Strawberry Juice

We are back from Tripoli. While Bob worked right through each day of Easter, I had a wonderful time. While there was a little official ‘stuff’, I managed to see his credential presentation ceremony, go to the old Roman cities of Leptis Magna – twice, Sabratha once. I walked the Medina over three days, and had so many adventures I am afraid I will never ever be able to write them all up.

I ducked out to the shops late tonight to pick up a few basics. They are open till midnight all over the city. I bought a tray of strawberries on impulse because they were there, and they were so cheap, and they looked delicious. You have to really commit when you buy strawberries here, as they come in kilo packs, and a kilo is a lot of berries. They cost about ten Egyptian pounds – about two Australian dollars for the kilo. I bought eggs, which also come in a much larger tray than Australia, and potatoes, and because the bag was getting heavy I decided to leave it at that.

Outside the shop was a small boy, with a makeshift trolley with old pram wheels. He looked about seven in the light outside Saudi’s Market. Then I walked into the dark and he fell into step beside me.

“Faroula?” (Strawberries).
Now I could write the Arabic and the translation, but I think it will be easier to read if you know that he spoke in Arabic, and I will write it in English.
“No thank you.”
“Very Cheap – only twenty pounds a kilo?”
“No thank you.”
“OK. Ten pounds a kilo?”
“No thank you.” However, I was now kicking myself for not buying from him as his were much fresher than the supermarkets, and he was down to the same price. He had only two packs left on his little trolley, though there had obviously been more.
In some desperation now he picked up both packs and offered them to me. “Two for ten pounds?”

This was really cheap – two kilos for about two dollars, and really big and perfect berries. Only the “What on earth would I do with three kilos of berries?” question was stopping me from buying them. I go to Kuwait and Abu Dhabi and Dubai in three days and I am BUSY! No time for jam making. No jars either – you never have them when you have just moved.

Then he moved into a patch of moonlight and looked straight up at me. His face looked small and thin, and I thought that though he was working at ten at night, he was younger than my youngest grandchild, who would, at this time, be tucked up and sound asleep.

“I’m tired”.

I bought the berries. I would have bought ten packs. I also gave him five pounds for himself. Tucked into those two words was the fact that he couldn’t go home until they were sold, that he was little and underdressed for a night that was rapidly cooling, and that he had probably been walking all day with wealthy Egyptians and foreigners like me brushing him off as a nuisance.

I gave Bob fresh strawberry juice, and the rest will be blended and frozen. I buzzed them with the juice of a lemon, a little sugar, a good shot of Cointreau and the juice of one of the really luscious navel oranges around at the moment. I half filled a glass with this and an ice cube or two then topped it up with soda. It was absolutely delicious.

Just because I can’t resist, I am sending a few photos from the old Medina in Tripoli, in Libya. I still can’t believe I have been there. If you think I am peppering you with too many pictures you are wrong. I am showing unbelievable restraint. I took three hundred pictures in five days. Trying to decide what to send is so difficult.

I love getting comments on this blog – so thank you to my regulars who leave a comment. I can’t answer them directly – it bounces – but it is always lovely to know that I am sending this to real people who actually read it. And – for my good friend who told me to ‘ease up on the foodie stuff as I keep dribbling on the computer keyboard’ – well – enjoy the strawberry juice. I have saved you from the hotel breakfast buffet.

From the sublime...

Wedding carts are used to take the bride to the ceremony - or even just to take a tourist along the waterfront. They are bright with plastic flowers, and some are really elegant, fit for Cinderella.

...to the ridiculous

A more sombre cart, with lovely silver pieces

From the copper souq

These are intended to be seen from below - they are tops for Minarets made in copper. I have always thought of them as a crescent, and it is interesting to see that in Libya at least, they are a circle, much narrower at the top.

I liked the way the green in the wall echoed the verdigris on the copper. I think this is one of my favourite photographs.

Broken tiles on an old building

Postcard from Tripoli

I have been walking the old Tripoli Medina (old walled city) all day. I spent five hours there this morning, until my bladder and hunger drove me back. I then took Bob back about an hour later. My feet are falling off but I am tired and very content.

The Libyans are delightful. I had not one pushy seller, not one lecherous male, and met with great charm from children, women and men alike. The Medina has a wall around it - mostly. It is missing in places. While it was good against smaller attacks from the sea that it was built for, it wasn't much use against shells from Mussolini.

Inside the wall the old town has some areas that are delightful, some where the garbage has piled up and areas where the smell of urine is strong and pungent.

I walked through the gate behind the taxi station (pungent) and had a choice of three roads. The most traveled by the most people was being worked on and had a long deep ditch down the centre which forced heavy pedestrian traffic against the wall. Another had room for cars. I opted for one that stretched off on my left, the road least traveled - but which had arches over it like the old city of Jerusalem. It was obviously the beginning of a residential area.

This was charming, full of women and children and they were obviously out to do the days shopping for food, as many had baskets of vegetables. Walls were natural pale stone or whitewashed, and many doors and details where picked out in blues - every hue from turquoise to cobalt to ultramarine. Faces came in many colours and while most women had their heads covered I was interested to see many African features in faces and clothing not quite so common in the Levant where I lived before. Many older women had chin tattoos and hennaed hands, and often I could see red-hennaed hair beneath a white traditional burnoose.

I am fascinated by old walls.

I am fascinated by the sense of history of old walls - especially where they are obviously internal walls where houses have been stripped back from the street. I was photographing a particularly beautiful piece of wall with layers of paint and plaster that moved through the curiously Mediterranean colours of ochre, turquoise, cobalt, pale apple green, and had ended its days as white. A friendly young man walked out of a nearby house, and greeted me. I said "hello" and smiled. I could see he was curious about the subject I had chosen to photograph and was trying to explain why I liked it. His English was better than my Arabic. He asked where I came from, and said "wait" and disappeared into the door in the wall that led to his house.

He reappeared with a woman who beckoned me in. I really liked the sensitivity that understood that there is no way in the world that I would have followed a young man into a house.

Inside was a pale painted courtyard, with two levels of rooms all around it. Upstairs had a balcony so people could lean over it to chat to those below. Downstairs had a simple kitchen, and two or three (I didn't want to peer) larger rooms with mattresses and seating. Karen was actually English, married to a Libyan. I was warmly welcomed, introduced to about eight people very rapidly. Her husband walked out of the bathroom wearing a t-shirt on top, but only wrapped in a towel below. He handled the fact that he had just walked into a foreigner while in a state of undress with panache, and stood to chat, gesturing heavily at some stages - enough to make me worry about the security of the tuck in his towel. I had a drink of water - pulled from the tap - Bob may kill me if it doesn't - and headed back into the souq with photos of the children and new friends.

Mosque with the green door

I found a beautiful green door, and the wall and minaret behind made it obviously a mosque. I knocked, and the guardian let me in. It was so pretty - not like the more stark and simple mosques of Old Islamic Cairo, this was decorated on every surface. It had simple marble columns throughout, and at the base of each column was a puddle of pale green worry beads for people praying to use. In fact, they are used like a rosary, and are very similar in form. I took about forty photographs. Every wall was tiled and there would have been twenty different designs. The mithrab was marble with twisting borders of inlaid stone flowers, the walls had stone carved borders at the highest edges, the ceiling was either pure white domes - at least fifteen - or beautiful dark carved and stained wood.

Spices of Arabia

While there are areas of the Medina which are obviously intended for tourists, most of the area is local - housing and shops with cheap dresses, toys, makeup, walls of hanging shoes that look like torture to wear, and marvelous spice shops with rolled back sacks of spices - and each spice priced by the kilo. There are things that we don't use as well as the familiar - like hibiscus flowers dried whole, from which a drink is made, called something like Khakadoura. It is a glowing ruby red, and for a while I thought I was drinking a sweetened plum juice, as it is rich and tangy and very fruity.