Libyan

The last coincidence in a long line of coincidences that finally makes you realize that the coincidences weren’t actually coincidences at all but rather your failure to understand something very clear to everyone else around you is usually the one that sticks in your mind. At least it’s been that way for me lately.

A few days ago I was buying some black and white beads at my favorite bead shop in the market when a man in the stall next door said hello. I had never met the man before and we quickly went through the usual greetings and a name exchange. This only happens about fifteen times per trip to town so I didn’t think anything of it until Bryan walked up and the man said something a wee bit odd to my husband. “Hello! I just met your wife. It’s nice to meet you as well.” He then asked the question that gave it all away. “So, are you from Libya too?” While Bryan looked at me for clarification I had one of those moments where dozens of other vaguely confusing occasions suddenly fall into place in a flash of blinding clarity (“Libya, how are you today?”; “Wait, where are you from?” or “You’re already half African”). We later explained the situation to a friend who laughed out loud at our story. “Libby” he said, “Your name means Libyan in Arabic.” Libyan. I am the Libyan. You may be wondering how in the world I couldn’t have known this before now. I’m wondering that a little myself. But there you go.

A second “coincidence” that I have noticed lately is what language educated men choose to speak to me. I have had a chance to explore this theory on several occasions too. Most recently it happened when we were introduced to a teacher at a local school. He was well dressed and carried himself with the kind of confidence I sometimes see in people who are well travelled. And despite the fact that Bryan initiated the greetings in Arabic, he replied in excellent English. Language is political, social and religious, and just like us, people here are often eager to practice languages they weren’t born into, so when the man shook my hand I complied with a general “Hello. How are you?” But to my surprise he overlapped me with a “Salaam Alekum. Inti kwaisa?” I quickly changed gears and answered him in Arabic before he turned back to Bryan and started into a conversation in English. This always surprises me but it has happened enough that I think it can’t be random. All I can come up with is that because women are typically far less educated than men in this country, if they are lucky enough to speak a major language at all, it will probably be Arabic and not English. I think that by default, educated men will speak to me in Arabic and my husband in English because he is a man. And I am a woman.

You might think that this subtle sexism would bother me (if that is in fact what it is). But on the contrary it delights me. For someone to first see my gender and not the color of my skin is so refreshing, even if it comes with a suitcase full of assumptions. When I run or go to the market or drive down the road, I hear “Khawaja, khawaja!” over and over and over again. And though it doesn’t always bother me, being constantly reminded of how starkly I stand out is not always comfortable. Which is why I am trying out something new. Lately I have been taking the time to stop on my runs to tell every mob of waving six year olds on the edge of the path that my name is Libby. I have told the fresh teenager at the butcher trying to sell me suspicious looking meat that my name is Libby. I have told the group of women balancing impossibly large containers of water on their heads as they walk past my house that my name is Libby. And little by little I think it may be paying off. There will probably never come a time when I won’t be called khawaja. But it’s the important things that I want people to know. That I am a woman. And that I am Libyan.