A Goodbye Gift

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One of my students was a coppersmith who worked in the main suq (market) in Tripoli. He liked me because I had twice brought back from England for him some metalworking tools that he couldn’t buy in Libya.

When he heard that I was finally leaving Libya for good, he promised he was going to give me a very special leaving gift. I wasn’t very excited because I’d learned over the years that students’ tastes in gifts tended not to accord well with my tastes. (A typical example was the alabaster statue of Moses that sat on my desk in Tripoli. I felt it would have been more tasteful if it hadn’t been painted in neon colors and hadn’t been fitted with an electric light bulb.)

A week later, I bumped into my student in the suq and he insisted that I go to his workshop to see my present. I was amazed. It was a brass tray more than 3 feet across overlaid with copper and decorated with silver inlay. The quality of the workmanship was stunning. I could hardly believe it: A student gift that I would actually want to keep!

When I thanked my student, he told me that I couldn’t take the tray with me yet because he hadn’t quite finished his work. But, he promised, he would bring it to my office the following day.

He did bring it, neatly wrapped up in brown paper and string. He placed it on my desk. “Open it!”

I tore off the paper to reveal the tray. It was even more beautiful than it had looked the previous day. Except …

He had added a final touch. Around the rim, in badly formed 2” high letters, he had engraved “Happy bithday my frend my teachr Jeff”. (So much for my skills in teaching writing.)

I left the tray behind when I flew to England. This was a mistake. In many ways the tray was the perfect souvenir of, and a good metaphor, for Libya and my time there.