I was hoping to write today’s blog about the fall of Tripoli – maybe tomorrow. One line struck me in the coverage, though. They were interviewing one of the “rebels” involved in overrunning the Khamis Brigade military base just west of Tripoli and he was unarmed, just said he’d got a ride
The new Libyan leadership. Seriously, these guys.
with a friend to head into Tripoli for the liberation. So, I guess he picked up a gun there. They really do appear to be a ragtag bunch, no uniforms, their numbers measured in single or double digits, but not triple, and traveling around in the back of pickup trucks. Sure, they’ve had some assistance from NATO (O.K., quite a bit of assistance from NATO) but still, it’s rather surprising that such a motley crew is poised to take over a country.
Working on a translation at the moment and it’s quite frustrating. 12 years in this country and the language is still a mystery to me. Before you can look up a word in the dictionary you have to guess at what the root form is, because they have noun cases as well as verb tenses, like Latin or Russian. Thank goodness we haven’t had that nonsense in English for over a thousand years. One other thing I’m finding pretty difficult is there are lots of botanical terms in the text. I don’t even know what a rowan berry is in English – or at least I didn’t until today. I took a walk to clear my head from all the tangled verbiage of the story. Not far from us, there is a section of derelict buildings mixed in with all sorts of garbage and tangled growth and there I saw them. So, you learn something new every day.
I suppose it was bound to happen. As I go along on facebook, merrily adding “friends” who I don’t know at all in real life (I’m still a bit short of 2,000), I get several birthday announcements every day, but today was the first time (that I know of) that one of my facebook friends passed away. I’ve no idea what the proper etiquette is in this case. I didn’t know him personally, as far as I can tell I don’t know anybody who knew him. I feel kind of stupid and embarrassed, like I just wandered into a fancy restaurant wearing swimming trunks. Anyway, RIP Scott Wanberg. I’m sure you were a real nice guy.
That’s enough for tonight’s blog. Peace and love to everybody.
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