This made the presence of some very still people particularly striking one summer Sunday. As the drummers jammed and the crowd around them swelled to a grooving mob, Jared Pearman sat cross-legged, eyes closed, on a patch of grass just twenty yards away. His wife of a few years, Caylan Ford, sat at a folding table set up beside him. She held a similarly serene expression even as she kept her watchful gaze on stacks of flyers arranged around her: Stop Torture in China! Protect Human Rights!

The table shook with the thrumming of the drum circle, and the flyers flapped in wind threatening a thunderstorm that never came, but Jared and Caylan sat motionless as the trunks of the trees around them.

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March to May: Honey and grapes; olives and dates. Libya in bloom.

August: Late sunsets and live shows at Cyrene's ancient Odeon. High season? High times.

November to December: Winter sun, ocean breeze. (Wear a headscarf or wrap your ears tight in a tagelmoust.)

Excerpt from the "Lonely Planet Guide to Libya, Third Edition." (Unpublished.)

*****

1. Springtime in Ajdabiya, Libya

April 2011

"Get over," the armed rebel fighter screamed. "Get out of the way."

His checkered scarf danced in the hot wind. It was early evening and he looked tired. Five o'clock shadow dappled his cheeks.

We stood there for a moment looking over the dusty hamada, the Libyan rebel and I, at the final outpost on the way to Ajdabiya; the last point before the road winds west to the front line.

Then he screamed again. "Move."

His cries were not directed at me but to a pair of girls playing in the middle of the desert road, a truck headed right for them. They ran to the edge of the strip and tumbled into a narrow ditch, laughing, as the pickup plowed down the road, its chassis tattooed with rebel graffiti tags, its wheels tearing up the freedom flag that fluttered into its path.

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