Month: August 2007

Categories
odds and ends

shoes!

I bought some shoes last night, a pair of black loafers. They look fine, but most importantly, they fit! I have a pair of low hiking boots that are a size 47, they fit fine width wise, but are too long. I also have a pair of size 46 shoes that are too short and too narrow. These new shoes are a 45, but in extra wide and they seem to fit just fine. They are a little tight, but new shoe tight, not OMG I can’t wear these tight. I was surprised that they had the extra width available. I’ve been told that boots of a similar quality will be hard to come by here since they are so expensive. The first pair of shoes they guy brought out fit OK, but they looked like clown shoes to me. Dress clown shoes to be sure, but still… The toe section was really accentuated, making my foot look incredibly long. I’ve seen that style around and it may work on people with small feet, but not on my enormous ones… I need a decent hiking shoe, or at least one that I don’t mind wearing in the rain and getting dirty. Guess I’ll have to hit some more stores…

Categories
Yemen

Traffic

OK, I have some numbers to kind of sum up what the traffic is like here.There are 250,000 vehicles here in Sana’a. 40,000 of those are taxies and 15,000 af those are busses. The article states that the number of cars has doubled in less than two years. That means that two years ago there were 125,000 cars here. Keep that in mind for these next statistics. Between 1995 and 2006, there were 40,141 accidents, 32,969 injuries caused by accidents, and 2,398 deaths caused by accidents here in Sana’a. The numbers are a little skewed since the only accidents that are reported are the really serious ones. I can assure you that the dizzying number of fender benders are not reported, hell traffic barely slows down for them… In any case, we can forget trying to figure out the deaths per accident because there are so many unreported accidents. We can look at the number of serious accidents as compared to the number of cars here though. Even if we go with the current number of cars, that means that 1 in 6.2 cars were involved in a serious accident over the past 11 years. remember, these are only the serious accidents, 1 in 1.2 of those accidents resulted in “injuries” (presumably requiring a trip to a hospital), and 1 in 16 resulting in a death.

I don’t have the US numbers to compare, but that seems really high to me. Just from anecdotal experience, I have been involved in two accidents, neither of which would be reported in here in Yemen, and a couple of fender benders in 20 years of driving. Not only that, but I drove amongst many, many more cars and at much greater speeds. One of my accidents was caused by snow and ice (and maybe the driver:-), once again, neither of which is an issue here in Sana’a.

Part of the reason may be enforcement issues. There are 1,343 traffic wardens posted here in Sana’a but with only 15 patrolling vehicles and 45 patrolling motorcycles. And get this, they only have 45 “wireless communication transmitters.” There are copious citations issued, a mind boggling 2,122,097 (yes, that is 2 million) between 1995 and 2006. Keep in mind that until 2004, there were only 125,000 cars here! They have a “plan” to clean up the traffic over the next 20 years or so, but I think their first priority will have to be combating the totally insane drivers. I have yet to ride with any local that I would consider a good driver here. I have no idea how to address that, but they better while there is only 250,000 cars here instead of millions…

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Categories
Rants

Give me a break

There is yet another op-ed in the paper blaming Israel and the US for all of the ills of the middle east. I am willing to listen to those accusations, after all the US has really screwed up in Iraq (but the sectarian stuff is NOT the American’s fault) and Israel is always doing something, which even if justified, pisses people off. This guy went over the line though, he is blaming the Hamas/Fatah mess on both the US and Israel. Please, if the US and Israel had anything to do with it, Hamas wouldn’t be left standing. Let’s face facts shall we? Arabs have been killing each other long before the US started meddling over here and before the state of Israel was created. There is a cultural tendency towards revenge and retribution over here. No one is willing to “bury the hatchet,” it’s too important to exact revenge. What other countries have government ministries and non-profits dedicated to mediating revenge cases? And let’s not drag Islam into this, they were fighting and killing long before Mohammed (PBUH) came around. You don’t see Indonesia suffering from this sort of violence, and they are the largest Muslim country in the world. No, this is an Arab thing, reinforced over the course of centuries. People, governments, and religious sects all follow the same revenge plan. How do you fix something like that?

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Categories
Yemen

Shoes

If you’ve been reading this blog for any time, you know I’ve been having ongoing problems with my shoes. Well, to be more exact, I’ve been having trouble with my feet. I came here with shoes of course, but within a month and a half, they were too small for me. I bought some shoes in Malta in order to avoid some real foot issues, but they were too nice to walk around here. So I ordered some more shoes and my mother shipped them over to me. They did fine, until I went home. For some reason, they are now too big. I think what I really need is a size smaller, but in a wider width. Right now, the only shoes I have that fit well are sandals. That’s OK, but it’s really disgusting when it rains and my feet are just filthy all the time. I need shoes.

Now that I’ll have this teaching gig, I’ll also need some actual work clothes, and shoes of course. I started looking around for shoes today. Ideally, I would get one pair of decent looking shoes for work and another set for general walking around. I still have my sandals too. The problem is that most of the shoes here are total crap. They’re cheap, but they are crap. I found one place selling decent shoes (mostly Italian and French) but of course they cost just as much as they do back home. $125 is absolutely crazy money here for a pair of shoes. I just read an article about traffic and traffic cops (more about that in another post) in the newest paper. According to them, the average salary of a traffic warden does not exceed $100. I hope to God they mean per month, but they may not.

Another problem I have is that my feet are really large. I think I need a size 46 (european thank you very much), but most places only stock up to a 45. I’m going to try a bunch of shoes and pray that they are bigger than other brands… If all else fails, I should be able to get some shoes in Athens, but I shudder to think what kind of prices I’ll see there…

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Categories
Economics

I’m happy to report…

… that there is some concern over the price controls being implemented by the government. It came from some minister or other and was published in the Observer. He didn’t have the same worries that I do though. I am worried about shortages in the near term, maybe not even making it through ramadan. The minister pointed out, quite correctly, that subsidies and price controls have long term consequences, and not good ones at that. His concern is a long term one. If the government insists on selling wheat at a loss, there won’t be much interest from companies to import or sell it. It could be the worst of all worlds, the government could run out of wheat and there may not be anyone else importing it… The good news is that in a recent poll, over half the people that responded didn’t think that the government could maintain the price throughout ramadan. It’s good to know that most people realize that no matter what the government does, the market will rule… With any luck the price controls are only short term things, short enough to avoid shortages and short enough that companies will not leave the market. We’ll see if the Yemeni government can avoid really screwing this up…

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Categories
travel

Damn…

Well, no trips for me. I had my grand trip to Tibet all worked out, but I miscalculated the miles necessary to get the free flight. My other options really didn’t excite me enough to go through with them. So I’ll just save my money and keep accumulating miles. I’m over half way towards a free trip back home! Now that I’m in the “silver” level of the frequent flyer program, I’ll get quite a few bonus miles. Oh well, I’ll go some other time…

Categories
Economics

"It’s a plastic economy"

My teacher and I were talking about different countries and their economies. He asked if I thought if Yemen could ever be like the US. I think that Yemen’s upside is going to look more like Canada or Australia, but they have a very, very long way to go. He lamented the fact that there aren’t any arab countries with a good economy. I mentioned the UAE, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are some of the most prosperous regions on earth. “Yes, but it’s a plastic economy. They don’t have anything there but businesses, they don’t make anything there.”

As usual, he didn’t notice the fact that they don’t “make” anything, and yet they are fantastically wealthy. They make wealth, pure and simple. Really, when you think about it, wouldn’t you want other people making stuff for you instead of making it yourself? There is nothing wrong in doing what you do best and allowing others to do what they do best, it’s called trade and it will make you wealthy. Just look to the UAE for guidance. Don’t be afraid of trade and don’t be afraid of services, they’re good things.

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Categories
Yemen

Score!

I will be teaching English when I get back from my trips. It also appears that I will be able to have as many hours as I want. The whole program sounds really, really nice. I will not be expected to go over the technical aspects of the language, I will only be expected to talk to the students and get them to talk. They will plan around my schedule, so I will be able to travel if I want. They really, really want an American in the school. This will allow me to come back next year AND be able to do some more traveling. Things are looking up!

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Categories
Rants

Roberto Gonzales has announced his resignation…

… and it is effective September 17th, constitution day… No, there’s no irony to that at all… Gah.

Categories
Yemen

I have new housemates!

I was really worried for a while. I had been told that a “family” would be taking over the ground floor of the house I’m living in. If a child had been brought in, and/or if the family was Yemeni, that would have been it. I have enough problems with the noise from the surrounding kids and Yemenis, i didn’t need them in my house as well… Thankfully, it is a South African couple. They are muslims and want the entire bottom floor so that she doesn’t “have to” stay covered the entire time. Whew! That’s fine…

We also got our required German. There is always at lest one German in the house, our lone Austrian just wasn’t cutting it:-) Anyway, things are fine, I won’t think about moving out for another couple of months…