Category: travel

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travel Yemen

Yemenia

I’m sad to say that the crash of the Yemenia flight outside of Comoros doesn’t really surprise me. I have heard various horror stories about how that airline is run and some of the things that have gone on from people on flights. Planes hitting things on the runway as they took off and passengers being seated in the cockpit being some of the more egregious examples. If this kind of thing goes on in sight of everyone, I can’t imagine what goes on (or doesn’t go on as the case may be) behind the scenes.

Bottom line? Don’t fly Yemenia.

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Arabic travel Yemen

Studying and living in Yemen

I get the occasional email asking me about studying in Yemen and it occurs to me that I have not put up a post with that info in one place, so here goes…

Yemen is a great place to study Arabic. Everyone speaks it (after a fashion), the people are really nice, and it is cheap. For us western types, it is also an amazing cultural immersion.

The majority of Arabic language schools are in Sana’a, that’s where I stayed. I went to CALES in the old city. They are right in the center of the old city, so there is plenty of “atmosphere.” I took private lessons because that is the best way to learn and being in Yemen, I could afford them. When I started out, I didn’t know any Arabic at all. I was paired up with a teacher that knew English well enough to explain the basic stuff. Some people prefer having a teacher that speaks Arabic only. I dunno, I think I would have been too intimidated at first with all Arabic, but I do think it was useful later on. In any case, you can have it either way, you choose. All of my teachers were very good, but I had to keep some of them on point. I got the feeling that I was teaching him more about the US than I was learning Arabic, so I changed teachers. All of the teachers there were very knowledgeable about Arabic, I never felt that they didn’t know what they were talking about. I think they all have degrees in the teaching of Arabic…

There are other schools there as well. I have heard good things about SIAL and a couple of the others, but I don’t really know much about them. My gut feeling is that you can get good instruction in any of them. A lot of people also get private lessons (outside of an institute) once they make some contacts. That will cost less and be more flexible, but at the cost of not having any sort of document about your attainment level like CALES has…

Living in Yemen is part of the appeal of going there. All of the schools offer accommodations. If you’re there for a short while, it’s probably best to use them. CALES has two main buildings. The big one, and where most of the students live, is right next to the school right downtown. I lived in another building out towards the Sileah. EIther are fine…

If you’re going to stay longer than a few months, it pays to find your own place. Often times, there will be other students looking for housemates, just ask around. Foreigners tend to pay more than the locals do for housing, but it is still a much better deal than living at the school. I was paying $200 a month at both the school and the apartment. Of course I got my own apartment for that as compared to a single (large) room and a shared bathroom and kitchen…

Living in the old city makes it easy to get to class, that’s the main reason I lived there. I knew that if it was difficult to get to class, I wouldn’t go sometimes. There are some big issues with living in the old city though… The buildings tend to be quite old, and things like plumbing, electrical stuff, etc. can be a bit hit or miss. There is also the noise. The school buildings tend to be quite noisy, there is a lot of noise coming off of the street. Buildings in the old city tend to be very close to one another with very narrow streets, so it can sound like people are in the room with you. The trick is to live a little higher, if you can get up three stories or more, the noise level drops off quite a bit. I got lucky with my apartment, it had a walled courtyard that separated me from a lot of the noise.

If I were to this again, I would probably live in the newer part of the city. No, it isn’t as beautiful, but it is much easier to fine open restaurants, grocery stores, and anything else. If you want something to eat at 4 O’clock in the old city, all you’re going to find is french fries for the most part. It’ll take you upwards of half an hour to get to someplace that’s open in the new city… The apartments in the new city tend to have better plumbing and easier access to “high speed” internet.

The other potential advantage to living in the newer part of the city is that if you work, it will be easier to get to your job. Most native English speakers can find a job teaching English. You should be able to find a place offering $10 an hour with a little looking around. That doesn’t sound like much, but that’s doing pretty well in Yemen…

Anyway, I encourage anyone that wants to learn Arabic to check out Yemen. It is cheaper than many other places, and the instruction is top notch. If you feel that it isn’t right for you, it’s really easy to hop a plane to Syria, Egypt, etc. Drop me a line if you have any other questions!

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Culture teaching travel Yemen

Schools in Pakistan

I just finished reading a book called “Three Cups of Tea.” It’s about an American man named Greg Mortenson and his mission to build schools in impoverished Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has quite a story to tell and his accomplishments are really something. I never encountered danger like he did, of course he jumped right into that trouble with both feet while I have been more circumspect. Mortenson sounds like the guy we wish we all were, helping other people, facing insurmountable odds and making things happen in places that really need help. His Central Asia Institute (click here to go to the site) is one of the best charities I can think of. They do things the right way. Instead of swooping in and handing things out like so many charities do, he goes in, asks if they want a school, makes the village contribute to it, and also makes them provide sweat equity. That way the locals are invested in the project and he can be sure that everyone is on board with the goals.

The book isn’t great literature or anything, but it is a great story. I really identified with the urge to teach people in places like that a little about the world. He was dealing with much worse situations than I did, but the thought is the same… I also liked to see one of my theories in action, that is what we do makes a very large impression on people. Being in Yemen taught me a lot of things and I will always remember how grateful people were for me just being there. Having someone from the US actually come there and talk with them meant a lot to them and I like to think that their ideas about Americans moved in a more positive direction. They understood that Yemen was more than a little out of the way for us and they were very happy to share their culture with me.

It’s a good read, you should pick it up!

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travel

This is your captain speaking…

“We’re about to make our final descent into Doha, visibility is about 1000 meters with blowing sand. The temperature is 39 degrees (102 F!).” Smooth flight, no problems. I was expecting to be put up in the Merkur again, it’s the hotel I had the last two times I went through here. It was fine, a lot like a Holiday Inn. Considering it was a throw-in by Qatar Airways I didn’t complain despite the food being mediocre to poor.

Well, this time I was put up in the Movenpick. In Sana’a, the Movenpick is a really ritzy place, as good as it gets in Yemen at least. When I got to the area for the shuttle, they told me that there were two different Movenpicks, the Sultan tower and the hotel. There was no question which one I was going to get, but hey, they threw it in, so no complaints even if it is the Motel 6 of Doha.

As it turns out, it is quite a bit nicer than the last place, and the food is excellent. I had a nice salad, some sort of beef and veggies in a wine sauce, glazed carrots, and apple strudel and mousse for dessert. I really pigged out, it was the best meal I had had since… well, since I came to Yemen in January. And it’s all included! I don’t have to pay a thing! The downside? The internet is not free, it is shockingly expensive compared to the half a cent a minute I’m used to in Yemen. Still, it’s a good trade off, I just won’t use it very much tonight, I’ll wait until I get to Rick’s place to gorge myself on bandwidth…

I should get ready for my 5:30 AM wake-up call… See you soon!

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Done packing

I’m basically done packing. I’m leaving a lot of crap behind. That includes bottles of aspirin, worn out clothes, most of the books I brought, and other miscellaneous stuff. Part of it is that I just don’t need it anymore, the bigger issue is the limited amount of space and weight I have to work with on the way home. My clothes have taken a beating, most of them are just plain worn out and most of them are just too big for me now.. Several pairs of jeans are now approaching perfection however. I’ll need to go on a shopping spree when I get home. I think I have just enough space for a few more gifts for people, I’ll try to get those today.

Don’t really have much else planned for tonight. A bunch of the other guys are going to meet me at the Indian restaurant that I love so much for a going away dinner. I also need to square up with the landlord for water and electricity. Then all I have to do is get some sleep and go to the airport tomorrow. Part of me is saying that I can’t believe that it’s over, and the other part is saying thank God that it is over… See all of you soon!

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travel

Bought my ticket!

I just bought my ticket so I can go home for my cousin’s wedding in July. I’m flying Qatar airways again, I couldn’t really complain about anything from last time, so they’re getting my business again. I’ll leave june the 17th and get leave the 29th of july. I had to fiddle around with the dates a little so that I could actually afford the ticket. Thank God for credit cards! Anyway, now I just have to keep working in order to pay this thing off, it’ll be worth it. By that time, I’ll need a break from here and besides, I wouldn’t miss her wedding for the world!

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travel

Trip to Mahweet

Last weekend, Tami, Ryan, and I went on a little trip. Neither Tami nor myself had been outside of Sana’a for quite a while. Ryan had never been anywhere… We started early, the driver was told to meet us at 7:00. This being Yemen, he didn’t actually show up until 8:00. We then hit the road and didn’t really have any trouble after that.

Mahweet was our first stop. I had seen some pictures of the place and it looked quite nice. Mahweet is no little village, it is quite large, in Yemen you might even call it a small city. It took about three hours to get there. Ryan and I were beat, getting up that early is not part of our usual schedule. Tami exercised her remarkable ability to sleep in just about any situation. She’s small enough that she was able to curl up in the back seat and use me as a pillow. I was more than a little jealous…

Anyway, we got there and the driver took us to the best scenic area in the town. It was pretty impressive, we could see several small villages up on outcrops of rock overlooking an impressive vista. Unfortunately, there was a fair amount of dust in the air so the far views were obscured. The guide motioned us to come along with him along the side of a cliff. We started to walk along it and quickly realized that we probably shouldn’t do that. He wanted us to keep going, but what little footpath there was disappeared after 10 feet or so. It was a long ways down, so we decided to be smart and got down. Ryan scrambled up a little higher and snapped the picture I posted earlier.

We then went to the old part of the town and took a look at the architecture. There were a bunch of kids and some old buildings. I snapped some pictures and then we left. Shibam was our next stop. I had been there before and found it to be particularly dreary. We went to a restaurant/ hotel for lunch. Apparently there is a woman that owns it and runs it. She is quite the business woman, she owns several buildings and businesses. The food was really good, the star had to be the salta. We managed to request it without the fenugreek, and that made all the difference. Man, was it good. This was real salta with lots of lamb and veggies. Usually, whenever I get it in Sana’a, it’s just lamb in some sauce with a huge dollop of fenugreek on it.

We then drove up to Kawkabahn. I had been there before on a much clearer day, so I didn’t take many pictures of the impressive view. I tried to take more pictures of the town itself. It’s an old place and looks quite run down. Still, it has a lot of character, and there are some nice, if pushy, souvenir sellers there. It was fun to talk to some of them even though they were lying through their teeth. They claimed to have all sorts of really old “artifacts” for sale, most of which I had seen in Sana’a as well.

Anyway, we climbed back into the car, Tami fell asleep again, and we went back home. I was totally wiped out, not only that day, but the next as well. None of us made it to class the next day. It was nice to get out of town for a little while, and the lunch was great. I hope to have some pictures up soon.

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Going to Maweet!

Well, I didn’t think it would happen, but we managed to get everything together for a day trip out to Mahweet tomorrow. We’ll leave around 6am (groan) and come back that night. It’s supposed to be lovely up there, so I hope to have a bunch of pictures up afterwards.

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In Doha

The flight was fine, but there’s a big difference between a 13 hour flight right after 8 hours of sleep and a 13 hour flight after you’ve been up for 12 hours… It wasn’t crowded at all, I had my three seats all to myself. I’m still too big to sleep on there though, even with the armrests up, I couldn’t find a position that didn’t have nerve pinching results. So I was dead on my feet when I got here, but the sleep did me good. I’m hoping that staying up for 24+ hours and then the regular sleep cycle of going to bed at 10 and getting up at 6 will keep my jet lag adjustment down to a couple of days. The flight to Sana’a is in a coupe of hours, I hope to be back online in a couple of days.

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travel

I’m going back!

Well, tonight I catch my flight back to Yemen. It’ll be a long flight (14 hours) and I doubt i’ll be in any sort of shape to go swimming at the pool in Doha. Still, I got a couple of books for Christmas, and they have plenty of music and movies for me to watch, so I think it’ll be fine. My trip back this time was, if anything, a little more disorientating than last time. Everything reminds me of how rich we are, things here look almost perfect compared to Yemen. Now that I’ve been there for so long, that is what is normal to me. In truth of fact, a lot of the world is closer to being like Yemen than it is to being like the US. I’ll post more once I’m back and I feel like my head has cleared a little. Thanks to everyone that I got to visit, come on over to Yemen, it’s a worthwhile trip to make!