New Year's Eve in Libya

Highlander is not the typical blogger. She is Arabic, based in Tripoli and has been blogging since just before the lifting of the United Nations sanctions on Libya back in 2003 - I know of only one other Libyan blogger who is based in California. Highlander who is well travelled and has also visited Malta, includes useful historical material and photos in her posts. Apart from representing a personal journey, her weblog helps to erase a number of foreign misconceptions about Libya. This is how her family spent New Year's eve in Tripoli, geographically speaking, the closest capital city to Malta:

So we had a beautiful thunderstorm. The lightning struck the electricity pole and of course no more electricity or light etc… which means no more TV, but also no more heating and no more water since our water supply in the house depends on the automatic pump system. When the heaters are off, the temperature in our houses drops at an alarming rate ( house are not really built to cope with extreme cold). So we’re there freezing (it’s -5 degrees outside) in the dark, listening to the sound of thunder ‘explosions’ outside.

Nice scenario eh? But that was not all, we had to put up with the howling wind with a gale force of I don’ know how much , but which was frightening enough to have put in my cousin’s head ( who was staying over at our house that night) the grim notion that a tsunami is coming to the Tripoli shores as well ( we live a 100 metres from the beach). She actually suggested that we go sleep on the roof ?!? what in this cold ? no way, let the tsunami come …