Notes From A Libyan Lurker - The Border

March 25, 2011

Tobruk, Libya – On the other side of the border the Egyptians had been more than happy to let us leave on this chilly afternoon. There were foreign workers waiting to get in who existed in a sort of limbo. Without money to return to their respective countries they crowded the parking lots surrounding the departure hall, which was littered with suitcases and blankets. A boy stood beside us bouncing a golf ball while Egyptian customs looked at our passports. Carrying our luggage, we walked the no man’s land between the Libyan checkpoint and the departure hall.

“Press card, press card,” said the Libyan border guard. I immediately slid a letter of assignment across the desk. “Press card,” he said again. It appeared to be the only English he spoke.

Guards like plastic things with PRESS printed on them. My friends had theirs, but I’d forgotten to make one. A letter from an editor, particularly if it’s written in English, isn’t helpful.

“No press card,” the guard said, shaking his head. He wrote down the information from my passport—incorrectly—in his logbook and handed the letter back. “No,” he said, shaking his head sadly.

I should have been happy. (Oh no, I can’t go to the warzone!) But it would have sucked to come all this way and be told to turn around. I stood there gesturing at the letter and realized how stupid I’d been. I have a press card saved on my computer. How could I have forgot?

Just then a man with a beard intervened. “No press card?” he asked me in English.

I pointed at the letter. It seemed so stupid now. “Just this.”

He exchanged words in Arabic with the guards. “You’re their producer?” he asked, pointing at my friends.

“Uh, I take photos and write,” I said and realized that I shouldn’t be contradicting his assumptions. “Yes, I mean. I’m the producer.”

A few more words from the guy, who was traveling with a major network, and I was being welcomed into Libya. A guy outside the office wore a Libyan flag as a cape over his trench coat. We were in Libya.

Despite a flurry of micromanaging emails, the driver we had arranged for didn’t show. Instead we caught a ride into Tobruk proper with someone else. We passed villages with Gaddafi loyalists. I noticed lots of crossed-out anti-Gaddafi graffiti. We hummed through desert scrub, dirt, sporadic brush, and litter. One of the first things I noticed was that Libya’s roads are smooth. The soothing motion of the car made my face tingle, and I crashed within a few minutes.

When I awoke we had arrived at an empty four-star hotel overlooking the Mediterranean. The internet was down and the nondescriptness of the place—the wind whistling at the window, the air conditioning humming through the vents—bored and reassured me. Cellphones don’t work. Satellite phones are sketchy. But cable television does. Al Jazeera and BBC make Benghazi seem like the party. The sounds of guns firing at a demonstration float across the water.

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY JEREMY RELPH