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41. In Libya, at my first job was the only girl

Mary Genta

D fter graduating from an accountant in Tripoli, my first job was at the company's garbage the City, where he helped in the accounts.

At first I was the only girl among so many men, and I have good memories of that time because all the workers they respected me. I particularly remember the ritual of tea: there were always one or more workers employed only to prepare this drink for everyone else. I was proud because I was always offered first, but I was also proud to be part of their world.

The refuse collection service, was one step ahead, because there was already committed at the time (early 60s) sorting between the various elements in the landfill, and the party was prepared to make organic fertilizer, which then resold to farmers.

At that time I was in the office by bike, which I bought with my first paycheck. The office was quite far away from home and walked many streets with houses inhabited exclusively by Libyans. The most vivid memory is that of the Muslim festivals of Easter, Eid el Kebir , when each family sacrificed a lamb, which happened on the street. A torture for me because I felt the suffering of animals, so I pedaled trying not to look to the right or left, but had also heard his share. Mixed several Later, it was the smell to be involved with the scent of roasted meat on the embers, and then start the party!

In a country where people of all nationalities living together, knowledge of languages \u200b\u200bwas important to work. There was the boom in oil exploration and discovery of many important fields, our world and then expanded to the customs of other countries and other peoples. Living with local people has always been very friendly: as a woman, of course, the contacts were mainly with women and their children, but they were always reserved and never try to invade or to enter into our world.

to point out the story, I graduated in the capital when there was King Idriss of Libya, a time when the administration was no longer Italian. The Mayor of Tripoli was the Libyan Dr Caramanli, which I had studied in Italy. The most used language (after Arabic) was the Italian and Libyan spoke it all, so we were a little Italian pressed to learn their language. At school, the first grade, he taught Arabic literal, a bit 'different from the speech (a bit' as our dialect), but at least the root of words was quite similar.

So he learned to read and write in Arabic, but you could hardly do the translations that were no longer that simple. The numbers, however, I have been very useful in my first job. The accounts were held in Italian, but all had to be translated into Arabic, so there were double registration. The translation of the records of accounts, double-entry bookkeeping was done by a Libyan, and I took care of the entire transcript numbers. It 's funny to think that I, even many years later, in Italy, I continued to keep my small accounts, with the numbers in Arabic!