member of the human race

don't you think that the Libyan traditional dress is so cute, its simply lovely.

amazingly enough when i was a kid i hated it, couldn't stand the look of it, the ladies dress that is, the mens was cool, but for some reason i couldn't stand the ladies 3arbee / irday.

i never realised that there where sooooo many different types, and they differ depending on what area your from as well, cool!!!

i only started liking them recently, not all types i have to be honest, some give the illusion of an over dressed peacock.

but some are totally funky, especially the Bedouin one (ph i am one at heart lol), my ultimate fav has to be the 3abroog with all that silver funky jewelery, yeh man...

i guess my hatred for it stems from the fact that as a 7 year old child, for one of the eids, my mums friend dressed me up in the whole 3arbee gear, including the helmet of gold,as well as the frontal gold sheild (loads of gold involved), then we went to the local mosque for a eid party, how traumatising, picture me in the whole gear, sat in a mosque in Scotland, surrounded by children from different ethnic backgrounds all asking me what i was wearing.

i couldn't even participate in the games because i couldn't walk, i had to be assisted as i had been wrapped like dolma. walahi if i had a scanner i would scan the pic, i looked like i was not impressed in the least lol.

after that episode of my life, the word 3arbee sent shivers down my spine. but i have gotten over that after much counselling ;)

seriously though, the past 2 years I've been to quite a few weddings and some of the brides looked majorly funky in there 3arbees, so yeh I've been converted, but in all honesty i would rather take pictures than to wear it myself. take for instance the picture above, it was so funny to watch her trying to walk, bless...

i remember one time at uni, we had culture week, and i decided that i would feature Libya as one of the cultures, so i booked an area and for a whole week i offered shahee 7amar, arabic cofee, ghraybah and ka3ak, as well as a gallery of photos and art work, and of course historical info including a section dedicated to the shaheed umar mukhtar and my friend bless her came in one day wearing a pink 3arbee and stood all day with me wearing it lol, lets just say we got a crowd going :)

my first trip to Libya was in 2002, my brother and i had gone through the Tunisian border, so my uncle had picked us up from Tunis and we drove to Tripoli, when we entered Tripoli it was eid morning and people where leaving there homes to go to the eid prayer, and cause it was cold some of the men where wearing jard, and the image of sun rise with an old man wearing jard and an old woman wearing irday was one of the most beautiful scenes i saw when i was in Libya.

wow that was quite a rant...