When I went to Libya, the U.S. had a big AFB there (Wheelus). Had some American school teachers on the base, some slot machines in a bar, and they served hamburgers and such. Hamburgers were almost as bad as Mickey D's. Later, I found out that the burgers were reportedly made of camel meat. It damn sure did not taste like beef.
In those days, I used to try to play golf. The greens were oiled sand and they were the color of oil soaked red sand. Now, I learned to hate golf with a passion trying to play there. If I ever managed to actually get to the "green" which was particularly difficult because I had a slice and a half and I had to aim at ten o'clock to approach 12 o'clock and that was on my good days...sometim es it was more aim at 8. Once around the hole, it was like putting on a twisted up pool table. There were actually guys that would get drunk and play for money. One had a better chance at winning at Powerball than being low score even if they were normally decent at golf.
Wheelus had a tv station but they showed reruns from the '40s, or so it seemed to me. I lived on the sea and often I could get stations in Malta, Rome, and Tunis...some days other European stations would also come in. TV is line of site so if there is no surface obstructions in the way, you can get good reception. In order to do better, I went downtown and bought an amplifier to put on the antenna on the roof. I got home and started to install it and it had no instructions in it. No one could figure out how to hook it up. I went back downtown and told the Egyptian shop keeper that it had no instructions. He said that instructions were extra and if I wanted instructions it would cost me another 20 pounds. I then knew why so many Libyans did not like Egyptians.
It was worth it later, because I stayed home one day and saw the first moon landing via Tunisian television. I watched a lot of tv after the revolution when the Libyans took over the Wheelus station. None of it was Libyan, however. Mostly from Rome. It had good looking women even tho I did not understand much Italian when it was spoken.
I lived a couple of kms out of town on the highway to Tunisia. The villa was a big duplex affair right down on the water. Each room was painted a dark color...living room was a dark blue with 12ft ceilings. Took a lot of paint to repaint the inside. I hired some guys from work to redo it. Instead of putting down tarps on the floor, they hauled sand inside and spread it on the floor to catch the drips. They did not understand why I did not like the color scheme. It was a four bed room villa and my bedroom was purple.
A couple of days after the revolution, I decided to try to get to work. I drove up to the highway and was promptly stopped by some "soldiers" that appeared to be about 15. They were equipped with a variety of guns and managed to get a couple of rounds fired off into the air. One of them stuck a gun in my face and asked something that sounded like-where the eff are you going? I knew from my neighbors that the curfew was supposed to have been lifted for daylite hours so I butchered up the Arabic and said I was going to work. I also congratulated them on the revolution and their new freedom with about ten new words I had learned on the tv the past couple of days. They were all happy and let me go. My room mate decided he would be brave and come out and go to work as well after he saw me depart. Ol' Roland was from Mississippi and he was still trying to communicate with the Brits and knew no Arabic. They pulled him out of the car, searched him, waved guns around, and finally let him go back to the house. It was two weeks before he would leave the house again. He did not stay there too much longer. I reckon they knew he was the guy that ate hamburger steak every night and poured a bottle of ketchup over it til it was completely hidden. I don't it was camel either. That was 1969 and I did not eat another hamburger steak until about two years ago. That ketchup grossed me out.
After all the hassles that we endured after the revolution, I missed Libya many times when I moved to Australia right after they elected a Labor government and some of them people absolutely refused to work or take orders. I often thought give me 70 Libyans and you all can go sit down. Other than work, Australia was a fantastic place to live in the '70s
