Day 6: Libya

   When I arrived in Tripoli (capital city of Libya), Libya it was early in the morning. I was very tired after the very long car ride. I checked-into my fancy hotel and went straight to sleep. I slept in to about 11:00. After that I went and ate breakfast near to the hotels lobby. It was called the ball room. It was very big and fancy. It´s paint job was amazing. I ate until I was full and then I went back to the hotel room and brushed my teeth. There was one thing that I kept noticing. The hotel workers said hello in a different language.  So I asked them what Libya´s official language was. They said it was arabic, but of course they have different dialects all over the country. I thought the language was really cool. After I was done with setteling in and cleaning myself up, it was 12:30. I decided that I would go help poor comunities and children.

   I drove over to one of the poor comunities in Libya. When I arrived there were other people helping them too. There were people putting together houses and buildings and lots of things to make their comunity better. I helped with building the school for the children who lived there.  I also went to a bookstore and bought some school books for the children. I bought history, geography and math books. They actually didn´t cost that much, they costed 2-3 libyan dinars per book. The total cost of all the books were 38 libyan dollars. I took a peek at at the books and actually learned something. I learned a little of Libya´s history and government: In 2011 after ruling far over 42 years Colonel Gaddafi was killed by rebels looking to over throw the government. Libya was then officially declared liberated and in July 2012, Libya elected worked towards democracy. The general national congress as the governing party. This was the first free election in Libya in over 60 years!

I also learned some of the Libyan religions: Most of the Libyans are sunni muslims, but there are minority groups of christians and buddhists. Even though only 0.3% of the population are buddhists, Libya has the largest concentration of buddhism in Northern Africa. This is primarily due to the Asians working in the country.

 I also learned some geography: Libya´s natural resources are oil, gass and petrolian products. Libya´s climate is semi-arid (very dry) and arid (very dry). The vegetation is  desert (sand and stones, very little vegetation), semi-desert (sort grasses and and drought-resistant scrub) and evergreen trees and shrubs (plants and small trees with leathery leaves). Libya is not known for their plant species, they only have 14 species! The Mediterranean coast and the Sahara Desert are Libya´s most well known areas. The Sahara Desert is a barren wasteland. Wasteland dessert areas are over 500 kilometres. They also have beutiful beaches on the coast, but if I want to wear a swimsuit I have to go somewhere private. Women do not swim without being fully dressed here in Libya. Libya also has productive agricultural zones when they grow crops like wheat and barley.

  It felt like I was only reading for 10 minutes, but actually I was reading for about 35 minutes. Woops... I needed to get back fast before people would start asking where I was. When I got back a couple people asked me where I was and I answered:´´Traffic´´. I walked over to the lady that was going to be a teacher and handed the books to her. She thanked me and strolled off. We kept working on the school, it was almost finished . All that needed to be done was to paint it and get the equipment inside. I was helping the poor people all day.  Once the school was painted we started bringing desks and chairs in. By the time the whole school was done it was already 21:00. We got it done pretty fast because there were alot of people helping.

   I was starving! I hadn´t eaten anything all day! I went to a restaurant downtown. There they served traditional African food. I had stuffed zuchini and bazeen. Bazeen is barkey dough served with tomato sauce, eggs, potatos and mutton. It was pretty good, but the stuffed zuchinis were better.

   My dinner costed in total 20 Lybian dinars. After dinner I went home took a shower, brushed my teeth and went to bed.