A Most Incredible Dinner - Wed. June 8, 2011

I simply must comment on a most incredible dinner experience last night.  And I'm not talking about the food, although that was "a whole lot of alright" too.  It was the people we had dinner with, specifically one of Roy's work contacts.  He is originally from Libya,  currently lives in London, was schooled in Florida (his English was probably better than mine!) and has a lot of experience in working in this area of the world.  Although his wife, kids and a few brother/sisters live outside of Libya (they are in the UK), his mother and some other immediate family are currently in Libya, specifically Tripoli.  He was very open in talking about the bombings that NATO has been involved with and he explained that the people there (~90%) are out on their rooftops cheering and celebrating every time they hear a NATO plane fly overhead!  They are hugely appreciative of the assistance NATO is providing.   And contrary to the reports coming out of the still very controlled media from that area, the NATO bombings have been quite accurate.  He is not aware of any real "collateral damage" and in fact explained that a recent media report showing a young 3 year old girl having been severely injured from a NATO attack was actually from a car accident she was unfortunately involved with (one of his immediate family members is a physician at that hospital).  It was almost comical when he explained the joking and celebrating that went on a few nights back when it was the most intense bombing effort from NATO thus far and coincidently it was Gaddafi's 70th birthday!

There are a huge number of people fleeing Libya into Tunisia, especially Tunis (the capital) where we are.  He mentioned that there is ~450,000 people who have fled!  The hotels here and throughout the country are fully booked and many Tunisians have opened up there homes to take in some Libyan refugees.  There seems to be a large respect and appreciation between these two countries.  And, now I know why it has been so difficult for me to shop here ... I am competing with 450,000 other visitors to Tunisia for household items, etc!  Geesh, what a time and world we live in.