The Road To Misuraata

“The cemetery has not been used in the present regime, but the Bishop has told me to find out about this,” Carl told me one evening. So Carl went to Misurata, around 250 kilometers from Tripoli to find out whether there was a Christian cemetery there. The road to Misurata was hot and dusty that summer afternoon. Carl is a Nigerian sportsman who is trying to find a place in a more advanced football league. Everyone tries to reach Europe, but everyone is not so lucky. Everyone has heard of Ronaldo.
Not many know Carl.

“How much do you trust your manager who is saying that he will be helping in processing your papers for the football league” I once challenged his blind belief in the manager who has an interest in keeping him in the club, where he can take care of many things from playing for a pittance, training the local players to taking care of the garden of the club-house where he stayed. In exchange of being given a residence in the club-house, he would do some gardening and small caretaker jobs. He had the whole club-house to himself. But this can be lonely at times.

“The church is why I have remained in Tripoli,” he told how the support and feeling of community, the trips he took to the prison to try to help the prisoners, or the hospitals he visited to offer service to sick have given him a meaning and shape to his life. “Do you want to become a priest” a senior priest had once asked him. “No!” he had answered, though he helped a lot in the church, from arrangements for the mass, to the feasts or study groups. But he did not want to become a full-time priest though he did want to contribute, to give back to the community which had given him so much.

“What have you done for anyone other than what you were obliged to do as part of your profession” he asks the persons who come to his study group. That question set me thinking. And next week I went with a small electric kettle for an old lady, whose son is studying in Europe. “Her husband is dead. All her lovers are dead. She lives on, with memories” one friend introduced me to her. A small electric kettle was not much, but it was a good start to come out of one’s selfishness. I did not want to go to the next meeting and be only one who had done nothing for anyone. He was not talking about the service for which you are paid, which you are obliged to do as part of a job contract. He reintroduced me to the concept of selfless service, something which my family elders had taught me as a child, but something which had receded to the background in the rush to get some more savings, some more nice things to eat, some more “selfishness.” In this rush, one loses some important aspects of life. The joy of giving.

He did not want to become a full-time priest, just as he had once refused to join the armed forces when he realized that this would come in the way of his plans of playing football. He crossed the desert to come to Tripoli, and has been working through the local league, developing contacts and papers for being able to play in a better league. His association with the church has become more here, away from his home country where there were other ways of associating with the community. In Tripoli, the San.Francisco church at Dahra has been a nice rallying point for expatriates of different nationalities and sectors to come and join each other in prayers, hopes, aspirations. The collective aspirations and nostalgia of the working people from different parts of the planet.

Carl helps in this service and through different programs, like for the prisoners, drug addicts, sick, poor, prostitutes has come to help people find a better measure in their lives. He does some coaching to supplement his income, and that is how I first came to know Carl more closely. He is not a famous footballer or a celebrated coach or a revered social reformer, but in whatever he does, there is an element of grace and care. He would arrange the posts, introduced me to concepts of marking, to the way the Brazilian style differs from the European style, and what is one-touch two-touch football, or how to run short sprints and then stop or turn. These concepts can be used in many aspects of one’s life. “They need help” he would say with compassion about females who are forced into prostitution to survive, while others would pass snide remarks. He told of a lady who got caught in a drug case which landed her in prison and then he had to prepare her legal papers to show that she was married, before getting her released after two years of efforts. When one is marking, one should not give the other person space, he taught me. If one is tackling then there are many ways to tackle. He taught me about formations and how to hit the ball with a bounce, or straight from the air. And these things he would apply in real life, other than football. He paces himself and uses what he has learnt on the football field in real life situations, whether it is tackling a difficult prison official or a clerk who has sent him back for two times only to do so again. “Come again next week, the Mudir is in a meeting.” It is so easy for these spiritless people to turn a person away. But Carl never lost his smile and spirit. Leonardo Da Vinci said, all knowledge is interrelated. Knowing Carl made me realize a little better the truth of these words and what every school coach and commentator talks about sportsman spirit.

These were probably the reasons which made the Bishop choose him to go and explore the possibility of finding the cemetery in Misurata. “Have a word with me after the service” the Bishop told him one day. He walks with a slight limp and speaks Italian, English, and Arabic fluently enough to give sermons in them. “Yes father” Carl replied and after the service, met him in the back-stage. “The Italian cemetery at Gargarish is full and there is the issue of burial of the people who die. The dignity of the dead should be preserved.It is important to the community. You have to go to Misurata and find out” the Bishop entrusted him with this responsibility.

The Italian Cemetery at Gargarish has stories of the families who lived here and made Tripoli their home. Familia Bettucchi. Familia Ostuni.Familia Rozzi. The Greek and Roman families are buried here. Walking a bit further, there are some Philipinos. This is where the family of my friend Marino is buried. They are originally from Italy, but Tripoli is the only home this Italian has ever known. Walking a bit further is the Tripoli War cemetery. “F. Appleton. Royal Horse Artillery. 24th January 1943. Aged 27. In mind a constant thought, In heart a silent sorrow.” Then walking a bit further one can find hundreds of tombs of soldiers from the subcontinent. “Kishan Dayal. 10th Baluch Regiment. 10th September 1942. Aged 20. Om Bhagvateya Namah. This Hindu soldier of the Indian Army is honored here.” Dilawar Khan, 9th Jat Regiment, Aged 20. 6th June 1942. 17506 Sepoy Sher Zaman, 16th Punjab Regiment. 25th February 1943. Aged 18.


“How these persons must have come here, so far away from their homes, at such a young age and then never returned.” a friend reflected one evening as I showed him some of the photographs I have taken at these places which make us reflect on life and the waste of war.

These cemeteries are not in active use now. Where does the community then bury the dead? Carl told of the case of Wisdon Kerry, a friend who developed disseminated tuberculosis. The end was swift. “Take him back to Lagos. He needs nursing and family support base in addition to the medicines” the doctor who saw his chest x-ray told Carl. Kerry never made that journey. After he died, the burial was difficult. Every country has tombs for the unknown soldier. How about tombs for the unknown workers? Workers from all over the world, coming to work and build some part of life in another country, contributing to it’s progress and shaping. Some like Wisdon Kerry , never return.


***


One evening my friend Mali, a tall Arab, a Muslim, came back from prayers at Misurata. He had gone there with his car, carrying the still born baby of an Indian staff nurse. He ran around to the municipal authorities to finish the complicated paper work which is all in Arabic while the grief stricken parents in a foreign land wondered who will help them in this troubled hour. The embassy has a standard reply for any of the Indians who go to them for help, “You are not the only person, we have a lot of work to do and you came here after getting an Emigration Check Not Required (ECNR) stamp and hence are educated and qualified enough to fend for yourself. Please do not come to us. We are very busy!”

In such times, persons like Mali, help. Mali is the short name of Hemmali El Bribash, the tall black Libyan Arab, well over six feet, thin with not an inch of fat on him. He is a person with limited resources. He takes care of his bed ridden mother and psychiatrically ill sister, and due to this home situation no one is ready to marry him. He has no regular job. Once I told a friend who was complaining a lot to do a thought experiment and place himself in the position of Mali for five minutes. My friend realized the pettiness of his troubles and worries and immediately kept quiet. Not many would like to exchange their position in life with that of Mali.

But Mali is always smiling and willing to help. Like on that day, when he drove to Misurata. The Road to Misurata was hot and dusty that summer afternoon, just as it had been when Carl first went there at the behest of the Bishop. And only a person like Mali could have gone there. He found the Christian Cemetery which had been explored by the Nigerian footballer Carl, where Wisdon Kerry lies at rest.

Maybe, the world would be a better place with more persons like Carl and Mali.