A Border Incident

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On one of our visits to the oasis village of Ghadames, two of our friends from the village wanted to show us some nearby ruins. They knew I had trained as an archaeologists and they thought the ruins might interest me.

We set off across the desert in one of their trucks. Sue, myself and Saleh squeezed into the front. Mustafa and Abdusalem sat in the back, with Dopey, our dog.

Mustafa had strict instructions to keep tight hold of Dopey's lead. Inevitably, though, as we hit a particularly large bump, Mustafa let go of the lead and Dopey leaped over the side. We stopped. Dopey stood and grinned at us. Then she took off across the desert. We chased her. She stopped. We stopped. She grinned at us. And then she took off again.

We played this game for quite a while.

Dopey Playing the Game

However, the game stopped when we almost ran headfirst into an army truck. An Algerian army truck!

Three extremely scruffy soldiers in Algerian Army uniforms got out of the truck and walked over to our truck. They had big guns. We were all under arrest, they told us. For illegally crossing into Algeria.

Saleh and Abdusalem were outraged. We were in Libya, they told the soldiers. And they said it was the Algerians who had crossed the border illegally and who were now under arrest.

Oh, no, said the soldiers. We were in Algeria and were under arrest.

Not at all, shouted Saleh and Abdusalem. It was the Algerians who were under arrest.

The arresting and counter-arresting went on for a while.

Dopey, a staunch patriot, played her part by crouching down and snarling ferociously at the Algerians every time our Libyan friends arrested them.

Eventually, everyone calmed down. We all shook hands. We all said goodbye. The Algerians got back into their truck and drove away.

"So was that an Algerian border patrol?" I asked Saleh. "Have we accidentally crossed into Algeria?"

"No, I'm sure we're in Libya. Well, pretty sure," he replied. "In any case, that wasn't an official patrol. They were smugglers."

"Smugglers?"

"Yes. Their truck was full of cases of whisky. They were smuggling whisky into our country. Algerian soldiers do it all the time."

I had long wondered how, in a country where alcohol was strictly prohibited, our Libyan friends' houses always seemed to be well stocked with bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label. Now I knew how they got their supplies.

BTW, as soon as the Algerians left, Dopey jumped back into our truck and sat there grinning, as if to say, "Now, wasn't that fun?"
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