Category: Yemen

I mentioned that I used to walk with my dog in the woods when I was little. My teacher asked me if that was to protect me from dangerous animals. He was rather surprised to find that there really isn’t anything dangerous in the Virginia woods (outside of a rabid raccoon or something). I then went on to explain the common English phrase “Man’s best friend.” He flatly rejected that, citing some personal experience of a dog biting a man he knew. I admitted that dogs can be dangerous, but that most of them are not. He then told me that if a dog licks his clothes, he has to wash them 7 times, once with sand, before he will be allowed to pray in them again. That’s the level of disgust people have for dogs here…

My teacher told me about one of his neighbors today. Apparently, the guy suffered some sort of sudden onset of a mental illness and his family is in a mess. It’s a bad scene, he can’t work, he needs medicine daily, his wife is illiterate, and he has 4 kids (the youngest being 2 weeks old). It was a thinly disguised appeal for money. He didn’t really ask, but he made it clear that he was collecting money to help this guy. I didn’t offer to help. Charity here is tough, there are so many people that need help and you can’t help them all. In the US, I don’t feel too bad about not giving to people on the street, they usually just drink whatever money they get. Here, people are mostly just poor and out of options. To add to the problem, westerners are universally better off than the locals and so they all see us as ready sources of money. My general strategy is to give to the lame and blind, not to give to people that use their (healthy) kids as pity magnets, and to never give to anyone begging between cars in the street. Even with these limits, there are way too many people that need help for me to give all the time. I feel bad, but what can I do?

I have no doubt that my teacher has a lower opinion of me now, but to be fair, he’s talking about a guy I’ve never met and I’ve only known my teacher for a week. I’m pretty sure that Adel is telling the truth, but I’ve been burned a few too many times by Yemenis looking for cash. Things would probably be different if I knew the guy… One of the things that happens when you live in an area as poor as this is that it hardens you to suffering a bit. It’s never easy to see, but it gets easier to not feel guilty. I hope the family can get along somehow…

Karl had a bit of a going away get together in his room last night. 6 people showed up plus Henry, Karl and I. There were munchies, vodka, and mixers to be had and everyone seemed to have a good time. I was in charge of bringing the music. I set up my computer and let people pick whatever they wanted. The girls hovered over it most of the night and I was amazed at what these 20 something Spanish women were picking… Lots of Sam Cooke, Beatles, Police, Gordon Lightfoot(?), ABBA, and a handful of other oldies. There were a few NOFX and Penneywise songs thrown in there for good measure, but I really didn’t expect them to pick what they piked. People left gradually, the three (really beautiful) spanish women stayed later, but two of them had class the next morning at 8:00, so they left a little after 12:30. On of them stuck around until 4 or so, I hit the sack around 2. I found it funny that the four of us were trying to figure out how to ditch the bottles, the youngest among us was 26 and there we were acting like 17 year olds, LOL. Anyway, it was fun and a great send off for Karl.

Yesterday morning, really early, I heard what sounded like a group of school children chanting and walking down the street. I looked out of my window and saw that it was a funeral procession. A large group of people were carrying a bed over top of them with a body on it. You could just see the person’s hair peeking out from underneath the sheet. They took the body down to one of the mosques and the prayer was carried over the loudspeakers for a couple of hours. I don’t really know what they do at the service or afterwards, do they cremate the body, bury it, or what?

I was sitting in a classroom waiting for my teacher to come back from his break when I noticed a little girl sitting in the window across the way. Since this is the old city, the street was barely 10 feet across. She waved at me and I smiled and waved back. Then I went back to some work that was in front of me. Just a couple of minutes later I heard her not exactly screaming, but making universal distress noises. I looked over and saw that she had pushed her head through the bars of the window and could not pull it back. Her mother ran up behind her sounding both exasperated and sympathetic, but she was unveiled. She ran back into the room and came back with a towel and started to do something to the kid with it, then she saw me. I got the impression that I shouldn’t be looking over there so I turned my head and the noises stopped just a few seconds later. Looking back, the girl and the mother were gone. I have no idea what technique the mother used to free her daughter, the bars looked fine and the daughter didn’t yell or anything. All of the houses have bars in the windows here. One of my teachers told me that they were there to prevent children from falling out of them. In traditional Yemeni buildings the windows are quite low and have large sills and kids sit in them all the time. Kids falling out of them is apparently a real problem, so they put bars in all of the windows. Amin was shocked when I told him that it isn’t mush of a problem in the states… I see quite a few windows with one bar bent 2/3 of the way down, I guess kids getting their heads stuck in the bars is pretty common as well…

Well, I’m here. I had forgotten how nice the Yemennis are. Before I ever got here I was invited down to Ibb (a city to the south of here) and to dinner here in Sana’a. I feel good and belive it or not, I feel good to be back. The food tasted pretty good tonight, that shows how long I was gone:-) I’m going back to bed and catch up on all that sleep I lost on the flight, tomorrow I have to clean (there’s a really thick layer of dust over everything) and go take care of some money things. I guess I should also start studying sice I didn’t do a lick of Arabic while I was back home. I’m already enjoying the weather, tomorrrow looks like another beautiful day…\

I’ll be flying out later today. Thanks everyone for a great vacation back in the land of plenty! I’ve really enjoyed seeing all of you, eating like crazy, and everything in general. In spite of that, I’m actually looking forward to going back. My head has rested and I think I’m capable of learning some more Arabic now. I’ll be back for Christmas this year, hopefully not as burned out as I was this time. Keep in touch and I’ll see you in several months!

One of the most common things people tell me is that being here in Virginia must be a relief coming from the scorching temperatures of Yemen. The truth is that it is MUCH hotter here than Sana’a. Not only that, but it us much more humid. For all of the bitching I do about Yemen, the weather in Sana’a is damn near perfect. Right about now the temperatures are between 80 and 90 with almost no humidity on a regular day. It cools down to the low 70s at night. Of course if you go down to the coasts of Yemen, you’ll get a full dose of Saudi peninsula heat and humidity, but I’m not stupid enough to go down there this time of year:-)

Women in jeans and Tee shirts
Women in Tee Shirts and SHORTS
Nachos
Baseball
people walking their dogs
root beer
hot dogs
Mythbusters on Discovery Channel
quiet, dark bedrooms
traffic that makes sense
real supermarkets
lawns
outdoors that is mostly green
Cherries
driving
and of course friends and family

Another reason that I doubt that Al-Queda is involved in this is that the Yemeni government claims that it is the work of Al-Queda. The government cannot admit that it has no control over vast swaths of it’s own country, it cannot admit that there are many places where the local sheiks will not allow the army into their territory. The government cannot admit that Salah (the king, er… sorry, “President”) is known as the “Mayor of Sana’a” by the bedouins in Marib. The bedouins do not fear or respect the president or his government. Salah cannot have his allies, or the world at large understand these things, so Al-Queda is responsible. You know, that crafty, mysterious organization that even the mighty US can’t really defeat. That sounds much better than some rebellious group that is only 4 hours drive from the capital. I will need to be convinced that Al-Queda really is involved and it’s not just the government covering it’s ass…

Well, it happened. Someone blew themselves up along with a couple of cars full of tourists in Marib, Yemen. I heard about it as I flipped through the channels, of course the newsman said that “Al-Queda” is suspected. Al-Queda my ass. Anyone that does ANY research will know that the bedouins have been raising hell there for a while, they killed 4 government soldiers sent to reopen a road a little while back. They have some grievances having to do with what they think a company and the government “owe” them (don’t get me started). Even I know that this has nothing to do with Al-Queda or Islam and everything with jobs and tribalism. They have upped the ante, they used to be happy kidnapping tourists from there, now they want to kill them. I do wonder what the general feeling about this is in Marib, they have never shown this kind of hatred towards westerners before. They used to kidnap them in order to embarrass the government, I can assure you that the government response will be brutal…