Libyan Experiences

I have always wanted to share my experiences in life with my friends but thought not worthy of it, till my neighbour, friend and coffee mate encouraged me to Blog down the stories I had been telling him off and on. This is the first one .
In 1974 I went to Libya on deputation to serve in the Libyan Army, this was going to be my first trip abroad. I had got married only a few months ago. Maj.Abdullah Aswad who came to select the doctors from Pakistan told us not bring any thing except for a suitcase of clothes as we were to get a fully furnished accommodation. He also gave us the address to let him know of our arrival date so that arrangements to pick us up may be made. On 6th of Sept 1974 Shahla and myself left for Libya via Jeddah where we wanted to perform Umrah. Not knowing that i needed a special Umrah Visa to do that , we only got the transit Visa for 48 hours. How we performed the Umrah is another story which I will post later.
We arrived Tripoli two days later, to our utmost surprise there was no one to receiver us at the airport, the customs and immigration staff treated us as if we were not supposed to be there and were trying to sneak in their country,to top it all I did not know a word of Arabic and they only knew Arabic, all the signs at the airport were also in Arabic, with great difficulty we manage to come out and started looking for someone to escort us to our hotel, but found none. We were relieved to see Mazhar Hussain (one of Shala's cousin s working in Libya). With his help and his broken Arabic we managed to get a Taxi, and started on a hotel hunt. After about couple of hours and almost all the decent hotels in the city of Tripoli the Taxi driver dumped us at Mediterranean Hotel and refused to take us any where else. Here too we faced the same problem No room since we did not have any reference or any previous reservation neither did we have any local identification, I told the reception clerk that I will sit in the lounge the whole night and will get the letter from army in the morning,my newly wedded wife was very disturbed and confused at the whole episode. the clerk took pity on us and gave us a room with the promise that I will get the letter next day. We stayed in the hotel for almost a month and nobody ever asked for any letter or identification or any other document.
The next day I managed to contact Maj. Abdullah Aswad with great difficulty, a car was sent to fetch me from the hotel. I was told two things, i will get the hotel rent only for two days , No accommodation will be provided by the army, on my reminding him of his instructions at Karachi ,he sarcastically said ,"we gave the best house on the base to your General and he shifted to a private flat after a week most of the senior officer who came before me have shifted out so we decided to give you the money and not the accommodation". That was the end of the subject. I came back to the hotel with a long face with the letter to the manager to accommodate me for two days in the hotel on Army's expense,no body asked me for it and I continued to stay there.
Next day I resumed duty at the Army training center, I was guided to the commanding officer office, on my knocking his door he said "Naam" and I said Shamimuddin, nome thing happened and i knocked again and this time he again said "Naam a little loudly and i repeated my name a little more loudly,he kept writing something and did not even look up , so I knocked again this time more loudly and he shouted very loudly and rather angrily "Naam"and I replied in the same volume , he looked up and started laughing and called me in and told me that Naam means "yes". I was offered Coffee or Miranda (Orange cola ). I prefered to have Coffee, and was offered a small cup of black coffee and a glass of cold water, the first sip of coffee reminded me of most bitter medicine (Quinine) I ever had, thanks for the glass of water which helped me in swallowing the small amount of that bitter coffee that was the end of my coffee. I was instructed to sign the attendance register every morning at the CO's office. The routine began after signing the register I would be offered a drink of coffee or Miranda and then to work . After sometime one day my CO Capt Mustafa asked me that first day I had asked for coffee and never after that I had it again, I told him the reason ,to which he said that from now on i will only get coffee in his office to develop the taste , which i did and now I do not like coffee with milk or sugar.
Now the first day at work , after the bitter coffee I was guided to my room which was in a long trailer on wheels, there were a number of soldiers in uniform standing around , I was introduced to the guy sitting inside wearing a white coat over his uniform, since everyone was speaking only Arabic I did not understand a word , however the they all seem to be very friendly and polite. I was shown to my table and a chair placed in a small portioned room of the trailer, the first patient walks in and sits on the stool next to my table and starts telling me about his ailment in fluent Arabic, I did not understand a word......my nursing assistant comes to my help and tells me in broken English that the patients needs tablets for fever which was given to him.
the day passed and I saw a number of patients in the similar fashion , not knowing what the patients complain or ailment was what was the diagnosis leave alone treatment. After finishing the sick parade I totally felt like a quack. In the evening I visited a col luge of mine who had been here for a longer time, i told him about the morning, he laughed and said it happens to all of us, he then took out a note book and gave it to me,the note book contained the English translation of all the com man medical complaints like fever ,head ache etc, it also had the com man question written in Arabic but Urdu style, he told me that when a patient comes to me i should begin 'what is your problem " written in the book ,the patient will start talking and I can think of any thing i want,once he finishes ,then start asking if he has any of the symptoms mentioned in the note book , and give treatment for that. Thank God most of them were healthy and fit soldiers and did not need treatment, this went on till I learnt to speak reasonably good Arabic.