Love at Shara Zawia

It had rained the whole night and the roads were wet and slippery. Winter rains with a blend of sea breeze. It had been a busy night shift for Emily. She crossed the road –Shara Zawia and entered the residential block made in the eighties for expatriate staff and a bit ill-kept now, in front of the oldest and largest government hospital of Tripoli-known as Mustaspha Markaizi (Central Hospital) or just Shara Zawia, (The Zawia Road). If you tell a taxi driver to take you to Shara Zawia, they know very well what you mean. The residential complex which has medical workers from different nationalities is popularly called Pasaoti named after the Italian architect who designed it.

After a day’s work, when one goes to Shara Zawia, turning to the left after a long breath meditating on the minars of Jama Mulai Mohammed, the Turkish built mosque in front of Central Hospital, walking past the Ukrainian airlines office and then turning left again into the gates of Pasaoti, and looks at the walls of Central, one assimilates many different currents of the collective work which has gone in building this medical institution over the decades.

The palms and pillars of this Italian built hospital remind one of the English built hospitals Hardinge in Delhi or KEM at Bombay or Reading at Peshawar. Walking past these walls, letting the breeze from the palms come across, appreciating some of the lights, thinking of some patients in the wards and assimilating the currents which flow with these feelings, memories and views, one gets a better feeling of what it is to be a medical worker.

In the Italian period significant public structures were commissioned in Tripoli which changed the city with the expansion from the centuries old Medina Kedina. This was a period of not only European architecture but also of unique hybrids created by fusing the elements of Italian with the local Islamic architecture. Most of these colonial buildings are still standing and in use. Italians also helped restore and sometimes deface some of the old historical buildings.

Through one’s work, one meets many interesting people and comes to know many different cultures. The Philipinos throw bottles down the balcony to celebrate new year. Saeb , our Jordanian manager who was once married to a Philipino did the same, standing on the balcony of Emily, the Philipino staff nurse who has lived in Tripoli since 1982, and married a Libyan.

What does Robert mean to the community in Pasaoti? The Libyans say he is ours, as his father was a Libyan. The Philipinos are proud of him, so tall and handsome he has grown.

“ He has the height of his father� one old friend said. “He was a very handsome tall man� one other friend told of Muneer, who was an air force pilot. They met, and fell in love, Muneer and Emily. They went to Morocco for their honeymoon and marriage, one other friend told, sitting up in the wee early hours of a weekend party, remembering those days, almost two decades ago when they went to the land of Ibn Battuta, the great traveler of many centuries ago.

The Moroccon traveler and writer Ibn Battuta who was born in Tangiers 1304 set about traveling in 1325 for about thirty years, and returned to Fez, Morocco, at the court of Sultan Abu ‘Inan and dictated accounts of his journeys to Ibn Juzay. These are known as the famous Travels (Rihala) of Ibn Battuta. He died at Fez in 1369. One description of Ibn Battuta writes about the intimate touch which Ibn Battuta’s works have. Histories and biographies there are in quantity, but the historians for all their picturesque details, seldom show the ability to select the essential and to give their figures that touch of the intimate which makes them live again for the read. It is in this faculty that Ibn Battuta excels.

In order to experience the flavour of Ibn Battuta’s narrative one must sample a few extracts. The following passage illustrates the system of social security in operation in the Muslim world in the early 14th century:

“The varity and expenditure of the religious endowments at Damascus are beyond computation. There are endowments in aid of persons who cannot undertake the pilgrimage to Makkah, out of which are paid the expenses of those who go in their stead. There are other endowments for supplying wedding outfits to girls whose families are unable to provide them, and others for the freeing of prisoners. There are endowments for travelers, out of the revenues of which they are given food, clothing, and the expenses of conveyance to their countries. Then there are endowments for the improvement and paving of the streets, because all the lanes in Damascus have pavements on either side, on which the foot passengers walk, while those who ride use the roadway in the centre.�

Muneer and Emily had gone to Tangiers to register their marriage, as many foreigners who marry in Libya do.
Emily does not like to talk about these things. There is a deep quietness inside her where there are a lot of memories. The social security system which Ibn Battuta talked about several centuries ago, does not exist much for foreign workers who have lived and worked in Libya. Here, they just give you the salary and the additional benefits like social and health insurance, gratuity are not there, and even when they are there on paper, the corrupt layers of bureaucracy thwart any attempts to get these, even for workers who have spent the best years of their lives here.Another aspect is the lack of proper education.

“Robert was so small when Muneer died suddenly. He did not even know what it meant for a father to have died. Mama-let me play a bit. I will come later,� he told Emily when she told Robert that his father had died.

It had been a tough night, with injuries-stabs and road accidents, and Emily had not had time to even sit down. But she will not be resting much in the coming hours. She has to start the next shift of her work-at home. The cooking, washing, cleaning cycle which she has made into a routine, trying her best to give the best possible for her son, Robert. He was sleeping when she went to duty. He is still sleeping when she came back.

“I have to get him into a study routine. His friends and companions are not very studious� she speaks in a worried tone as she sees her boy crossing ten.

There have been difficult times, but she has pulled through. Apart from nursing, the managers and administrators make her do secretarial work. They do not pay her for that. But she cannot say no. But then, they allow her to retain her accommodation and do not let the difficult wardens come near her.

“They are even selling flats in Pasaoti� she told me one day. “You have to pay a deposit of a few thousand dinars, and only then the allotment of the government accommodation is done. Thankfully, they have not yet touched me. But I have heard that there is a new warden and he is going to make trouble. I will have to speak to our director. Last year, I typed four Thesis and six scientific papers for him. Hopefully he will remember that and not let the new Warden come near� she said, sipping some tea, before going to her washing machine. “This is the second lot of clothes I am washing� she told, while offering some shrimps and prawns which she had cooked.

Sometimes smoking Regilla (a smoking pipe with scented tobacco-similar to Hookah of the subcontinent) would help go through the cold winter nights, eating salads made in different styles, depending on the country of origin of the person making the salad. At others, we would just sit and discuss the nuances of medical management, and through her experiences with different doctors of different specialties, trained from different universities, one would get a window of what is going on in the mind of these medicos.

Another concept she talked about is of the architecture of the medical institutions of a city. When you visit a city, go and have a look at the health care institutions. It tells a lot about the place. The traditions. The lay-out of the hospitals. The landscaping. The in-patient and out-patient departments. It is an interesting thing.

The medical institutions are the largest. Even the big banks or administrative offices of government are not as big and grand as the medical institutions. And as you grow as a doctor, feeling the air of different hospitals, and remembering the past canteens where you have sat and sipped tea, is a great feeling.

Being a medic, one can see the world through the eyes of other medicos, or through the eyes of patients and relatives. Seeing the hospitals through the years. Talking to old staff that has seen different times gives insights of the years gone by and how the services have taken shape, through the cumulative work over the decades.

They talk of the times when one Yugoslavian Orthopedic surgeon started the Trauma wing. “He used to go for morning swims by the sea, be it winter or summer� Emily told one evening, remembering the tall stern man, with a kind heart. He was very strict when it came to patient-care, but would go out of his way to help when it came to taking up our issues with the administration. That is why we respected him, though at times he could get very angry on the rounds.

Or the story of the director who had two wives, one German and another Libyan. He was a drunkard and one day the police came to catch him. He came to our ward and told me to put a saline drip on him and pretended that he was a patient. The police searched the whole ward but could not find this “director.� He is a brilliant doctor, but has some weaknesses. It takes all types to make the world.

Life throws up many questions. Questions without answers, or rather incomplete several answers. There is no one answer to many of the questions life throws up. This is true of the life of Emily, true of every life, of the lives lived in Pasaoti which the Italians built or the hostel night debates in the British built medical campuses of the subcontinent. One learns as one talks, listens, interacts and assimilates the concepts of time-scales and themes of practice.

When it rains in Tripoli on a winter night, some very potent memories come alive.

Sitting on a balcony, watching cars rushing past while we sit and watch aeroplanes fly off the military base at Mehtiga. It was an American base in the forties. There are some friends in Mehtiga who come to Pasaoti for parties. And at times the Pasaoti group go to Mehtiga.

Life throws up many questions. Sometimes one cannot postpone the answer. Like the day when Muneer died. There was a finality about it. What would happen to Robert? But Emily stuck on, against all odds. Petty jealousies of even some of her colleagues, did not make life easy. Sarcastic remarks and pricks, but these were nothing in front of the goals she has planned out for her son-Robert.

“Take special care of this patient,� she told one day, especially coming down to the ward to speak for a fifteen year boy. “He is the son of Robert’s uncle.�

That day, I suddenly realized this aspect of her life, her extended Libyan family. Robert’s Libyan cousins. “Do they ever come and ask about your welfare, how you are bringing up Muneer’s son� I ventured to ask, a bit hesitant at bringing up a sensitive topic.

“No� Emily answered, her eyes watering up. “No one asks. They only remember me when they land up in some medical problems. But it is alright. That is the way the world is,“ she said, showing a largeness of heart which comes through following a profession and life of nursing.

“There was a lot of resistance when Muneer and I decided to marry. There was even further resentment when I bore his child. Both my family and his boycotted us. But today, they say-Robert is our child. But I know how it is to bring up that child. Things were not easy after Muneer died. “

“They never came for his vaccinations. They never called up for his birthdays. They never asked me from where I would arrange his fees. But it is alright.�

That is the way our world is, living our selfish stereotyped shallow existence and just dropping by when in need. Shameless and selfish. But she just smiles and helps them all.

“Please take special care of this patient,� she repeated. “He is the nephew of Muneer, � She has not forgotten Robert reminds her of him in every breath of his. Does a person die? A person keeps living on, way beyond the physical existence, which is fragile. But the psychic energies, emotions, live on, for a long long time. There are some footsteps on the corridors of Shara Zawia which echo back through the decades, when a young handsome pilot would come and wait at the canteen at 11 o’clock in the night.

“When Robert was small he used to come to me and cry when the other boys would beat him. But now, no one dares to even come close to him,� Emily spoke with pride. “He has grown taller than you. You will not be able to recognize him�

“For his future, he has to go to Manila. He is getting spoilt here, and there is no proper atmosphere for studies or future build up� she said last year, getting Robert on the flight to Manila.

“I took him to Rizal Park, Manila, overlooking the bay. He should know something of the history of his motherland.� Emily talked about her brief visit to Manila which she made to set him up at his aunt’s place, get admission and say goodbye.

It was painful, but it had to be done.

He was born and bred in his fatherland, and now as a teenager he sees the monument built in the memory of Dr.Jose Rizal, who was executed on December 30,1896. The area is shaped like a small moon (lunette) and thus was named Luneta. The park was also called Bagumbayan (English: New Town) in the Spanish colonial era, and later known as Luneta. It was here that the Declaration of Philippine Independence from American rule was made on June 4,1946. This was a part of Robert’s roots which he is gradually becoming aware of now, staying with his aunt and studying in a convent where the strict regime and studious environment will help shape a brighter future.

“I sent him a transfer of 500 dollars this month. The fees is due the next month. He is naïve in many ways, and does not know how to face the peer pressure. Last week his friends took him out for a party and he had to pay for the treat of the entire batch� she said, worrying about her finances.

“Mama, I was shy of telling them no� Robert said over the phone when Emily pointed out that she is working on a budget.

“I will not send the money to him directly from now on, “ she mused over a cup of coffee, sitting on the terrace coffee shop, feeling half worried and half helpless over the way things are shaping up.

The immigrant veteran single mother in Emily has carved some personal and social attitudes in a bid for survival and growth for herself and her son. There have been adjustment processes from the time when she first came on her job, then got married, became a mother, then a widow, nurturing a toddler, then a young school boy at home, and now a teenager studying and supported from a distance. The prism through which people view her and she reflects on her own life, without the stable central role of a family in a foreign land on the issues facing her and her child.

“Who are my family ? “ she asked one night.

“My long term colleagues who are in similar situations? My sisters back home? Each one understands things in a different way, but no one is able to or even tries to see my whole story from my perspective. But I have to survive for the sake of my son.� She mused over the different pulls and pressures, patronizing relatives giving advice or disinterested ones pouring sarcasm.

The family base back home views her and her son in a different light. The dynamics of differing social attitudes, both in the foreign land and her home country towards her and her son affect personal and perceived social attitudes significantly.

Who are my family? Family of man? The paths of life can be more slippery than those of Shara Zawia after the rain.
Sipping at her Regila on a cold winter Tripoli night, she remembers her visit to Tangiers long back. It is time to say goodnight, and prepare for the next shift at Central.