My kid went WILD!!!

Arabs LOVE children, and they have a LOT of children around wherever you go. It isn’t only their own kids, but the kids of the sister or Cousin Ali’s children or the kids of the brother's cousin’s aunt’s sister… so there are always lots of kids around. And those kids have got a lot of freedom, they can do whatever they want, run around wherever they want, eat however little or much they want in whatever style they want, sitting down or standing up or running around. Don’t get me wrong, most of the children I’ve met are very well behaved (in fact often they are better behaved than my very own wild donkey lately). The amazing thing is, that the older kids take care of the younger ones and they don’t mind having the younger ones around or telling them off now and then... back home the older kids always hate having to look after the younger ones. Well, our offspring though, isn’t used to that kind of freedom. For him it was a strange, foreign and fun concept, so of course he made the MOST of it (as I had dreaded beforehand). If you wanted to tell him off, other adults would tell you “Don’t worry, leave him be”. So no "NOs" whatsoever, no discipline, no limits, no nothing. He went WILD like a wild donkey!!!!

When we first arrived in the small desert town of Misdah, around 2 1/2h drive inland from Tripoli we visited a little school, some children sang a song for us and, of course, had some food. Next stop was lunch (at 3pm, normal lunch time in these parts of the world). I didn't have a clue (and still don't have) why exactly we had lunch at this guys place, no idea what the connection was and why we were there, but when we entered, he greeted us with “My house, is your house!” and Ned seemed to take it literately. He explored everywhere, picked up everything, ran around like crazy, went into the kitchen and spend some time with the ladies of the house (whom we only briefly met just before leaving), accidentally pushed a little girl over and just could not get the concept I his head, that in this culture you eat on the ground and that the table cloth on floor is basically the dinning table. Instead of going AROUND he’d run straight over it, in between the food as well as over it. Well, we weren’t allowed to tell him otherwise.

I think I've mentioned it before, but Ned loves fruit, I mean he really LOVES fruit (a friend told us that she’d never seen a kid enjoy eating fruits and veggies as much as Ned does). Well, there were these bowls of fruit. First he picked up an apple, took a bite and but it back in the bowl. Next he picked up a pear, took another bit and put it back again. After that he had a go with a banana. There was also a bowl with chocolates. I don’t even want to think about how much chocolate he must have had. Every time he came rushing in or out of the room he had another wrapper in his hand or some more chocolate smeared over his face. I didn’t bother trying to make him sit down and eat some of the yummy cuscus, thinking: “When in Rome, do as the Romans”. He also thought it great fun that everyone was sitting on the floor; “uncle” Ronnie made a perfect horse (I hope he didn’t damage uncle Ronnie permanently).

At one point I could hear our host laughing in the area where the kitchen and the back door was. Then he stuck his head back into the room and beckoned me to come out. I was dreading what would meet my eyes. Luckily Ned wasn’t in the process of destroying half of the house or anything the like, but he’d run outside (no shoes, only in his socks) and was busy throwing stones from our hosts court yard over a rather high wall to the neighbors’. The other kids and their dad thought it was hilarious (and Ned loved having an audience).

After lunch (I think it was around 5pm) we went to see the old ruinous city of Misdah and the little museum our host for lunch runs. He was very please to inform me, that the German explorer Heinrich Barth came through Misdah some time in the 1850s. He even owns the book “Die grosse Reise” by H. Barth in German, which was published some time in the late 1850s and is now out of printJ.

After the museum we went to another man’s home, this time I knew that he was a cousin of our friend Mohamed. Whereas at lunch we were together with the man, now us 3 ladies were ushered to the ladies quarters and what a sight it was. They were all dressed up beautifully in bright colourful robes and lots of perfume and make-up and we had tea and coffee with them. I didn’t even try to control Ned. He saw more of the house than I will ever do myself. He had some chocolate on our side then he would disappear and have some biscuits with the man just to re-appear in our quarters to knock over a glass of orange juice. Not bothered by it whatsoever he ran off again to do I-don’t-know-what, just to re-appear once more and knock over some coffee, step in it and run off again. Of course there were lots of other little boys around and at one point a maybe 5-year-old stuck his head in in a slightly alarmed and helpless manner saying something in Arabic. Honestly I didn't even want to know what Ned was up to this time and luckily they didn’t translate for me.

It wasn’t my first time in Misdah. Three years ago I came for a visit with Ben as well when Logos II was in Tripoli. That time I had such a great but also a bit of difficult time because I had such a aweful runny nose and I also couldn’t speak more than 5 words of Arabic and the ladies English is basically none existing. I still don’t speak more than 5 words of Arabic, but this time a German couple was with us who’d lived in Egypt for 15 years and spoke Arabic fluently. Conversation is SOOOO much easier if there is one person at least speaking both languages. But then another problem surfaces: what to talk about, lah! Luckily we had a baby with us (a very well-behaved baby that is) and he was, once more, passed around like an Olympic torch. When I finally got him back, he smelled very much of this very heavy Arabic musk perfumeJ.

Well, I neither really drink tea nor coffee, and that is something they really don’t understand here, how you can not drink it. When a girl passed around the coffee and biscuits I took a biscuit but declined the coffee. She gave me a very puzzled look and After finishing going around passing out the coffee she came back to me, just to make sure that I was in all ernest about not wanting some coffee. I made a mental note to not refuse next time… I guess I was very rude in their eyes or something.

Finally we went to our friend’s home and us ladies were welcomed to the ladies quarters. It was so nice to meet them again. There were lots of ladies and most of their names I’ve forgotten again. It is also very difficult for me to tell them apart because they all wore a headcovering, even though we were all ladies. I knew Mohamed’s wife, and I also remembered her sister but I could not remember anyone else from my last visit. Well, they did!! They remembered my runny nose and they were very quick to inform me that I had changed, that I had grown fat… maybe having no translator would be better for my self-esteemJ… ou well, I try to loose my baby fat again, but it is easier said than done. One girl also insisted on speaking Arabic to me, following me around, I tried to sign to hear that I truly and honestly didn't get a word she said. She'd only repeat what she'd said before, but this time slooooower and clearer and louder, as if I was deafJ.

Mohamed has two sons (and a baby daughter), and this time they were the only children besides Ned, but he gladly joined them in running all over the house. I thought he'd either drop dead soon… or he'd start crying because of over-tiredness. I would have loved to put him down to sleep, but had no idea what the sleeping arrangements were, only that the men would be with the men and the ladies with the ladies… they also said to let him run until he'd fall asleep(while running??). Well, I tried to do just that. At 10:30 pm out little guy was so blown through the wind that he only cried and cried and wanted his daddy. As all the ladies had their headcoverings in place he was allowed in and went to the room where us three ladies and my two boys were to sleep. After a while he finally fell asleep. Ced was also finished with his bottle and laid in his little travel cot, when all of a sudden out of the blue, he puked, like a little milk fountain, the content of his entire bottle. Great!!!! After I had him clean again they both were in bed and sleeping FINALLY.

To be honest, I was ready for bed myself, which was not to be though. My two companions were to be dressed up in a beautiful Libyan traditional wedding costume (I wore it last time already) AND there was still the henna tattooing. In a way I really wanted to have one but the time factor made me a bit unwilling: it takes quite some time to be put on, and after that it needs to dry for 3 or 4h. Just when I decided to give it a go, I heard Ned crying in agony. It took me forever to calm him down again. He wanted daddy. I told him that daddy was with the men (REALLY disliking segregation VERY much) and we couldn’t go over there. He did calm down after quite some time, but would not go back to sleep. At 1am I gave up. Although my two friends had gone to bed by now, I saw that some ladies where still up in the other room, so I grabbed Ned, went over there and had my henna tattoo done. It is quite pretty and in retrospect I’m glad I did it, but a couple minutes after starting with it I started to doubt my own sanity again. First they stick a big sticky pattern on your arm, then they tape the edges down with cello tape or something, after that a thick layer of henna-mud gets put on, it then gets covered with some paper towel and wrapped with a scarf. Then you’re suppose to go to bed, lay on your back and hold your arm very still for about 3 or 4h. It started to feel quite uncomfortable already quite early, in fact it started to feel strange when they stuck the pattern on. I felt like somehow my nerves were doing funny things and my finger tips started to tingle.

Well, I did go to bed, but oh what a night. Ned finally went back to sleep, but only with me next to him. I had to lay on the side where I had the tattoo and every time I made an attempt to turn on my back, Ned would wake up and start screaming again. So I lay on my side almost the entire rest of the night, trying not to move my henna-tattooed arm too much while I slowly felt that my blood circulation was cut off and the nerves continued to do funny things.In my comfortableness I came to the frightful conclusion, that at the end of this night I would “wake up” to find my arm having died off and being black or blue, but at least with a red henna-tattoo on it. I was on the point of walking back to the ship right there and then. Well, the night did end, I did get some sleep (maybe 2h hours), and boy was I happy when I discovered that the beautiful henna tattoo was on a still normally coloured and fully functional arm. Unfortunately Ned woke up with the same aweful cold I had three years ago (they will always remember us as the family with the runny and snotty noses). The night was rather dreadful but we were rewarded with the most amazing fresh Libyan bread for breakfast, freshly backed outside in a special kind of bread oven.