I have a job offer! Teaching English to young kids in Benghazi, Libya for six months (extendable on mutual agreement), accommodation and car supplied, an allowance for local expenses and salary paid in euros to the bank of my choice. I tell my friends not to be worried, Benghazi has been more peaceful than most Western cities since NATO saved it back in March. I would not go to Tripoli any more than I would to Baghdad but relatively serene Benghazi seems like a good bet in a country the Economist Intelligence Unit has pegged as the fastest growing economy in 2012.
I supported the Libyan Revolution from the beginning so it seems also like a good way of putting my self where my mouth has been. As I tell everyone who will listen (and no one has disagreed so far) Libya hit bottom and has nowhere to go but up whereas Greece is still falling over the cliff and no one can tell how far down the bottom is.
Am I anxious? Yes, of course. While I'll still be close to my friends and family in geographical terms, I will still be entering a society (and a line of work) that is radically different from any that I've lived in before. For example, booze is still prohibited in Libya from the Qadaffi era, the call to prayer will issue forth five times a day, pork will be impossible to find, Friday, not Sunday, will be the day of rest, and the people who staffed the Qadaffi regime will, for the most part, remain for a long time, until replacements can be trained, often by outsiders like myself. And, while I have taught individuals of all ages and small groups, I've never had responsibility for an entire class.
If any reader has been to Libya or has friends and family in Benghazi or has teaching advice about 6 to 12 year olds in a foreign language, I would be thrilled to hear about it.
Below the fold, I'll talk a bit about Athens and why this offer to work in Libya seems too good to pass up.