Month: April 2007

Categories
Arabic

Civilization is evil…

Civilization the computer game that is. I was up until 4AM playing that damn game, thought I was through with geeking out on computer games. It’ll have to be for a while, can’t do that too much and expect to function in class. Actually, today was pretty good. I did have the experience of my brain shutting down a little before the break. It was as if a switch had been flipped and my brain said, “no more.” I was OK after the break… Today we talked about the “2nd” form that verbs can com in. It is basicly the same as the first form, but you pronounce it slightly different. It also changes the meaning of the verb. In the second form, the meaning becomes either doing the verb more than once, or making someone else do the verb. This is a really strange concept for me and I think it is the most difficult one so far for conversations. In English we just add a few extra words to shade the meaning of the verb, here you pronounce it differently. I’m not sure when that’ll sink into my head. Only 8 more forms to go…

Isaac

Categories
Yemen

Another story about corruption.

In the latest issue of the Yemen times
(read the article here)
, there is an article about a guy (and his family) who is threatening to commit suicide in front of the capital if something isn’t done about his situation. What terrible thing has happened to him? He went to school with the President’s son, keep in mind that in most Arab countries president is code for “king”. There isn’t much doubt that the son will inherit the presidency, with fair and free elections no doubt… Anyway, the son apparently told him that he would get him a job with the national airline and a place to stay. Neither have materialized in 3 or 4 years. So this guy writes his former classmate and the Yemen times saying that he will kill himself if something isn’t done soon to alleviate his suffering. He also has the temerity to complain about corruption in the judicial system concerning some sort of inheritance issue. Where does someone get the balls to complain about corruption while at the same time threaten to kill oneself if his personal contact in the government doesn’t come through for him? The sad thing is that it really doesn’t surprise me, I can imagine most of the people that I’ve met here think like that (minus the killing oneself part). Why isn’t the government doing something for me? Corruption is out of hand, if I could only figure out how to make it work for me… I don’t know what is more frustrating, the hypocrisy, or the infantilism shown by people towards the government. At some point people have to realize that

A) They are not 4 years old anymore and should not whine about not getting handouts (current 4 year olds are excepted from this of course) and
B) Even if the government were to do something for them, they would inevitably screw it up and/or make someone else worse off.

Things do suck here, I understand. I understand about being desperate and asking for help. But to go to the organization (?) that has the greatest responsibility for making this place awful for help seems really backwards to me. Here, one has to succeed despite the government, if you succeed because of it, you’re just taking money from someone else and putting it in your pocket. The same could be said for any government but here it is much worse. The corruption is so transparent here, it is easy to see the money go from your pocket into someone else, sometimes it’s done right in front of you. If this society is to succeed, they will have to do what every other successful society does, value and expect to stand on one’s own two feet and not depend on the government. Of course the government is not about to get out of the way, the prince has to ascend to the throne one day….

Isaac

Categories
Yemen

Had another request today…

I went to the “Red” restaurant again today. I had been sitting for about 5 or 6 minutes when someone asked if I was American. I always answer in the affirmative and I’ve only gotten positive reactions. One time, a crazy homeless man wandered into the internet cafe I was using and asked if I was an American. When I said yes, he yelled for joy and started to scream that America was the best, praise be to Allah for bringing an American to Yemen, etc. He was ushered out, but he kept up his outburst outside until something else caught his attention… Anyway, the guy in the restaurant asked if I knew how to get a visa to visit the US. As I’ve mentioned before, this is the number one question I get. I have no idea how to do that, maybe I should find out so that I can stop disappointing people.:-) His daughter is a permanent resident in the US, but he is still having trouble getting a visa. Many people have told me that they were turned down even for tourist visas with no explanation given. We all know the reason, State doesn’t want to risk letting a terrorist through, so unless you’ve got ironclad character references, you don’t get to go…

As I was trying to flag down a dabob (a local mini bus) a guy pulled into the parking space next to me and told me that he hated this country. Yesterday I would have agreed with him, but today for whatever reason, I was in a better mood. He started to explain how the people were “bad” and that the country sucks. Of course he was in a Mercedes and speaking in English, so I bet he’s been to other places and has a decent frame of reference. I flagged down my dabob before we got very far in the conversation…

The meal was pretty good, it was different than the usual stuff I get because it had white rice! Now that may not sound like a big deal, but I do like rice a lot. Almost all of the rice here is cooked with cardamon (they put this in their tea too) and cloves. It tastes really exotic the first couple of times, but I got tired of it really quick. This restaurant is supposed to be a Syrian one, maybe that’s why I like it more than the others.:-)

Isaac

Categories
odds and ends

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Categories
Rants

Yemeinis look like 2 year olds when they eat.

I don’t care, I will NEVER eat rice with my hands, NEVER! I swear to God, if a 4 year old in America tried to eat like that, their parents would yell at them. When a Yemeni leaves his table, it looks a lot like the area around where a toddler was eating, food everywhere. I do eat some things with my hands like chicken and stuff I can scoop with bread. But not rice, not spaghetti, not soupy stuff with no bread. The other thing that I will never get used to is sitting on the floor. It is incredibly uncomfortable. I can lay down, but sitting for too long is unbearable. What’s wrong with chairs?

Isaac

Categories
Arabic

Arrg, Arabic and numbers

OK, so I can count in Arabic. BTW, I was really shocked when I saw Arabic numbers (
٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩
, that’s zero through nine, left to right) because I had always heard that we use “Arabic” numbers. Well, we use the Arabic system (ones, tens, hundreds, 0 as a place holder, etc.) but not their numbers. Anyway, learning new numbers is nothing as compared to learning how to use them properly in a sentence. There are seemingly endless rules about using numbers. In general, there is the singular, the dual, and plural. There is a special conjugation and noun structure whenever you are dealing with 2 of something (of course there’s a difference if you are talking about two masculine or 1 masculine and 1 feminine objects vs. 2 feminine objects), so that’s a whole ‘nother set of pronouns and ways of conjugating. Then there are the number rules. I think I’ve got these straight, but I reserve the right to edit them at a future date if I realize i screwed them up… OK, from 3 to 10, the nouns have to agree with the numbers (i.e. plural) but above that you only use the singular. From 3-11 (?) the number and the subject have the opposite gender, from 12-99 they have the same, and then they switch to the opposite for anything over 100. Of course when you have a sentence starting with a verb, you always use the singular no matter how many things you’re talking about (non human things take the singular feminine and with human plurals you make the verb agree). Sheesh… Part of me is curious as to how these rules developed but most of me doesn’t care, it’s just some more weird ephemera to learn…

Isaac

Categories
Arabic

Arabic can be concise…

I know, I commented before that Arabic has a lot of extra stuff in it, but other times it can be really concise. Take the phrase, “We will send him…” for example. It takes four words in English and only one in Arabic. It’s done by adding suffixes and prefixes to the verb. The verb is conjugated properly of course, then we add what sounds like “n” at the beginning for “we”, and in front of that add a “s” sound at the beginning to denote the future tense. Object pronouns are actually suffixes, in this case a “who” sounding one. So the whole word sounds like snarselwho (
سنارسله)
from the verb arsel (
آرسل
). It’s an interesting system. The problem from my just starting to learn Arabic perspective is that it is difficult to pick out the verb sometimes because it is buried inside of these suffixes and prefixes. If I’m reading, I can figure it out, but when someone is speaking, it just sounds like a word I don’t know. By the time I realize what that verb is, the person has gone on to other stuff… I keep telling myself that it just takes time and if it wasn’t difficult I wouldn’t have come to Yemen to learn it… It’s just one more thing that shows how complicated the language is. I felt good about learning my conjugations and recognizing them, but then this stuff adds a whole new layer…

Isaac

Categories
odds and ends

Took the day off

I am feeling really, really unmotivated and I don’t feel like wasting a class. God, that China trip isn’t coming soon enough…

Isaac

Categories
Yemen

Corruption

Everyone knows that Yemen is riddled with corruption. It isn’t alone, most countries in it’s condition have the same problem. The parliament is in the process of convening a panel (30 people strong) to combat corruption. Everyone is pretty cynical about it, after all, the people in parliament aren’t exactly innocent bystanders. I have a little hope though, one of the panel’s main goals is to get rid of so called legal corruption. Apparently there are a variety of posts and laws that have at their basis the idea that someone in the government will take money from people and put it in their pocket. As you might imagine, the people that have these posts and take advantage of these laws are going to fight any attempt to get rid of their privilege. One guy who was supposed to be in charge of anti corruption efforts was removed after he let it be known that government posts should not be things to be handed down to sons. A bunch of sheiks objected and had him removed from office.

Several people have asked me what I thought Yemen needed to do to get out of poverty. Well, it’s no secret that the countries that engage in free trade, allow foreign capital to come in, and have as little a government footprint (as a percentage of GDP) do the best. Of course implementing those things straight away here would be a disaster. The corruption is just too deep. This is similar to Russia’s problems… Economists refer to the government’s protection of private property (and other rights) and it’s ability to police itself as “The rule of Law.” I heard on another podcast that free trade and commerce assumes a respect for justice. That’s true, but it also goes the other way, you can’t have free trade without justice. How to get to that point is a troubling problem. I think that a free press would help, but many here do not support the idea of a free press. They feel that incidents like the Mohammed cartoons “prove” that the press can’t be totally free. Hmm, maybe that’s the answer, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the culture here was a power (and hence corruption) enabler and a freedom hater. What kind of legislation can change a culture? None, parliament will find that it can’t fight this problem with laws, something else has to change, but I don’t know what.

Isaac

Categories
Arabic

Time to study…

I didn’t do a damn thing yesterday study-wise. I did have a decent (for me) conversation with the cabbie on the way to Luchiano’s the other day, so I guess I’m getting better. I’m going to try to start my studying today with something simple, writing what I did this weekend. Then I’ll be a little more ambitious and try to write about America’s immigrant based history. Wish me luck…

Isaac