Friendship with a Libyan Gentleman

Oil facilities in Libya

In the British Airways lounge at Heathrow Airport, I laid down on a simple chaise longue for a nap.  It was a long layover en route from Chicago to Kuwait.  The gentleman to my right noticed the firm logo on my laptop screen, and initiated a conversation.  He was en route to Kuwait, too.  In fact, he was doing an expat assignment there for a multinational oil and gas company, and he welcomed a visit from me and my colleague to talk about what our consulting firm did.  We were glad for that.

He was a gracious Libyan gentleman - Khlefa - bright, friendly and articulate.  Before our visit, he invited us for dinner at his home, and we met two of his daughter in a rather spacious villa in a quiet section of Kuwait.  He hoped to return to London, but he and his family have a home in Houston, too.  At one point later on, he told me that his wife had had an accident in their Houston bathroom, and he needed to travel there to help take care of her.  We met once while he was passing through Chicago and another time in Dubai as well when I lived there.  

We must've met first in 2005, and as I write this I am impressed with how many conversations we had actually had.  It didn't seem like many at all, until now.  I had hoped to travel to Tripoli, and for a client engagement.  At my request, he sent me links and files about the oil and gas sector in Libya.  But I must've surmised that the prospects of such an engagement was a down-the-road thing, so I simply parked that information.  

In the meantime, Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown from the Arab Spring that swept Northern African and the Middle East, and was brutalized and killed by rebels in October 2011.  Then Islamic militants attacked the American diplomatic mission in Bengazi in September 2012, and the notion of consulting in Libyan receded further from my mind.  I lost track of my friend, but in recent weeks I thought of finding him again.