Libya Trip Jan 2008

salam bloggers

well here it goes

i was in libya for 2 whole months and 1 week. i had the best time, a huge change from my days in Qatar. i left doha qatar at 8:50 pm jan 16. i went through dubai international airport and the story starts here. the libyan airplane got delayed 4 extra hours, so that meant i stayed in dubai 8 long hours. when the libyan guyz around me discovered that i was travelling alone, they adopted me for those 8 hours, feeding me and telling me to stay put where they could see me. haha i felt like a little girl. and at last arund 5 am we left dubai for bengo and it was an awful flight. the libyan airlines suck!! i got to benina airport in bengo at around 9 am, and of course my dear cousin jijo was waiting for me to get my luggage off the belt. i almost huggeed him, but held myself together. it was very emotional for me as we drove through the streets of bengo to my street. wow wat a feeling. of course i was staying at my aunties house, so he dropped me off there and the phone calls began. for the next 3 hours as i was unpacking my phone was ringing off the hoook. it felt soo good to be back. that evening my auntie and i went to my other aunties house, and had a nice evening. mazal i was gonna go to my dad's side on friday. that would be buzy. the next day i went from around 11 am just to find em all sleeping so i took my keys and opened my house and looked around. everything was just as we left it. all wrapped up and waiting for us to come back to. when my family saw me they were in shock. during my stay in doha i lost aroun 6 kilos, so it was a woooow to em. i spent the day chatting and hugging my cousin mona, my closest cousin to me. i went home to my aunties house and straight away hit the sack and slept like a baby. after that i spent the next week on campus hugging and kissing my friends, and i have alot of em, some guy walked passed me one day and said oh u should give the guyz hugs and kisses too! lol i laughed so hard. neways i went straight to business the following week, studying and catching up on missed lectures. my first exam was on feb.2 nd it was linguistics. it was good alhamdulilah. we finished exams on feb 12. and alhamdululah so far all my results are around 28 out of 30 which i am happy about. on feb 16 we took 2 weeks off for out mid year break. i went to weddings, hung out with my friends, went out with em nd had a blast. i didnt get bored not one minute of it. during the second week of my break, my friend koki and i went to dubai street, did a little shopping and had dinner at pizza house. we laughed alot and acted like we werent libyans just for the fun of it. i drove her home at around 9 and hung out till 10 then went home myself. i also met up with maya and a few other friends at mayas house. that was very refreshing for me..the only downside was that i saw maya only once, cause she studies at a different faculty, but i saw her sis on a daily basis, seeing that she studies in the same department as myself.

on march 2, my dads side of the family went to the family farm for a zarda. i counted the people that came, which were around 45, and thats only half of the family. of course libyan zarda's are all about food and gurma and just walking around the farm. we laughed alot and sat around the fireplace with the darbuka and sang and danced quite a bit. that was i day i shall never forget.

we went back to university on the 3rd of march. some people were surprised to see that i was still in libya, lol i was like i am going to find every excuse to extend my stay in libya. people were like u are crazy 3abtash but i said there is no place like libya, no place like home.

i had my research mid year exam on the 12th of march and it was good alhamdulula, it was a long presentation but 100% was the grade i got. yaaaay......... well after that it was back to studying. In between i would go to my aunts place and stay over, every couple of days at a house, seeing that i have 6 aunts on my dads side. on mailood i went home with my cousin and stayed for 3 days.

then the phone call came. my dad called me on wednesday and told me that on sunday ur coming to Qatar. that was the shock of my life..

i soo wasnt supposed to go back till never. but i had to come back to renew my residency and my canadian passport, so that when i go back again in a few weeks i can stay as loooonng as i please. when my friends found out, my friend kooki made a cake and called the guyz from the med school and they had this little bye bye 3abtash party. lol kooki said how dare u come and go like this. i need u..well u know what kooki i need u too...

the nite before i left, my cousin's friends invited me out for dinner as a farwell tthing. we went to a nice place called pisa that just recently opened in bengahzi, it was nice, lots of food annd laughs.

all in all i had a good visit. sure it had its ups and downs, its emotional times, fights and what not, yet i had a life again.

now i am back to being a bumb at home, well not really.

am studying hard, working on my grad project, exercising, and shopping. but the shops here have nothing i like so its a bit hard.

well here are some pix of the silly things my friends and i did...

no comment for em all..

enjoy

wa salam