Category: Yemen

My uncle just had a heart attack a couple of days ago. He went into the hospital complaining of chest pains and subsequently had the attack while he was there. They took care of him, installed a stent, and it sounds like he’s doing OK. If you’re going to have a heart attack, having it in the hospital is probably the best place to do it…

I started thinking about what would have happened here. People tend to avoid the hospitals here, and for good reason. I have yet to hear of a good report of any hospital here, and the amount of questionable medicine practiced here is unbelievable. If someone felt chest pains, they probably wouldn’t go to the hospital. If they had a heart attack, they would just have to pray that they would survive it. Even if it happened in the hospital, I’m not sure there’s too much that they could do. I’m pretty sure that installing stents and angioplasty are out of the question. My teacher’s uncle was in really bad shape, he needed heart bypass surgery but get this, they don’t do that in Yemen. Bypass surgery is serious stuff, but it is fairly common in the US, it just isn’t done here. They just don’t have the expertise. Luckily for my teacher’s uncle, a team from Europe was here to train people, so they used him as a teaching aid.

We moan and gripe about our healthcare in the US, but the fact is that a homeless man now can receive better care than the president of the United States did in the 1950’s. We’ve come a long way, and Yemen has a long ways to go…

I had just started to get into the swing of Ramadan. I got used to the idea of not drinking or eating outside, I even switched my sleep schedule to align with everyone else’s. Usually, things would be pretty loud all night. People were walking and talking up and down the streets and starting around 1:30 AM, the prayers and chants were blasted throughout the old city. The other night, Michael and I were up talking. We chatted past 1, then 2, and around 3AM we realized that it was totally silent, wow, Ramadan was over.

Then started Eid Al-Fitur, a 5 day celebration. The first day was very much like Christmas day back in the states. I felt like it was 9AM on Christmas morning, not a thing was open and there were very few people on the street. Later on in the day, all the kids came out with new toys and new clothes. Many of them had toy guns, which from a distance looked a little too real to me. They were very charming, “shooting” each other and especially the foreigners. Tami got a blast in the face from a water gun… Many of the girls were wandering around in their new dresses and other types of clothes, showing off their purses and other accouterments. There seems to be more open today, I think things are getting back to normal.

There has been some new information brought to light on the Yemen nuclear situation in a recent news article. You can read the original here. The company that wants to do the work for Yemen is based in Houston, Texas. It is called the Powered Corporation. It is owned by two guys, one American and one Yemeni. It looks like the Yemeni partner and the Yemeni electricity minister were classmates in college in the US. That’s not necessarily a big deal, but in the big picture it sounds bad… The Yemeni partner used to work for a power utility and was fired for falsifying his credentials. He was also charged with fraud against the shareholders. He is also accused of stealing a lot of money from another company based in the middle east. It also turns out that the Powered corporation has never completed a project and was only registered two months ago! Folks, this contract is worth 15 billion dollars and it reeks of corruption and/or of scam artists. Anyone who is familiar with the way the government works here will instantly assume that there is something fishy going on. I really, really, really hope that both the Yemeni, and especially the US law enforcement people look into this. In the US, this deal would be killed immediately after PR like this, I’m not so sure about it here in Yemen…

Thinking a little more about this, I think I’ve come up with some possible motivations for Yemen’s pursuing nuclear power. I’ve talked about this before here and here. There’s no question that Yemen needs more power but I wondered why they didn’t go for the much more affordable (to build) natural gas power plants. I think the answer comes from their goals of installing desalinization plants. Yemen is facing a sever water crisis, mostly caused by the wasteful agriculture methods (see here). Desalinization takes quite a bit of power, and power costs money. Nuclear is, I believe, one of the most cost effective methods of power production, the government here always takes great pains to make sure that people understand that the nuclear power will be cheaper than the current production methods. I think that they are trying to kill two birds with one stone.

And it might work, IF getting the Uranium here isn’t a problem, IF the price of Uranium doesn’t start to go up like other fuels have and IF the public and opposition political parties can wait that long. It is expected that the first power plant will come online in 2012. If my calculations are correct, that will make up for the power deficit that they currently have. They will then have to build more power plants to provide for the desalinization plants. And of course they will have to build the desalinization plants… That timeline will not head off the water crisis that is expected to hit here very soon. It is estimated that Sana’a will run out of water by 2015, and other cities and rural areas will probably run out sooner. Ta’izz is already experiencing water problems… People are agitating for change right now. I actually think the government is doing what it can, but nothing will be immediate. If real elections are held and the current ruling party is thrown out (I’m not holding my breath), I’m not sure that whoever comes in will have such a long term view. Investing in infrastructure is always a long term project, but it is made more difficult in third world countries by impatience inspired by the current conditions.

A while back, my cousin asked me if I observed Lent, and if not, why not. I don’t. The reason I don’t is that I simply do not have the background needed for it to make any sense to me. The same thing goes for Ramadan. I don’t fast. The muslims are supposed to go from sunrise to sunset without any food or water, sex, tobacco, or any other luxury. I could do the food part, but I really can’t imagine doing without water in place that is so dry. People that are sick, women that have their period, young children, and “travellers” are exempt from the fasting as I understand it. I think the women are supposed to make up the lost fasting time afterwards. I also believe that the traveling exemption was made in a time when people travelled by camel if they were lucky, and more often they travelled on foot. I don’t really think airplanes count. As with every religious observance, some adhere to the strict letter (as they interpret it) and some go more by the spirit of the law. They cheat a little IMO, they change their eating habits significantly, they eat “breakfast” at 3 or 4 AM, have their first big meal after the evening call to prayer, and usually eat late as well. I have noticed that the English language papers use the word breakfast literally, when they talk about breakfast during Ramadan, they mean break fast, it’s the meal right after the sun sets, not their first one of the day.

I fasted by accident yesterday. I did drink water, but I didn’t have anything to eat until 7PM or so. I had expected to have a nice, big bowl of cereal when I woke up. It turns out that the milk that I thought I bought the other day was actually buttermilk… YECHH! That was a bit of a surprise. When people ask me if I’m fasting, I reply, “La, anna mahseehee meskeen fahkat.” Which translates to “No, I am only an (unfortunate) Christian…” That usually will make people grin and avoid the ensuing “why” conversation. I’m still a little fuzzy on the actual “why” of Ramadan for muslims. I have heard that it is to make people experience what it is like to be poor, but that doesn’t really seem like a good fit, they gorge themselves at night. I assume that it is like the Christian fasting, it is used to hone one’s vision of oneself and to keep God in mind. I’ve only heard one muslim tell me this, and she’s not even in this country anymore. I’ll ask around some more here, but as usual, I don’t know if I’ll find an answer that makes a lot of sense here.

OK, I have read that the nuclear power plants that will be built here will be run by Americans with Yemeni forces securing them. That makes me feel better, but I’m still not convinced that it is the best idea. If the same crews, or at least the same quality of crews that run plants in the US run the ones here, I really won’t worry too much about a Chernobyl type of incident. On the other hand, political instability is still an issue, as is the ability of Yemen’s forces to secure these places. It is common knowledge that bribes can be made to get just about whatever you want here. It seem probable that a wealthy backer could get access to the plants with some well placed money, either to steal stuff, or just do some damage. In any case, I feel a little better, but we should still be cautious.

Our downstairs neighbor invited us to dinner the other night. They are a muslim couple from South Africa and have rented out the entire bottom floor so that she doesn’t have to be covered up all the time. After he got back from the mosque, we broke the fast with him. It was quite good, biyarini, some juice, and some other little finger foods. Here’s the thing, we all knew that his wife was the one who prepared all of this, but we never saw her. We expected this, the men and women simply do not mix, if I go to someone’s house I not only do not talk to any women, but I never see them. I’m almost (almost) used to this. The thing I still have problems with is that it is impolite to even mention the wife. I cannot compliment his wife’s cooking, cannot inquire about her health, and I especially can’t ask what her name is. I have to pretend that she doesn’t exist.

I mentioned to Diana (a fellow American student) that I am still uncomfortable with this sort of arrangement but that I figured that I would have to get used to it. She said no, I should never get used to it. I think she’s right. It’s one thing to be accommodating to a culture, it’s quite another to go against your beliefs. I’m not going to piss anyone off, but I will still think of the wives, even when I’m not supposed to…

Well, it’s 3Am and I’m not going to get to sleep for a while. People stay up pretty late during Ramadan, the kids are still running up and down the street, cars are honking their horns, and there are continuous prayers being sung by the innumerable mosques in the neighborhood. I was up until 2, and then I was too tired to stay up, so I’ve been laying in bed listening to all of this for an hour. Things won’t start to quiet down until after the morning call to prayer. Normally, I wouldn’t really care, I’d just sleep late like everyone else does, but tomorrow I need to be up at 8:30 to go take care of some things for my new visa. I’ll be pretty zombie-like in the morning…

OK, I’ve got a little more info about the proposed nuclear power plants to be built here in Yemen. Apparently it is a company called “Powered” based in Houston, Texas that is doing the construction and also arranging the financing of the 5(!) nuclear power plants. A member of the Yemeni government talked with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and according to the paper (Yemen Times), the only worry raised was how to dispose of the nuclear waste. Huh? Granted, that’s a serious problem, but first I would worry about the government’s ability to run and maintain the plants (Chernobyl anyone?) not to mention securing the things. Greenpeace of all things is the only organization that I have heard to raise the issues of political stability as being a problem with uranium in Yemen. It isn’t just Yemen’s stability, but the entire area’s that has some people worried. Now I just wish that someone that people can take seriously would raise these issues…

I’m still confused why they want nuclear plants here. I assume that they would be the most expensive to build. And even if they can provide electricity at lower costs, getting uranium to Yemen will always be a dicy proposition. Things can change, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if within the next 10 years people will refuse to make that kind of shipment to this part of the world at all. Yemen has decent natural gas supplies, why not build more power plants based on that? They just started one in Marib based on LNG last month. In addition, they are in the heart of one of the most oil rich areas of the world, surely some sort of deal could be worked out with one of their friendly neighbors. They don’t even need the “light sweet” crude for this, they could use the worse qualities with no problem… Yemen says that it has plans for the extra power, including desalinization plants. I don’t know why any type of power would be better than any other…

In any case, I find this rather alarming. The first plant is supposed to go online in 2012, is everyone just going to let it happen?

One of the English language papers recently had a really frustrating article in it. The headline was “President proposes 15% of seats in parliament be given to women.” Unfortunately, the article only gives 2 or 3 sentences about that headline, the rest of the article is about how the opposition refused to talk with the president. I had heard some rumblings about setting a quota for women in parliament before, but I had never heard the president backing it before.

Women in politics here is a rather strange subject. Women can vote and hold any office. As a matter of fact, there were several woman candidates for president during the last election. They hardly got any votes, but still, they ran. Their election posters were hilarious, there they were (I assume) in full nikab, it could have been any woman under there… I don’t think that there are any women in parliament currently, plenty have run for it though. Yemen’s history has a couple of queens (the Queen of Sheba being the most famous) and Pakistan has elected a female president in the not so distant past, so a female political leader isn’t unheard of here…

I am against quotas in general, I think that they set up incentive problems and tend to warp the general quality of whatever population that is subject to the quota. I do think that on strictly utilitarian grounds, a short term quota for women in government could be argued for. Many people here (although certainly not all) think that there are some serious issues that pertain to women that are getting scant notice from the government. Things like FGM (female genital mutilation), childhood marriages, and the staggering amount of illiteracy in women don’t seem to be getting the attention that they deserve. If women controlled 15% of parliament, they could really shake things up, regardless of their party affiliation. In parliamentary procedures, coalitions are everything. A 15% block will wield significant power.

There are a bunch of practical issues to be dealt with. How you can have an election AND quotas is a bit beyond me, what if not enough people want women in there to meet the quotas? You can imagine how much this would warp party politics. If this is left in place for too long, it may actually limit women’s power in the parliament. If people feel that there is a quota, they may come to the feeling that 15% is the correct number and not vote additional women in. Or even more likely, the parliament will use the quota as a de-facto limit as a way of keeping the old order in power. In any case, it sure will be interesting to see what happens, the idea of a quota seems to have popularity across party lines so it may actually come to pass. I wonder what kind of an impact it’ll have here…