explanation they're fiction just like victor hugo's novels. he mocked my scientific rationalisation of their demise and no urging could change his mind. however, he did describe a 4 meter long, 1 meter wide, no limbed desert beast that consumed camels and humans whole. bewildered we asked more about this strange creature not heard of in any encyclopedia i had read. yes, he said, he had seen one and apparently they move like so - then he proceeded, with all seriousness, to animately writhe in the sand, mimmicking this no limbed beast. if i am the first to discover and document this creature, i will name it the Mabruk (a derivation of his last name 'Mbarek'). indeed, his creature and his character will remain in my memory at least until alziemers hits.

your pal
hisham

im reading the final of the a-league live on the internet... whoever said all you need is your imagination is an idiot. 5 goals, all by archie no less, constant drumming on the crossbar, and record numbers of people, but the anticipation of new text appearing after regular mouse cliks on the refresh button just doesnt seem to illustrate the atmosphere adequately. \

anyway, back to libya. (click) the scenery was incredible. our first night we camped beside (click) some rocky and pebbly, jagged mountains. perhaps 5 or more kilometers away, across the flat, dry wadi was another mountain range, this time made completely out of fine sand. (click) our hollywood imaginations had convinced us that we would be traversing these sand seas on our 4wd. (click) we asked ahmed, he said not those. on closer inspection the following morning we soon realised that trying to do would have been murder due to steep inclinations, with chance predicting that one ridge would (click) give way to a sharp drop on the other side, straight into a deep trough of sand. (click) *6-0 to Melbourne fulltime...*

but we would get our sand dune adventure soon enough. in the mean time, we clambered up smaller slopy dunes into the Meghatghat, a fantasy world of jagged rocky spires, red sand, sun and emptiness. i could peer out the open window and pretend to see desert raiders hiding amongst the rocks preparing to ambush us.

we camped on a spot where the sand lifted us to give us a view above the rocky spires. i set my tent up with the entrance opening up to a wide expanse of kilometers of the dark landscape. as the sun got low i climbed onto a high ledge and perched myself with legs dangling and breeze on my face. i closed my eyes and when i opened them was filled with awe, over and over again. these scenes are rare and i will attempt to treasure it. now to wait for the setting sun...

it kept getting better too... next one will be brief so i can catch up to alexandria. i think my photos are too big, ill see if i can play around with them and get some up here sometime. whats news with you?

Muhamed Tarek Ali Moustafa

My Dad Tarek when he was 24 and 11. He passed away just over a year ago. This has made my trip to Egypt more meaningful and emotional. Uncle Sherief, Dad's youngest brother who still resides in the family apartment where my Dad spent his teenage years, found these for me.

x

Meeting Mr Mohamed

So Muhamed Mbarek was our Twareg chef de excellence on our libyan sahara adventure. but before that Leena, Tim and myself managed to get through the Tunis-Libya border in around 7 hours. a personal best for all of us. Mekky, our Twareg safari coordinator, thought am meant pm and arrived late - probably from the Tripoli- with a splatter of profuse apologies. but we were glad to see him and he looked too jolly and sweet to stay mad at. so we flew by car, after some lunch, to Tarabulus (tripoli) the capital of the long lost land of Ghadafi and his royal guard of women warriors - apparently true(ish).

a horse drawn tour of Green Square and its surrounds at night were our first impressions of Libya and its people. from several pre-reports on Libya only one had been positive, but that one soon gained greater legitimacy over the rest as we found the people to be generous and warm, the food to be good, the prices cheap and the shisha smoke freely a'wafting.

the next day, Mr Mekky and our 1st driver Am Gar took us to Sebratha, a prominent Phonecian, Roman and Byzantine ruin on the sea. this was followed by a splendid little drive for about 8 hours to Ghadames near the border with Algeria and Tunis. we ate well, slept well then awoke to tour the old medina. the old city had been vacated by rule of the state in the early 1980's. our guide had grown up there and showed us through the long white walls of his childhood. the town's streets was almost enclosed, providing a sense of security and comfort, but letting in a enough sun to maintain enough light but keep the place cool year round. two tribes had resided within these walls, living on seperate sides but interacting fruitfully. a twareg tribe - the dark skinned Muslims from the south who were our guides - more accustomed to the non-seditary life, camped outside in days past. a truly beautiful city that had thrived on underground fresh water springs - an oasis to you. its only problem being a quick depature on our program. this time on to sebha in 10 hours.

Sebha is further south but more central. it is Libya's biggest city not situated on the coast of the mediterrean. the city servs as a base for many intrepid travellers going into and out of the deserts, sand seas, wadis (dry - and i mean dry for a hell of a long time - river beds), and oases evern further south. here we met our cook Mohamed Mbarek who took the place of Mr Mekky. Not an impressionable man at first but this would change soon enough.

Heading South West the next day we dropped off Am Gar and his car and awaited for our 4wd and 2nd driver in Mr Mekky's wife's house in Al-Awaanet. Here, we devoured Botatt(?) - a beautiful dish of some description (recipe Leena?) - and chatteled with Jesus (Isa) over the final of the Ka'as Khaleej (Arabian Peninsula Football Cup), which saw the hosts The Emirates triumph over Oman to the home crowds ecstasy.

Ahmad, our driver teamed up with Muhamed, pack our gear into the Toyota Land something or rather and took us onwards and offroad towards our first night of beautiful isolation camping under the stars.

what do dinosaurs and victor hugo's novels have in common according to Mohamed Mbarek?

ok. so im back. although not really cos my blogspot wont update. nevertheless, when it does i should have written something to put in it after all this time.

aha. im in alexandria, egypt. the birth place of my father and the city of my uncle. things are well, seeing the family, getting fed by the family and then getting fed by the families family before getting fed by the family again.

im also staying in a family friends apartment by myself. it just doesnt have a tv so in my off time im left with the awkard choice of cuddling up to a book or actually doing some writing with my bare hands and a pen.

so i sit down at the table in what should be the tv room and attempt reading. however, all i have left in my mobile library is the 3rd chapter of Gadhafi's 'The Green Book' (the social part), or else dare to finish my Brian Greene book on subatomic physics/cosmology. but this i find hard to do, not least because im a frustratingly slow and lazy reader - i havent been a dedicated reader since the 'choose your own adventure' early teenage years. perhaps my vocablarary suffers because of this fact -, but also because i just dont want the revelations to end.

on top of this, strange deep melodies emerge from the street below on time every 10 seconds. sometimes they come from slobber encrusted microphones distorted through decades old boom-boxes, at other times from the mind of abdul-haleem Hafeth (the most famous late Arab singer) but from the hollows of some old, tar drenched throat, more often than not. these siren men and their bewildering melodies attempt to attract residents to buy their wares or take their service, at the expense of my focus and concentration.

so after a brief venture into reading, i put the book down and try writing. but only brief dot points - not too much so i get bored or bogged down but enough so a reread will unlock eons of cascading memories and thoughts. it seems to work. an small example:

Thursday, 15th Feb:They should call the arabic course at uni 'Arabic for navigating mid-east cities and chatting to cabbies 101'. cos thats about it. i get compliments from taxi drivers on my arabic but when i take my new found confidence into a deeper discussion on more indepth topics i am dumbfounded.

regardless that doesnt change the fact that im back at my apartment with no egyptian currency on me cos i forgot my passport when trying to change travellers cheques. perhaps i can rumage up some euros or dollars to pay a cabbie to get me and my passport back to the bank.
i guess i could walk, perhaps even use my ATM card at a bank, but i think ill sit myself down, pass a bit of time writing and wait for my uncle to call and take me into town. am i lazy or merely (and fantastically) smart? On top of all this my coca cola lollies have finished...
***btw. Hisham did end up taking 4 US dollars and enticing a cabbie to take him into town. whether it was because uncle didnt call or of his own initiative remains a mystery.***

ill try some pics now and write some more soon about libya... just tried some pics, no luck. stay tuned for the answer to the title question.
your pal
hisham