Month: June 2007

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..