KEY POINTS:
In a cemetery in Tripoli, the capital of Libya, 12 Ghanaian gardeners are recalling the day they saw Phil Goff.
I must have looked a little doubtful because one of the team ran to the memorial cross in the centre of the Tripoli Commonwealth cemetery and returned carrying a wreath of Anzac poppies - signed by Phil Goff.
An ear-splitting crash of thunder signalled the arrival of a winter storm. We ran for cover into the small pavilions at the entrance to the graveyard. The rain sheeted down, almost obscuring the rows of marble headstones - the last resting place of Kiwis, Aussies and other Allied personnel who had died during the North African campaign of the Second World War.
Hail started to bounce off the grace. Two of the Ghanaians left their shelter and began to dance in the deluge changing "Europe, Europe".
"It's their dream to go to Europe and somehow hail is a symbol of Europe," my guide explained.
The men holding Mr Goff's now slightly soggy wreath were illegal immigrants. Tripoli is but a stepping stone in an arduous journey from their homeland in West Africa, through the Saharan deserts of Niger or Chad, that they hope will take them eventually by sea to the northern shores of the Mediterranean.
But in the meantime they were weeding the lush green lawns of the cemetery by hand. There was not a weed to be seen in the gardens that had been planted around the tombstones where pinks, succulents and exotic shrubs were thriving. It was immaculate.
Two days later I met Mohammad who tended the cemetery at Knightsbridge near the Eastern Libyan city of Ben Gazi. Unlike the Tripoli graveyard, this was close to the actual scene of battle.
Mohammad led me along an avenue of palms to the New Zealand section - the second largest contingent of war dead - there are nearly 500 Kiwis here.
I placed poppies in the damp, sticky clay around the tombstones of the young men from South Canterbury. Here, despite the parched climate, Mohammad had coaxed hundreds of plants into life.
The Knightsbridge cemetery is set on a gentle slope - at the top of which is a tall cross that overlooks the 3649 graves. Beyond them a rubbly plain merged into the Mediterranean blue. Around it the land still yields up memories of war - just down the road someone had built an entire house from ammunition boxes.
Mohammad watched me talking to the soldiers and then showed me a New Zealand grave in front of which was a cairn of stones. "They are from New Zealand - a lady brought them."
As I left the graveyard he said, "Tell the people in New Zealand that my wife and I look after their men. We talk to them everyday and we will keep caring for them and then our children will look after them."
In nearby Ben Gazi I picked my way through the mud left by another winter storm and down a set of steps into an underground room. A young man in overalls was mixing plaster. He was restoring the ceiling mouldings of Rommel's bunker.
Just down the road there was an Italian pizza restaurant - there were Chevrolets on the road and the wreck of a B52 bomber in the courtyard. Somehow the Ghanaians holding Mr Goff's wreath didn't seem so incongruous.
