Category: Yemen

Well, actually I’m typing this in the air on the way to Doha, but still, I’m out of Yemen. And thank God for that. I haven’t said anything because I didn’t want people to worry, but things have gotten a little tense in Sana’a, at least I was tense there.

The fighting is still going on near the city. I’m not sure how far away it is, but it’s close enough for me to hear the bombardment at night. The Houthis are still trying to cause trouble with the government. I remember when they were fighting so close to the city, I thought to myself, “Well, at least it isn’t Al-Quedea, it could be worse…” Of course I then found out that the rallying cry of the Houthis is, “Death to America, death to Israel.” So much for keeping my mind at ease…

It’s amazing how the locals are taking the fighting. As usual, whenever I start talking to someone on the street, in a taxi, on a dabob, etc. they always ask what I think of Yemen. My stock answer recently is that I like Yemen, but it seems like it is getting dangerous. They always respond with shock and dismay and ask what I could possibly mean. Oh I dunno, maybe an armed insurrection 12 miles outside of the capital? They always smile and say that that is outside of Sana’a and I shouldn’t worry about it. Amazing, 12 miles away and it’s no problem.

In addition, the Italian embassy has told its people to get out of Yemen. The Americans usually freak out at the slightest thing, but things must be pretty bad for the Italians to recommend getting out as well. One of the things they talked about was that some of the preachers in Sana’a were preaching hatred and violence against foreigners, westerners in particular. My friend’s girlfriend confirmed that for us, a mosque near where we lived was saying some rather ugly things, and it was in the middle of the week. In the past, the government had pretty good control over the imams in the city and would remove ones that were being too belligerent. The fact that they feel that they can speak their mind shows some weakness in the government. There is also the strong possibility of a religious police department coming into being. Most observers think that that also shows the government’s weakness, it now has to pander to some of the more conservative religious elements in the country.

Of course the government wants to look strong. The most recent rumor (and totally absent from the news services) is that the government sent in tanks and razed a village Israeli style. Why? The government thinks that some people there were involved in the assassination of a government muckty-muck a little while ago. While it is believed that the village was evacuated before being destroyed, I doubt that this action will make those people feel all warm and happy about the government. In true Arab fashion, I expect retribution to be forthcoming. Of course since it is Yemen we’re talking about, that retribution could very well be totally incompetent, but it might not be. Best to steer clear of government and army places just to be sure.

The most worrying thing that I heard was that the director of the Arabic school I attended was recommending that people leave. Jameel is famous for his love of money, if he is actively saying that people should stay away, things must really be getting bad.

Keep in mind that I never really felt that I was in danger, but I did worry that things would come apart before I left. I have already had one person reading my blog ask me, and now I will tell everyone, don’t go to Yemen right now. Things are bound to heat up soon. Even if they don’t, I would wait until things became a little cooler before venturing there. I feel as though I left about a month too late. It’s too bad my last memories of Yemen involve the threat of violence. I had a good run, but the thing that everyone was afraid of happening to me looks like will happen to Yemen. AlYemen Meskeen.

Technorati Tags:
travel, yemen, violence, army, middle east

I’m down to one more full day here. Tomorrow is my last day to do anything in Yemen, and I think I’ll be busy. I have two people coming over to look at my stuff in the apartment. I will make sure everything is sold, someone is going to get one hell of a deal on a fridge, stovetop, mafraj cushions, and a washing machine. I don’t really care what I get, it was never going to be a large amount of money, but every little bit helps now…

I went with Luchiano and Laurie the other day to a really good restaurant. It’s called Al-Faker and it serves traditional Yemeni food. Yes, I have been constantly bitching about the food here, but that is because I was going to restaurants. If you want good Yemeni food, you have to go to someone’s home, and while the food is good, there are other problems (see here). This restaurant has the good food and a good atmosphere. It’s what dining out should be like. For those of you used to old city prices, the prices at Al-Faker will come as a shock. On the upside, you don’t have to worry about food poisoning, women can go there, and it’s actually a nice place to be. It is, of course, way the hell down Hadda street. Every place that is worth going to is… This place is a little past Pizziola on the left…

We went there for lunch and then Luciano invited me over to one of his co-worker’s houses. I think his name was Alonzo, but whatever his name, he was a very gracious host. He lives in a part of Sana’a that I had never gone to before. The houses were all inside walled compounds. If the house I went into was any indication, the houses are really nice. The neighborhood itself is typical Yemen, rubble and trash everywhere. It’s just one brown, dirty, heap of rubble after another.

In any case, this house had a great big garden lined with pomegranate trees. He has a lawn and numerous flowers. I was shocked to see so much green, it was quite nice. The first thing that the host did was offer coffee, chocolate, and cognac. I’m not a coffee drinker, but what could I say when he brought out a bottle of Remy Martin VSOP and offered it me? It was quite nice, very smooth. I mentioned that I felt a little guilty drinking such expensive liquor belonging to someone I just met. He just waved his arm dismissively and said that it didn’t cost more than 60-80 Euros in the duty free… I’d hate to see what he thought an expensive bottle would cost. This was the first time I had ever drank cognac in the daytime, it felt quite extravagent. I had had chocolate with cognac before, but only with my cheap covousier, the combination was a little harsh. This combo was divine. If I ever have the money, I will buy a bottle of that stuff for myself.

Afterwards, Luchiano and Laurie invited me over to dinner in a couple of nights. I just got back. It was the typical gorging myself on prosciutto and great pasta. Those guys are great, and I demanded that they come over to the US so that I could repay their hospitality. There really aren’t many people here to say goodbye to, but I needed to see them again before I left. Thank you guys, I miss you already!

Not much to update here. My friend Michael is here again, it’s his third time here since I’ve been here. He just can’t get enough of this place… He’s staying at my place for a while. Went to Luchiano’s place the other night. He had another get-together. As usual, there was really good food including an interesting white pizza with potatoes and rosemary.

I met an interesting Czech woman there. She’s working with a refugee organization here and is getting to see the country. She mentioned that she’s from the Czech Republic but had been living in Holland for a while. Since we were talking in English, I wondered how many languages she knew. “Oh, well of course I speak Czech and Slovak, I speak French about as well as I speak English, and I picked up Dutch while I was in Holland. I just started studying Arabic, so we’ll see how it goes…” Wow, I guess some people are just better at languages than others and I suppose that living in Europe will make it a little more important to acquire languages too. Still, it’s too bad I’m leaving, she’s someone I’d like to get to know better…

Not much left to do here. I got my exit visa, now it really feels like I’m going to leave! I still need to get down to the bank and recover the deposit I had to put down in order to get a residence visa. I’m also puttering around looking for cheap, interesting things to buy. Other than those things, all I really to do is pack and get on the plane. I can’t wait!!!

I was hoping to write about this once I was in Doha in order not to worry anyone. Yes, fighting broke out near Sana’a and they got within 12 miles of the city. It’s over now, so there’s nothing to worry about. I know it sounds bad, but things are under control. As usual, it’s difficult to figure out what happened, things that would usually be news are just rumors here. As far as I can make out, the government killed an important person in this area. That person lead some of the Houthis (a small sect of Shia muslims that are currently fighting the government up north) in that area, so his supporters decided to go all out in order to avenge him. It isn’t really clear why the government killed the guy, or even who it was that did it. I wonder if the parties involved even know…

There’s been an ongoing battle up north between the government and the Houthis. The war has been hot and cold over the last 4 years or so, but it’s pretty hot right now. I met a nice Christian couple last night and they told me about their experience up north in Sa’ada. How do I know that they’re Christian, they told me 3 or 4 times in our conversation… Anyway, they wanted to help, so they got together with a local NGO and they went up there to help distribute aid. There’s only one problem, foreigners are not allowed up there, certainly not Americans at least. The couple was letting the NGO “take care of things” and sure enough, they had no problems getting through all of the checkpoints getting up there. Once they got there, they were in hot water. Americans were not supposed to be there, and their presence made all of the people in command very nervous since they weren’t supposed to be there. Of course if the soldiers at the checkpoints had been doing their jobs, the couple would never had gotten up there.

It was a classic combination of do-gooders, Yemeni incompetence, and military paranoia. So after 36 hours in detention and a call to the embassy, everything was worked out. So yes, there are some problems here, and some of them might even be dangerous, but at least I have the good sense to stay the hell away from places like that. Don’t worry, everything is fine, people weren’t even talking about it, I had to ask around to hear about the fighting closer to the city. I’ll be home soon…

It rained quite a bit last night. I was on my way to get something to eat and go to the grocery store on hadda street. Luckily for me, I only had a quick dash from the dabob to the restaurant in the rain. By the time I had finished eating, it had stopped.

I still had to go shopping, and that led to getting a close up and personal look at the drainage situation on Hadda. I had written before about this, but now I was a pedestrian and it gave me a slightly different view. It turns out that the roads are indeed crowned. This means that the road itself was relatively free of water, it was all directed towards the edges. Here’s where the problem is… All of the water is directed towards the edges of the road, but there is no drainage system. There’s no grates or drains for the water.

Waterproof shoes are a wonderful thing. As a matter of fact, I highly recommend them if you’re coming to Yemen in the summer. Of course, they are only as effective as they are high. I’m really glad I have waterproof shoes, but I estimate that the water was 5-6 inches high along the gutters. I had to go down the side streets to find a place to ford the street. The good news is that I was one of the only people stupid enough to go shopping right about then, the store was deserted.

The sailia was a raging torrent. It was probably around 4 feet deep with a really swift current. People come out and admire the sailia when it’s like this. Actually, it was only men and boys last night. Maybe that was because of the hour, women are discouraged from going out after dark in the old city.

Anyway, the upshot is that I would avoid going anywhere within several hours of a heavy rainfall, it’s a mess and a little nasty. If you have boots, the city would essentially be yours, but I’ve never seen anyone wearing them here. There were several times that I thought that water had gotten into my shoes. Turns out it was just the cold water cooling my foot from the outside. I shudder to think of that water getting inside my shoes, how would I ever clean them? Of course the locals just waded through it with their sandals. I sure hope that they didn’t have any cuts on their feet…

I just read an article about how Yemen’s wheat production has increased by over 30% this year. Keep in mind that Yemen imports over 90% of its wheat, it’s relatively easy to get a big percentage jump if you start from a low level. What caught my eye was the fact that the article said that the increase was due to the implementation of the new “food security” program instituted by the government. As usual, there were no details as to what that might mean, but I have some guesses, and as usual, I have a feeling that the program misguided.

Yemen imports 90% of its wheat. Bread is a staple here, the Yemenis eat an amazing amount of it every day. My last teacher told me that he eats about 14 to 15 pieces of “Cadam” (a type of bread) every day. I would say that’s about a loaf and a half of bread back home every day. Wheat prices have gone up all over the world and that has caused the price of bread to go up as well. The people here are poor, and they put up with all sorts of shenanigans by the government, but if you raise the price of bread too much, there will be riots. There have been before, and I’m sure there will be in the not so distant future. I assume that this is what the “food security” program is all about, keeping the price of wheat low to keep civil unrest under control.

But how are you going to keep the price of wheat low? There are several ways a government can do this, and there are problems with all of them. The government could try to force the farmers to sell wheat at below the market price. There are some obvious problems with that. If you aren’t allowed to get the market price, you either don’t grow it to begin with or you sell on the black market. That program isn’t going to work, and I think even this government knows that. The government can pay subsidies directly to the farmers to grow wheat. Subsidies are headaches. Once you give subsidies, it’s very difficult to get rid of them. Just look at the US’ farm subsidy bloat for proof. Subsidies are hidden taxes, in other words they raise the price which is the opposite of what you’re trying to do. The much more popular approach is to raise the price of imported wheat (through a tariff) in order to make the local stuff seem like a bargain. It wouldn’t surprise me if the government already imposes an import tax on wheat, they tend to grasp at any money they see. Raising prices on food in a really poor country is pretty evil, but I’m sure that’s what’s going on here.

The big problem is that Yemen will never grow as much wheat as their booming population wants. I’m sure the idea is that with an import tax, the locals would be protected from foreign competition until Yemen can become a player in world wheat production. There are several problems with this. First, Yemen just doesn’t have the geography for large scale wheat production. There are few places here that have the flat, open fields that are best suited for growing and automatic harvesting of wheat. Even if they used every available acre, they would never produce enough to have any impact on worldwide wheat prices. The wheat fields in central Canada are several times the size of all of Yemen…

The big problem is water. Yemen is running out of water, they are running out of it at an alarming pace. It is estimated that Sana’a will be out of water in 10 years. Other parts may run out sooner. The papers here always talk about the booming population as the culprit but agriculture uses 90% of the water supply. A lot of that is due to qat and inefficient irrigation techniques. The government has gone to great lengths to stimulate the agriculture sector here. Since water is “free,” it seems like the ideal way to put people to work. Of course it also means that everyone will keep using it until it’s gone. As it turns out, the Saudi peninsula is not well suited for large scale agriculture production, who knew?

If Yemen gave up on agriculture, there would be more than enough water for the people here. “But what would they eat?” You can import all types of food relatively easily, water not so much. I’m pretty sure that the “food security” program more or less equals a water scarcity program. Yemen’s food security “program” should be similar to The UAE’s, Qatar’s, Taiwan’s , and Hong Kong’s, i.e. make enough money that you can import whatever you want. If the economy is working well, you can buy food from places that are better suited for it. Instead of doing that, the Yemeni government is giving people incentives to stay on the farm. This not only stunts the economy, it will ultimately lead to a full blown water crisis. Trade is good, why don’t they use it?

My students have their writing final exam tomorrow so I thought we’d do a practice run. The idea is that they can try and then we’d look at the mistakes that were made. In theory, that will prevent them from making the same mistakes tomorrow. I told them to write a 6 sentence paragraph, two sentences had to be in the present continuous tense, and they had to use one adverb of frequency (usually, occasionally, etc.). I told them that the topic was “school.” They could write anything they wanted about school.

Bilquis, a rather chatty student of mine said, “But teacher, what should we write about?”
“Anything about school Bilquis.”
“But what?”
“Anything. You can write about any school you’ve been to.”
“But what do I write?”
“You don’t have any opinions about any of the schools you’ve been to?”
“Ummm?”
“Just write something, whatever comes into your head.”
“No, tell me teacher, what do I write about?”
“Anything!”
“No, let me write about something else.”
“No, just write!”
“But what…?”
“THINK FOR YOURSELF!”

Honestly, it was only 6 sentences, and she did eventually have six sentences of opinions to turn in, but she didn’t think she could do it. She was paralyzed when I didn’t give her something definite to do. It’s common enough here, they are petrified about the thought of coming up with their own material. The students have been pestering me for a week, “Please teacher, tell us what the topic is!” Of course that would negate the whole test aspect of it. If they can prepare and memorize something with the help of dictionaries and textbooks, it wouldn’t tell me how well they know the material. I always assign something general and easy like, “Why are you studying English?” but they are worried that it will be “hard.” I have told several of them that I will expect a history of the formation of the government of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (aka the PDRY aka south Yemen. North and South Yemen were reunified back in 1990.), but only 6 sentences worth… That made them freeze with fear, but I made it clear that it was a joke.

And it’s not as though we’re doing high power writing right now. I would be ecstatic if a student turned in the following:

I am studying English because I want to get a good job. I go to the school every day. English is hard but I study a lot. My brother takes classes too. I am writing this paragraph so I can get a good grade. I love English!

A lot of the things I get have the same, basic sentiment, but with a lot more grammatical errors… Anyway, not all of my students have a problem, but some of them have zero imagination. I’m hoping that with a little pushing I can make them do more than they think they can.

Nothing symbolizes Yemen like the Jambiya. It’s a curved knife that the men wear, front and center, with their more traditional clothes. When someone thinks of a souvenir from here, the Jambiya is at the top of the list. There’s a wide range of prices, they start with the el-cheapo ones made in India for tourists and kids and go up to the ultra expensive Rhino horn ones. All of the value is in the handle, the blade is a total afterthought. They are for show only, not for being used. You can put an edge on them, but the blade isn’t up to my mother’s cutlery, and the handle is fastened to a really thin extension of the blade by two rivet things. Even the best ones feel like they could be broken in half with a little effort. Any $20 knife back home is more useful, and feels better than these things. What’s the best knife you can buy here? People sell the bayonets from their Kalishnakovs pretty cheap, and they make excellent knives…

The Jambiyas I thought about getting are from Tihama. They have silver handles and usually have quite a bit of work done to them. I have finally found some in the $90 range that I liked. The good ones are in the $200-$600 range and that’s out of my price range. I should have something from here, but the more I thought about it, the more I didn’t want a Jambiya. I just can’t bring myself to spend $90 on a useless knife. True, they have cultural significance, but I really don’t like the culture they represent. They are the epitome of the “You can tell what kind of man I am by who my father/uncle/grandfather is. Just look at this Jambiya!” The Jambiya shows what class you belong to, the nicer the one you have, the more respect you are given. The most esteemed are the ones with handles made from the horn of black rhino. Yeah, that rhino, the one that is almost extinct, it’s still in demand here. It’s much more important to have an ostentatious display of wealth and class than to preserve the animal… In a nutshell, it sums up what I don’t like about Yemen. The knife may look interesting, but it’s useless…

I have decided instead to buy something that reminds me of the culture here that is silent to me. I am getting a wedding dress. It’s about 80 or 90 years old, it’s from Sada’a, and it’s in amazing condition. There are many traditional wedding dresses available here, but this one is noticeably different. It’s a deep, cobalt blue and it has silver embroidery around the neck area and some more a little lower on the dress. The weddings usually go for 3 or 4 days, so the bride would have worn this on one of those days around the other women. The dress is actually pretty plain, it is customary to bury the bride in tons of jewelry, the dress isn’t really seen very much.

Anyway, I think that this is a much nicer souvenir than a useless knife. It also is a part of the culture that is fading away, the brides like newer dresses these days. The Jambiya has been around forever, and there’s tons being made now. These dresses won’t be around too much longer…

There have been moments that my students have come up with things that I never would have guessed that they would know. One day, we were talking about vitamins and I asked, “What is vitamin C?” A voice came from the back, “I think that is Ascorbic Acid…” Another time, we were outside practicing “This is,” and learning some new vocabulary. It was a fairly low level class, so were were learning words like brick, flower, grass, pipe, etc. I pointed to a column and asked them if they knew what it was. One of my students said, “I think that is the pediment.” I was pointing at the base if the column, so I shouldn’t have been surprised…

Today, someone asked me who Martin Luther was. I’m pretty sure he had only heard of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. but I figured the other one was important enough to talk about as well. But how to explain? I told them that at the time, there was only one Christian Church. Martin Luther thought that there were some things wrong with the church, and so he came up with ideas to reform the church. New churches sprang up based on his recommendations, and we now call those churches Protestant churches. The church that they broke away from we now know as the Catholic church. They seemed to understand well enough, but then Saif, a student in the class raised his hand. “Actually, there were two Christian churches before the reformation, the Catholic and the Orthodox churches…” I was totally blown away. He is the first Yemeni I have ever met that even knew there was a difference between the Catholic and the Orthodox churches, let alone know when they were formed. I had to agree that, yes, there were two churches by the time of the reformation, but that was more detail than the class needed to understand who Martin Luther was. You never know what people are going to know….