Parts of the town smelled of cumin, and parts smelled of myrrh. Rolls of brightly patterned fabrics. Baskets of dates. Copper pots and pans. Children’s toys. People clinging to the shade like lizards cling to the sun. We found a quiet little square, with a mosque at its centre, and sat on the kerb with our sketchpads. Mosques make interesting buildings to draw, with their combination of the curvaceous and the rectilinear, and their combination of the geometric with the organic, and their meeting of God and Man. The uncompromising One O’clock African light drew dogmatic lines on the dome, and blackened the crescent moon at the top. I tried to sneak a quick sketch of my beautiful wife, but she caught me at it too soon. I returned my attention to the more cooperative mosque. Occasionally, we piqued the curiosity of passers-by, who stopped and chatted pleasantly. A Scammel flat-loader truck rumbled into the square, chased by a surf of dust like a pack of dogs snapping at its tyres. Loud jangly music was barely audible from the cab, as the truck swung round, and parked beside us with its nose to the kerb. The driver killed the engine, the music as collateral damage, and clambered out. He looked at us for a few moments, scratching his head. “I live here.” I understood him to say, along with a few other phrases I didn’t recognise. My assumption was that he wanted us to get off his doorstep. I was perfectly willing to accept this as reasonable, and entirely in keeping with normal Western responses to finding strangers on one’s property. However, it appears I was mistaken. The driver continued: “Please. Would you like to come inside? I can give you tea.” We assented, and he walked over to the wall, where a sun-bleached, hand-made rug was hanging. He threw the rug aside, to reveal a rough hole in the wall. This, we all stepped through, one by one. “My name is Fowzi,” he said, “Welcome to my home.” We introduced ourselves, as children scurried to fetch chairs, and a woman hurriedly mopped the terracotta floor in our path, as if we were a couple of curling stones. This, I was to discover, was Mrs Fowzi. We were ushered into a bedroom just off the central vestibule. I noticed they took their shoes off on the way into the bedroom, so we did the same. “My mother.” He held her hand and smiled. She was sitting on a day-bed, in a voluminous dark floral dress, and a paisley head-scarf. He looked momentarily embarrassed. “I’m sorry she doesn’t stand up.” He lifted her skirts to show us the remaining stump of her amputated leg by way of explanation. She smiled and shrugged, easily brushing off the indignity. “I see.” I said. After much shaking of hands and introductions, I dared to ask. “Your leg. Was it a bomb?” This brought animated cackles from Mother. “No,” he smiled. “It’s because she smokes too much.” 
We spent a happy afternoon with Fowzi and his family. We were given tea, and various speciality pastries to try. When it was discovered that we were on honeymoon, more of these sweets were lavished upon us. Honeymoon in Arabic is “Shahr il asal”, which translates to “month of honey”, uncannily close to our own tradition. Accordingly, we were given honey-soaked baklava and rambaba. My enjoyment was so visible that Mrs Fowzi and her three daughters prepared a bag of them for us to take away with us. The daughters were learning English at school, and proudly showed us their schoolbooks. “I wish I had learned,” remarked Fowzi. “My mother speaks some Italian, though.” This made sense. She would have been around when Libya was an Italian colony. The girls busied themselves with Z, adorning her with henna and jewellery, and laughing with her. 
Back at the dock at 6:45, the guided coach tour to Ptolemais returned in good time for setting sail at 7:00pm. They waited patiently in the air-conditioning while the ship’s staff set up the hand-sanitizer stand, and stood with clip-boards to count the old dears off the coach. Over-polite jostling for position erupted here and there, fuelled by the urge to be processed. Old ladies flapped to remember which pocket their ship’s ID card was in. Old men tried to choose the right moment to don their panama hats while stepping out of the coach. Suddenly, there was a rumbling, and a wave of dust, and jangly music. Fowzi’s truck clattered to a halt between the coach and the ship. The girls hopped off the back of the truck to hug us goodbye as we climbed out of the cab. The man himself got out to embrace me and we patted each other’s backs, promising to meet again one day. “Don’t forget for your honeymoon,” the elder daughter giggled in English, giving the bag of sweet goodies into Z’s charge. Then they all got into the cab, and jangled off. We ignored the hand-sanitizer, and strode straight onto the ship ahead of the stupefied crowd. | 
