Category: Yemen

I saw a couple of interesting things in the latest issue of the Yemen Observer. Turns out that there is an illegal FM transmitter broadcasting here in Sana’a. Pirate radio stations are cool enough, but this one is doing Christian evangelizing! I haven’t heard it yet, but it is on 88.3 on the FM dial. It’s in Arabic, I wonder who is doing this? It is of course, illegal to broadcast without a license. It isn’t illegal to be a non-Muslim, but it is illegal to evangelize for other faiths. The authorities know who is doing this and they know where they are, but they are paralyzed with red tape. I won’t go into details, but there are at least 5 different government authorities involved in this. All of them claim that they either do not have the jurisdiction, or can not act without the orders from one of the departments that claims to not have jurisdiction… We all know how this will end, but no one knows when it’ll happen…

They had an article that had some official crime statistics for 2006. In all, there were 936 “crimes” reported in Sana’a governorate. The most serious crimes (and the only ones the article mentions) were 129 attacks with intent to kill with a weapon, 43 “intentional killings,” and 25 tribal robbery cases. Most of the assaults and the killings were tribe related. Rape is most likely incredibly underreported. In addition to all of the usual shame, women here have to worry about “honor killings” either by their families or husband.

There was recently a conference on FGM (female genital mutilation) in Yemen. They brought out a few more facts and horror stories. It seems as though the practice is primarily limited to the coastal areas, but percentages approach 95% of women having been put through the procedure in places like Houdediah. I really don’t understand, I know it’s not PC to dis people’s cultural traditions, but this is outright brutality. The conference told of a few horror stories, one 15 year old girl that got married and her husband refused to marry her unless she had the procedure done. During the procedure she started to scream (go figure) so they stuffed some fabric in her mouth. Well, she passed out and never regained consciousness. It wasn’t clear if she had been asphyxiated or if there was some other reason. Another girl (also 15) refused to undergo the procedure, she ran into the ocean to get away and drowned… Surely there has to be a way to get through to these people…

yemen sana’a sana fgm crime murder christian evangalizing evangalize bureaucracy

Every day I walk by seemingly endless children no matter where I go, and they all want your attention. “Sura sura!” is the most common thing they yell. That’s pretty easy to get away from since I don’t usually carry a camera with me. Some ask for money, but that’s usually only the slightly older ones. In my experience, it is the 10-15 year olds, always boys, that ask. A lot of kids use the only English phrases they know, “Hello! What’s your name? Where are you from?” The What’s your name question is particularly tiresome. Why do you want to know my name?

A more humorous one is “I love you!” A couple of boys that were 10-12 years old were shouting that to me the other day. It was a bit disconcerting. I think the reason for that is the verb in Arabic “hab” is used interchangeably for like and love. There is a more complicated way of saying I like something (I had a whole blog post on it a while back), but most people won’t use that in spoken Arabic. Anyway… Every day I pass by all these kids and I can only talk to a handful of them. They love the attention, but I would spend my entire day there if I stopped for each one. Luckily, our conversation topics dry up pretty quickly, there’s not much I can talk about with a 12 year in Arabic. If you go to the villages, be prepared to assume the role of the pied piper. Kids of all ages will follow you around, yammering away. One of my most vivid memories about traveling through some villages that cannot be accessed by cars is what seemed to be 50 or 60 kids all waving and saying “Bye-bye” as we left the village. It was quite a racket, but sweet. Honestly, I was happy to escape, but their farewell made it clear that they enjoyed having us there.

It’s very obvious, I may be the only one that hasn’t thought of this before… I have long been amazed at Yemenis’ ability and desire to make lots and lots of noise. Yelling, shouting, screaming are all considered an appropriate method of communication in the street. People make noises to just amuse themselves, the really loud whistle you might use to call a dog is a favorite one here. Horns are blown constantly, the trash truck has a deafening siren, and weddings are public nuisances with their blaring music and sounds.

It occured to me that every one of these people has, from the time of their birth, been yelled at 5 times a day starting around 4AM. In their minds, being loud and shouting is not only a legitimate way of communicating, it is seen as a positive force in their lives. Being loud is a way of being “right”, just like the calls to prayer… No wonder they enjoy being so loud..

I’ve had plenty of people ask me about living here and not being a Muslim. “Aren’t you afraid of, you know, them hating you because you’re a Christian?” Not at all. There may be some people that don’t like me, but it isn’t because of my religion. There are probably more Christians that don’t like my version of “their” religion, LOL. Seriously, Muslims here have a real respect for anybody that ascribes to any of the three main traditions and is a decent person. I know a Jewish woman here who is afraid of “letting down” the Yemenis because she really isn’t as serious as they think Jews should be.

The people that need to watch out are atheists, polytheists, and Zionists. If you hold any of these beliefs, you can certainly come here, just don’t proclaim your beliefs loudly. If you’re an atheist, I would lie and claim to be a Christian. They really don’t have a clue about Christianity here, so if you claim to be a Christian, they won’t challenge you. Gays and lesbians shouldn’t fear coming here either. The culture is such that close close contact between members of the same sex is very common. No one would ever guess, and no one would ask. Hell a guy may kiss you here, but it wouldn’t mean the same thing as it does back home:-)

Here in Yemen, ATM, as in ATM machine stands for All Time Money…

Many people are very careful about ordering a “beef burger.” When asked why they add beef to the front, they reply it is to make sure they don’t get one made of ham…

One of the new American students came into the school today sporting a mouaz (I call them man skirts) and a jambiya. He said that I should get them too… I dunno, I just can’t bring myself to dress like a Yemeni. Maybe if I met one that I respected or even liked a lot I might be more tempted. I think that Americans dressing like that just look silly. I have never, in my adult life, enjoyed dressing up in a costume. I know that all clothing or fashion is ultimately a costume of some sort, but at least I’m comfortable in this one:-) Besides I find the entire culture around Jambiyas rather distasteful, and since it is so close to the concept of being a man in Yemen, I end up finding the male culture here a bit distasteful. So don’t expect to see me in a thobe or moaz any time soon…

Well, yes, I am starting to wonder what kind of job I could get when I get back home. I’ve become convinced that my Arabic will not be good enough to get any sort of job as a translator, certainly not after a single year here. I do think I’ll be able to have basic conversations and read newspapers and the like. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for a potential job back home I’m all ears…

Right this second, I’m thinking about getting a job here. I would be teaching English of course. It’s a hot job market here for native English speakers. Of course the pay sucks when compared to other places despite the fact that it is a hot job here. As a conversational English teacher (i.e. a native speaker that is articulate but does not have a degree in English or any certification for teaching English) I can make about 10 bucks an hour. That doesn’t sound like much (it isn’t) but remember, country wide the average yearly income here is only $400 US dollars a year. So it turns out to be a rather well paying job for this country. If I could work 10 hours a week, I could make an average yearly salary here every month. If I have 10 hours a week of class and 10 hours a week of a job, that is only 20 hours a week taken up. That should leave plenty of time for me to do whatever else I need to do, like study:-) From my perspective, it would allow me to extend my stay here and hopefully learn the language better. There’s no way in hell I will spend Christmas here, but if I can get a job I will be able to afford a round trip ticket back to the states and come back for more. I’m going to start looking around this week for positions. I feel pretty confidant that I can get a job since I have the very desirable “neutral” American accent. I know that some schools supplement the pay with Arabic lessons as well, so that could be a plus. We’ll see what’s out there for me…

I had the day off and had great plans. I figured I’d clean my room (I’ve been threatening to do this since I got back), do my laundry, do extra homework, etc. Of course I woke up late and haven’t done a damn thing. I have zero motivation to do anything, even fun things. Just lazy lazy lazy….

The latest issue of the Yemen Times has an article warning about a potential “famine” in the works for Yemen due to the rising costs of the food. It then goes on to demand that the government “do something” to fix the problem… Ok, first of all, famines are not caused by high prices, high prices are a consequence of short supply. Not having enough food definitely can cause a famine, but of course the question is why isn’t there enough food? There certainly isn’t a food shortage world wide, why doesn’t someone see the “high” prices of food here in Yemen and cash in? I’m sure there is an enterprising Omani or Saudi that would like to make some money, so why don’t they? If they could compete with the current suppliers, the price should come down as the supply rose.

I personally haven’t seen the rise in prices, but maybe I’m not buying the stuff that has gone up in price. If the supply is indeed limited, who is limiting it? As a general rule, the only way that can happen is with collusion with the government. If there is a problem of high food prices, don’t expect the government to do anything about it because they are most likely the cause of it. Whether it is through import duties, granting of monopoly privileges, or just general corruption, the government is involved somehow. There is plenty of food to go around, why isn’t it getting to Yemen?

Ahh, back in Yemen. The flight went smoothly, I even had an empty seat next to me! I was so tired, and I felt so grimy. It seemed that all I did in China and Dubai was sweat. All I really wanted to do was shower and go to bed. When I got to my place I realized that just about every article of clothing I had was not only dirty, but smelly dirty. I had to do laundry. Why didn’t I do it in China? It was mostly a language issue, I was not able to get the idea across that I wanted my clothes washed and I was also afraid that if i did find a laundry there would be some sort of miscommunication about the price, when it would be ready, etc. I did a quick load and decided to take a shower. Surprise! We had no hot water… Welcome to Yemen! Grr, I did the shower anyway, I really felt disgusting. Then it was sleep time.

Woke up about 5 hours later (around 4 PM) and met one of my new house mates. He’s a Scot, and seems like a nice guy. He’s already got a degree in Arabic, so he’s just brushing up for the next 3 months. There is also a swede downstairs and another German (what is it with Germans and Yemen?) living on my floor that I have not met yet. I attempted to take Henry to the pizza place I like so much, but the dabob we took did not follow the same rout they usually do. By the time I figured out that we were not on the right path, we were so far out of the way I had to flag down a taxi to take us there. He didn’t know where the restaurant was and I quickly realized how much Arabic I had forgotten when I tried to explain it to the cab driver. Thank God Henry’s Arabic is better than mine… We had some great pizza thanks to my new stash of pork based pepperoni (thanks Anne!) and went home to find out that the power had gone off. Welcome to Yemen! i did another load of laundry in the dark and crashed for the night around 10:30.

Today is a holiday, reunification day. I think that is when south and north Yemen were reunited. I haven’t met anyone that takes the holiday very seriously yet, but everyone likes a day off:-) I’ll start classes again at the beginning of next week (next sat.), until then I will try to do all of the Arabic that I was planning to do on the trip…