Strange Bedfellows

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Elsewhere in this blog I have mentioned that one of my favorite places in Libya was the oasis town of Ghadames, some 300 miles southwest of Tripoli. Sue and I visited Ghadames several times but one of the visits sticks in my mind more than the others.

It was just before the beginning of a school year and a group of new teachers had arrived. Wanting to start them off with a positive impression of Libya, Sue and I decided to take them down to Ghadames for a brief vacation before school started.

We drove down in several cars and arrived at the hotel – there was only one hotel. The manager was pleased to see us but said there was a problem. He had only two rooms available rather than the five we had reserved.

After some discussion I suggested that the only solution was to put me and the three male teachers in one room and Sue and the six female teachers in the other.

The manager was horrified. He explained that he daren’t let so many unmarried women guests sleep in a room without supervision. 

I pointed out that my wife was going to be in the room and that she would supervise the other women.

“Mush mumkin (Not possible),” the manager said. “Because she is a woman, too.”

His solution was that I should sleep in the room with Sue and the women. I was, after all, the school director and therefore presumably in loco parentis. 

It didn’t seem like a very good solution to me but the manager was insistent. So I spent the next two nights sleeping in a room with seven women. That’s something I’ve never done before or since.
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