A revolution experienced 6,248 miles away

February 2012.

Nasser Almsmari arrived in the United States in 2010. The only Libya he ever experienced is a Gadhafi one. 6,248 miles away from his home, Almsmari still endures the aftermath of the revolution.

7:40 a.m.

The sun has not been up for long when Almsmari leaves his apartment. At the rear of his grey car, five inch icicles hung. His right hand turning the key to ignite the engine, his left one grabs a cigarette from a Marlboro pack. As he drives his way to the university, Nasser points to his bumper.

“It is not because you can’t eat oil that it is not a vital resource. Oil mattered a lot in the Libyan revolution,” Almsmari says. He takes a drag, blows the smoke out the open window.

“We want to sell oil, of course. But only to our friends, those who helped us rise up against Gadhafi.” 

1:20 p.m.

With a shy smile, Almsmari leaves his classroom. “I just had a test. Eighteen pages reading about George Washington.”

Next to him, sits Rajab Suliman, another student from Libya. Among the Greeley Libyan community, Suliman is more known as “Libya Online”, his pseudo on Facebook. The 33-year-old English student opened this page on the social network the day the Libyan Revolution began. 

Afraid of suffering backfire from his government, Suliman hid his identity behind an impersonal name.

“Staying here is hard when there is so much going on in your country. I wanted to create a link between my friends in Libya and those here,” Suliman says.

Today, different concerns feed the Libya Online page: news about gas, oil and above all the constitution of a new government.

4 p.m.

Before entering his apartment, Almsmari takes off his shoes and his wife, Amal, greets him in the living room. The room is small and has few personal belongings. It is occupied by a small table with four chairs surrounding it, a TV that stands alone on top of a cabinet with a cream couch and an arm chair which has no resemblance to the latter dispersed behind a coffee table.

In the big empty space two little boys play, running after each other.

The only personal decoration seems to be the tri-colored horizontal striped Libyan flag, centralized by a star and a crescent moon. Staring at it, Almsmari remembers the one he brought to an international meeting, before the revolution.

“It was the green flag of Gadhafi. After the Revolution, I felt freer to bring the one symbolizing Libya and not Gadhafi.”Revolution changed more than the color of a flag in Almsmari’s life. “Before, I would have never talked about politics. I was too scared that the government could reach me anywhere.”

Just before 6 o’clock:

Almsmari follows the news visiting websites such as Al-Jazeera, Al Arabia, Free Libya, and sometimes CNN. After a quick glance at his watch, he stands up and explains that at 6 o’clock, it is time for prayer.

Before leaving the living room, he remembers the first time he heard about the revolution in his country was through Facebook.

“Make this day be the day of anger” wrote one of his friends in Libya. It was February 17^th 2011. Since that day, Almsmari never stopped wanting to go back to Libya, “but the best way to help my people is to come back educated, knowing what democracy is,” he said.