Wednesday 9 September 2009

Eating Harissa & Delivering Ice

What have these two to do in common one may ask?  Actually, they describe driving in Tripoli down to a tee!  You see Libyans love their harissa:  it's popular in North Africa and is a paste made up principally from chillies and garlic and like many condiments of it's type comes in a range of flavours from barely perceptible to rip your throat out and burn on the way out too. 
People that I know here use it to describe their mood and their attitude to things, if they say they have eaten a lot of harissa then they're hot under the collar.
Well, what about delivering ice???  Easy, it's used to describe a driver when they're in a hurry.  They're delivering ice, it's a bit of a reference to the fact that some numpty is doing Mach2 in a crowded road like Gar Garesh or overtaking and playing chicken with the oncoming traffic, who funnily enough tend to be accommodating and get out of the way of said idiots.  Self preservation kicks in.
Now, when you combine the fact that it's Ramadan, it's late summer, no food or water since very early in the morning and they need to get home for Iftar you can see how the two go together to describe the driving habits here. 
Driving, which is usually a fairly rough and tumble affair here has taken on the feeling of a full contact sport, so it's best to be off the road when people are trying to get home for Iftar.  The flip side of that is that travel to work in the morning and getting out and about when everyone else is indoors is almost a joy!
Even something like filling the car is an adventure, does this pump work? is this filling station open?  It's a bit like the Middle East, there's an African guy sitting at the pumps to fill your car.  Something else I should tell you, it costs about 10LYD (AUD$9.9 or US$8) to fill my car, about 65 litres, so there are a few things that are cheap here.  The picture shows the queue into the petrol station opposite the Thobacts hotel.
The moral of the story:   Driving and harissa are a bad mix, so cool off on the ice you're trying to get delivered.! 
Cheers
DADFAP

1 comment:

  1. Hey Daddyfap you will be telling us that you have to work as well next???? Send a picture of yourelf in your Thobe, Gutra and Agahl. Would be even better if you were sat on a camel if they can find one with strong enough legs!!!! Bye.

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