Month: November 2007

We were walking back from dinner when a car came past honking at nothing in particular. Dana asked, “Why do they do that?”
“They’re Yemeni, if they didn’t make noise, they wouldn’t exist.”
“Aha! So you’re saying that when a tree falls in a forest it always makes noise?”
“Only if it’s Yemeni…”
Just then a kid/teenager came running down the street and almost plowed into me despite the fact that he could see me for half a block.
“The tree also doesn’t pay attention to where it’s falling…”

I was sipping on my second Jack and Coke when the scantily clad Thai singers/dancers broke into “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” by ABBA and I noticed that the ambassador hadn’t gone onto the dance floor yet. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

The day before yesterday, my friend Luciano sent me a message asking me to come to his wedding dinner on the 28th. He had just returned from his honeymoon and he and Laurie were having a dinner to celebrate. They are actually two of the first people that I met here, we went bowling together on my first night. Anyway, he works for the Italian embassy and is a great guy, there was no way I was going to miss this. It was being held at the Taj Sheba hotel, a rather swanky place by Sana’a standards. Anyway, I got there a little late (I had been teaching late) and went to the front desk to ask where the party was. I then realized that I couldn’t remember his last name. I have heard it before, but it just doesn’t come up very often… “Um, I’m looking for my friend Luchiano’s party…” The woman just stared at me. “He’s Italian and it’s…”
“Oh, the Italian embassy party is in that room over there.”

My heart sank. As I walked into the room my fears were realized. It wasn’t a black tie affair, but everyone was in at least a sports coat if not an actual suit. I was in my best hooded sweatshirt and the jeans I was wearing had only small stains on them, you really had to look for them to see them at all… I don’t have any good clothes over here, I’m in Yemen for crying out loud. The Italian ambassador from italy was there along with the rest of the staff. Anyway, Luchiano made me feel welcome and Tami and I sat down. As we walked over to the table, we noticed that there was a bar. The waiter asked me what I wanted to drink and on whim I said a Jack and Coke. The glass he brought over was filled halfway with Jack Daniels, I told them to fill it up the rest of the way with Coke. They certainly weren’t stingy with the alcohol…

Entertaining us was a group of Thai women called “Simple Touch.” There were 5 of them dancing and singing. The band consisted of a synthesizer/sequencer and a tambourine. They regaled us with various power ballads from the 80’s and some dance numbers. They were wearing some, umm, interesting outfits. This being Yemen, they were covered, but with a body stocking. Most of it was fairly see through (with appropriate darker areas of course), tasteful wasn’t the word that came to mind. I think that Tami came up with the best word to encapsulate everything about the outfit.
Cameltoe.
Anyway, as she pointed out this was probably better than working in a brothel in Bangkok or Manilla.

The Italians certainly know how to have fun and it was infectious. The food was good and I drank more than I have in the last 7 or 8 years combined. I had two of those amazing Jack and Cokes, and after the dinner the waiter asked if I’d like a cognac. What else can you say to an offer like that? It was served in a proper snifter, it smelled and tasted divine. I also had some champagne at the end. I don’t drink much, or often, but I have always had a weakness for weddings.

It was during my second Jack and Coke when “Simple Touch” launched into that most improbable of Abba songs that I realized that I hadn’t anticipated this at all. But it was fun, and I’m glad that I could take part in celebrating their wedding. Thanks for inviting me guys!

I was talking to my teacher this morning and a local house caught my eye. I had seen this place before, it has, inexplicably, a lot of trash on its roof. I asked him why and he told me the same thing that another teacher had told me, “It’s Yemen!” After we laughed a little, I asked him why there really was so much trash all over the place, didn’t people care about how Yemen looks? I actually cringed when he told what he thought was the reason, it’s because the government doesn’t do enough cleaning/enforcement. I tried the best I could to explain that the reason that there is less trash in other places isn’t because of the government, people just don’t like it. He casually threw out the idea that Sana’a wasn’t that dirty (he’s obviously never been anywhere else), so I used some other villages to press my point. He just shrugged his shoulders…

We did talk a little bit about Yemen’s government, what a mess. There is, of course, the president. There is also a “government” headed up by a prime minister. This is where all of the ministers of various departments are (electricity, culture, etc.). Unlike other countries that have a prime minister, this entire government is appointed by the president. Wait, it gets better… There is a parliament that is elected, this is where the opposition parties try to exercise some power. There is also a smaller body that works with the parliament called the Shura council. From what I understand, they are supposed to act in an advisory role to parliament, guiding them in matters of constitutionality and religious law. No law passed can go against generally accepted Sharia law. This council doesn’t get to vote on anything, but they wield considerable influence over parliament. The Shura council is appointed by… the president of course!

And I thought Bush had too much power! The president effectively has almost total control, and that’s not good. My teacher then informed me that most of the Arab countries (that aren’t monarchies) have a similar system. Gah, no wonder this area is such a mess…

Today I was in another class talking about food. At least this time it had popular ethnic foods in America as its context. It mentioned Italian, Greek, Chinese, Mexican, German, and Japanese food. There were a couple of students that recognized some of them, including a girl that had gone to an Italian restaurant in Saudi Arabia. Still, I couldn’t quite explain how much I miss Mexican food, SIGH. Anyway, we talked about different types of food here and other places. Fast food came up and just for fun, I asked them what a hamburger is made of. Predictably, some of them said ham, not that they knew what that was. I informed them that ham was a type of pork and got blank stares, so I used the Arabic word “hhanzeer,” and got a unified gasp out of them. Some looked more than a little worried, so I quickly informed them that all hamburgers are made of beef and everyone relaxed again… I spent the last 5 minutes of class going over common foods in the west that are haraam for them. They learned about pork, ham, and bacon. I also remembered that alcohol is used in a decent amount of desserts and other dishes so I told them about rum, vodka, tequila (mmmm, California pizza kitchen’s tequila lime chicken fettucini sounds REALLY good right now), brandy, Bailiey’s, and Grand Marnier. Man, that class made me really hungry…

The next class was hilarious. I had read the lesson the night before and prepared myself. It was all about some guy named Tom talking about his wedding day. Ooog, that took some explaining. It was really about the wedding reception, they didn’t talk about the actual wedding at all. The part where he talked about his mother dancing with his bride’s father took a little while to explain… Anyway, I did what I could and then I told them they could ask me other questions. They ended up learning about the wedding party, how the actual wedding goes, the honeymoon, bridesmaids, the Best Man, etc. They (well the guys) had a lot of questions about men only being able to marry one woman, I had one student with two wives! All of them seemed to be relieved that they could get divorced and remarried… Anyway, it was interesting, I think I managed to explain things pretty well, I hope they don’t think we’re too weird:-)

… if there’s anything you would like from here, just let me know. This is an offer for not only my family, but to people that have been here and are now living in the states (you know who you are!). Spices (saffron is crazy cheap here), perfumes, incense, whatever, just let me know. The Yemenis are crazy for perfume, I can get just about any “designer” (Tommy, D&G, Joop, etc.)perfume you can think of at really good prices. I’ll also be going through the duty free in Doha. I haven’t been there before, but if it is anything like the one in Dubai, I expect some really good prices on alcohol. 30 year old scotches, cognac, you name it, I can get it at good prices. Anyway, just let me know!

When people pray here, they have to perform their ablutions beforehand. Fair enough, they need to be clean to pray. The problem is the way they go about that here. It involves leaning over a sink and a lot of splashing. They wash their face, part of their arms, rinsing their mouth, and of course a lot of spitting. I have seen people washing their feet in the sink… After they are done, the entire area is soaking wet. I’ve seen this in restaurants, airports, and of course where I live. We have a tub, if you’re going to make a mess, why not do it in there? I have never seen anyone here care about how they leave the washing area, it’ll be nice to have my own bathroom again…