Us Verses Them

I am constantly reading Libyan bloggers writing about how EASY my life as a foreigner married to a Libyan is here in Libya . It makes me laugh ! If it is not about how easy our lives are , then it is about how bad we foreigner women are as wives to Libyans and our children are so non Libyan . I believe this is just pure ignorance on their part . Maybe because they don't really KNOW any of us ? Or they are too prejudiced? I can't make my mind up which it is because I like to try to give people the benefit of doubt .

What I do know for a fact is this .... our lives are dam hard . Real hard , harder than you can imagine at times . We don't have our mothers and fathers to protect us when our husbands and/ or their families decide to mistreat us like a Libyan woman would . Nor do we have a safe harbor to run to when things get bad or ugly . No place or no one there for us to go to , to listen to us and our problems . No helping hand to reach out in love , like a Libyan woman does . No , we just tough it out .We stick to it . We don't run away . We stand and fight for ourselves and our children for all we are worth , in whatever manner we have to defend ourselves by .

We do this because of love . Love , yes love . We love our husbands , even when we want to kill him . We love our kids , even when they disrespect us or are ashamed of us because we aren't Libyans , because we are different .Yes that happens to some of us . Love of our adopted home , Libya and all Her crazy , strange ,beautiful, wondrous , people , places ,and things .

My hair is blond . My eyes are blue . I am tall . I am fat .I speak terrible Arabic . I don't wear the Hijab . I wear short sleeve dresses or blouses, and slacks too . I drive a car , alone , at night . I listen to loud rock and roll music . I believe it is ok to have a dog as a loving pet , not just cats , even though I have a cat . I believe my children have the right of freedom of choice as to what they want to do with their lives with out too much interference from Moe or I . I believe it is their lives to make their own mistakes as adults . I believe that Moe and I have a sometimes one sided partnership that sometimes works as compromise , lol . Sometimes .

But despite all this , I live here in Libya because this is my home . My home where I bore 3 of my 4 children . My 2 sons did the army thing or pubic work for their country .One is buried here in Libyan soil . I became a Muslim here of my own volition 13 years ago , after saying for 20 odd years I would never change my religion just to make some people happy . I did it for me .

I know of foreigner women married to Libyans that have been beaten by their husbands .Women who were locked up in a room for years without outside contact with the world , to lose their minds .Women who have been sent out to work to support lazy husbands that refuse to work . Women who had home delivers because their husbands refused them doctors care . Women who went hungry so their children would have food to eat because they were so poor . Strong , brave ,beautiful women that lived like this because of their love for their husbands and their children .

They gave up their homes , families , friends , culture ,and many times their freedoms to live here in conditions that a normal Libyan women would refuse to live in .Imagine not being allowed to speak your own mother tongue . Can you imagine that? Or having no indoor plumbing ( yes there was a time when it was like that here ) and you had to go outside behind a cactus plant , where the snakes where waiting for you .

On and On these stories come . I know that Libyans too have been mistreated this way , as well as foreigners, but they have families to help defend them . We don't . This too has happened in foreign countries to women . It isn't just here in Libya , women being mistreated . BUT..... I just wanted to let you know that not all foreign women married to Libyan men are living in the laps of luxury and if they are , the chances are they worked to make it luxurious , sacrificing much to get it that way by hard work .

So , the next time you see a foreign woman married to a Libyan , know this , her life IS NOT A BED OF ROSES AS YOU THINK IT IS . That is just a myth . What you are looking at is a woman that is loyal , strong , hardworking , sacrificing ,and willing to give everything up for her love .