Month: November 2007

Categories
Music

Recent music

I got some music from my housemate Karl and I’ve been listening to some of it. It’s a real mixed bag, he has everything from obscure Romantic pipe organ music, to lots of dj/dance stuff. I’ve been erasing a lot of the DJ/house/trance stuff, it just isn’t my cup of tea. I’ve also been erasing all of the German hip-hop I come across. It all sounds totally ridiculous to me. They all cop the attitudes of the good American performers, but none of it is very convincing. I just listened to a German version of Ghetto Superstar, at least that was the background beat. The guys rapped over it and sounded like they were making complete fools of themselves. They were saying something about getting stoned and saying some disparaging things about Paris. I erased that pretty quick…

Some good, new things for me include The Fu-Schnickens (which sounds like a German band but aren’t), a Morrissy album I hadn’t heard before, and various things from odd and assorted one hit wonders. My newest guilty pleasure has to be “Jenny From the Block,” by Jennifer Lopez. Yes, I know that was out years ago, and yes, I know it’s pop trash. I did say it was a guilty pleasure:-) If I run across anything really amazing that I had never heard of before I’ll let you know.

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photography

Photography stuff

Before I came to Yemen, I sold off all of my photo gear and started from scratch. I didn’t use the vast majority of the stuff at all, it was just stuff that I liked owning. It felt pretty good to get rid of it actually, a load off of my mind. I had grand plans for my photography over here. I wanted big negatives, but it had to be easy to carry around. I bought a full Horseman VHR set-up with a new tripod, two 35mm cameras, and an enormous amount of film.

As it turns out, it was going to be too expensive to bring everything over here, so I left it all back home. I only brought a small digital camera and a tripod. I’m glad I didn’t bring the big rig, and the little Sony camera I brought has served me well, but I do miss shooting with a “real” camera and I’m getting really frustrated with the technical limitations of digital and of the camera itself. So I’ve been plotting a way to take the pictures that I want over here.

Right now, the biggest problem is the expense of developing that amount of film (200+ rolls). I think that I’ve found a way around that, I’ve found a lab that can develop 120 film at a very Yemeni price. That isn’t fool proof of course, it’s really easy to get bad developing back home, I’m sure that the chemistry isn’t kept in as good tolerance and that I can expect some scratches and whatnot from the processors here. The only way to find out if they are any good is by using them… My original plan was to ship everything back to my old job for developing and scanning and then just have the cd sent back to me. I could count on them to develop things properly, but they are much more expensive, plus the shipping by itself would have cost me a fortune. I may go back to that plan if the local guys botch the film up bad enough. I would just have to send lots of rolls at a time and cut back on the total numbers of rolls shot…

The camera situation has also been a bit of a problem. My Horseman is capable of outstanding results, but it is a bit much to lug around here. My solution to that problem is something that I used to have but had gotten rid of in the quest for better equipment. I’ve bought an older, Chinese “folder,” a medium format camera that folds up into a very compact package. I had a Russian one before but I decided that it wasn’t good enough. In truth, they are capable of decent results and they are a lot of fun to use. More importantly, they are really easy to carry around.

When I come home for Christmas, I’ll pick up my new camera, my pinhole camera (one of the few things I kept from my old collection) and all of my 120 film and bring them back. I plan on being out of 120 film about the same time I come back for my cousin’s wedding in July. That’s when I’ll pick up my 35mm cameras and all of that film (100+rolls). I’m going to look around for a reasonably priced scanner so that I can put some of my pictures online. I’ve even thought about renting some darkroom time to print my own stuff, but I haven’t really looked into that yet.

In any case, I hope to up and shooting in Jan.

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Yemen

Another one of "those" conversations

I was in the computer room doing internet stuff when one of the kids of one of the workers at the school came in.

Him: How are you?
Me: I’m alright, but I’m a little hungry.
Him: Oh? (noticeably brightening) we should go to a restaurant!

These are the sorts of invitations that I decline on a regular basis. I had no interest in going anywhere with him. From hard experience I knew that he was trying to get something from me.

Me: Oh, I have a lot of stuff to do right now, I’ll probably go in a few hours.
Him: Oh… What is your name?
Me: It’s Isaac
Him: OK, could you lend me 500 riyals?
Me: No.

I tried to be as dismissive of him as possible and concentrate on what I was doing.

Him: Why not?

What do I say to that? Do I tell him that I knew from the moment he came in the room he was trying to get something out of me? Do I tell him that he should try to get money from someone whose name he knows? Or maybe I should tell him that he is 400th person to assume that I should give them money and that his question of “Why not?” has guaranteed that I will never talk to him again?

Look, there’s plenty of desperate people out here, I see them begging all the time. I don’t hold it against them, life sucks here, I give to some of them. What I respect about those people is that they aren’t pretending, they aren’t kidding around, they need the money and often times have no other ways of getting it. Crippled people, mothers with their retarded child, blind people, old widows, etc. They ask me for money because they ask everyone for money, they cover all bases. This guy and his type are another thing altogether. They pretend to be friendly, hell maybe they are friendly, but they do it for a specific thing, money. They pretend to want to be my friend, and then once I’m talking to them, they ask for money. Not just any money mind you, they always have a specific amount in mind. This time it was 500 riyals. I’ve been asked for 1000 riyals, 5000, 10000, even a hundred bucks. Actual beggars are happy for anything, these guys are hucksters. I happen to know that this particular guy lives in a nice building (the students building), and has no real financial burdens. It has happened to me so many times, I’m really sick of it.

I ended up telling him that I don’t lend money to people here. He said, “Oh,” and left. There’s an old saying that if you lend someone $20 and you never hear from them again, it was probably $20 well spent. It’s even better when you don’t spend the money and get the same result…

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teaching

More on language

The other day I was teaching an intermediate English class. The book mentioned that a couple went to the ballet. Predictably, the student reading that sentence had problems pronouncing the word “ballet,” I corrected him and asked the class if anyone knew what that word meant.

I was surprised to hear a rather derisive snicker from the teacher who normally taught the class. She’s a Russian, and I’ve been trying to figure her out. She’s always in full nikab and has made numerous references about Saudi Arabia being a good place and wanting to move there. The ONLY reason I can imagine anyone saying those things is that they are a Wahabi muslim. What happens to make someone convert to Wahabism is a fascinating topic, but she’s a mystery to me.

I have learned through a lot of interaction with people that there are some moments when you can direct people’s thoughts. Catching people off guard to the point that they utter some sort of exclamation is a pretty good indicator of one of those moments. I slightly turned so that she was in my line of sight and even though I was speaking to the entire class, I was especially concentrating on her… “The ballet is a national treasure of Russia…” Her eyes glazed over and if it wasn’t for her nikab, I’m sure that I would have seen her jaw go slightly slack, all the hallmarks of someone being engrossed in thought. She wasn’t there anymore, she was somewhere else… “All of the best ballet dancers and ballet companies are from Russia…” And then I saw it, that slight, mocking sneer/smile. You’d be amazed at how expressive the eyes are when that’s all you’ve got to see. It’s quite easy to tell when someone is smiling even when you can only see their eyes. I paused, and she kept that same expression as she turned and looked at the students. It was clear to me what she was thinking, You poor, uncivilized fools. You have no idea what culture is, you have no idea how bad you have it…

Of course those were my thoughts of her thoughts, God only knows what she was actually thinking, but it was clear that she was thinking about some combination of Russia and ballet and had a bit of a sneer on her face as she thought about those things while she turned to her students. I turned to face the class fully and the spell was broken. I use the word “spell” literally, people say that there’s no such thing as magic, but that is demonstrably false. How else do you explain the ability of making someone happy by mentioning how good they look out of the blue? How else do you explain how you can ruin someone’s day by telling them how stupid they are? How could I get that teacher to think about where she’s from, just for a moment? Language is powerful stuff, I used every technique in the book to sell all sorts of stuff, and I did it very well. I doubt that the students picked up on what I was doing, but it would have been a good lesson. I don’t think that enough emphasis is made on the power of language and I certainly don’t think that people understand the power they wield when they talk to someone. If more effort was expended on not only teaching what words mean, but the effects they have on people, I think that the world would be a much better place.

Cheap hypnosis tricks aside, being directed with your language can result in amazing things being accomplished. I’m trying to use this with my teaching, just like I did with my sales. That teacher is still a mystery to me, but I felt like I found out something about her, and she didn’t have to say a thing…

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Yemen

Notecards….anyone?

I’m getting really frustrated. I can’t find the classic staple of language learners, note-cards. I had been able to buy 3 1/2 by 5 note-cards with no problem when I first got here, but the store that I was buying them from has stopped selling them. He doesn’t seem to have any desire to stock them again, and I can’t find any in this whole fricking city… I have been to 8 or 9 stores and no one seems to have any idea what I’m talking about. When I show them the cards, they just shake their heads. ARGHH!! I’ve been using flash cards to learn new words for so long that I’m having trouble adapting to any other way of learning new words. I need to find some more cards, my vocb is suffering… If anyone wants to send me some, I’d be very grateful:-)

Categories
Economics

A propane "crisis"

The latest issue of the Yemen Observer has an article that amounts to little more than the paper mocking the government. The headline reads, “Crisis? What crisis? Government still thinks gas situation stable.” The article describes how prices of propane gas tanks, which are used all over the country for cooking among other things, have risen dramatically over the last 5 or 6 months. Prices are hitting 1000 riyals (as opposed to the 500-600 from 6 months ago) and people are waiting in long lines to get the tanks. The vendors blame the government (which provides the gas) and the government is blaming the distributers. The paper seems to be happy assuming that either the incompetent government or greedy distributers are to blame, but doesn’t bother to look into the matter at all.

The article is rather maddening because important details are missing. Are people standing in lines for tanks at 1000 riyals? Or are people avoiding the lines by paying 1000 riyals? The government claims that its price to the vendors has not changed, it is still 400 riyals. So this leads to some interesting conclusions. If people are waiting in line, that means that the gas in under-priced. Surely the combination of prices that are “too high” and waiting in line do not seem to jibe. Queuing is a classic example of underpricing, see the cap on gas prices in the US during the 1970’s as an example. If you want to get rid of the lines, you need to raise the price of the gas. How much do you need to raise it? Just enough so that people do not think that it is worth standing in line for. The only reason to stand in line is if you think that it’s a great deal or you (along with several thousand of your friends) want to consume a lot of it due to the low price. If it is no longer a bargain, or if it is high enough that you cut back on your use, *POOF* no more lines. I have a feeling that the going rate is well below 1000 riyals but that some people are willing to pay that price in order to avoid standing in line. The upside to all of this is that I haven’t heard the annoying CLANG CLANG CLANG of the gas sellers walking through the streets. They bang the tanks with a wrench to announce their presence. I guess that people are now willing to go to them instead of them delivering at a higher price.

And I don’t want to hear any, “But people HAVE to have it, they are forced to pay the higher price so they can cook!” bullshit. Charcoal is cheap. Yes, it is a bigger pain to use, and that is why people prefer using gas, but it is an option. If you can’t afford 1000 riyals for gas (and many people can’t), 50 riyals for a bag of charcoal sounds pretty good. Grills are pretty low tech to make, I really don’t think that it’s beyond anyone to make one…

So do we blame the government or the distributers? It’s possible that the distributers are deliberately keeping supplies low thus forcing up the price. Unless there are only a few distributers, and it’s a distinct possibility, I doubt that they are doing that. It would just be too difficult to organize all of them and keep the price up. Left to their own devices, someone would start discounting to get more business and others would have to follow suit. If there are only a few distributers, the solution is to open up the market and let competition take over. It wouldn’t surprise me if the government has only “allowed,” ( i.e. given) contracts to some cronies of some important bureaucrat. These licenses to make money are very common in these sorts of governments. In any case, I haven’t heard of a glut of propane that is not being bought by suppliers, so I doubt that this is happening in any case.

The important thing to keep in mind is that even with the higher prices, no one is having trouble selling propane. It sounds like that the distributers are trying to sell gas at the going rate. Perhaps they are feeling the heat of consumers’ ire and that is preventing them from charging the actual market clearing price, hence the lines due to the lower price. That rate is determined by the demand of consumers and the supply. The government claims that the supplies have not changed, so that implies that the demand has. That, combined with the falling value of the dollar/riyal might just be all the explanation that is necessary. To misquote another blogger I read a while back, high gas prices are not a crisis, no gas is. If you try to sell gas at below the going rate, you will face long lines and shortages. it is much better to simply raise the price than it is to try to “force” a market to do your bidding. Let people make up their own minds about what to do with the price and let the producers and distributers try to maximize their profits. Usually, I’d say that the government being the supplier would really mess things up, and it might, but the Yemeni government is pretty good at sniffing out revenue streams. While not as good as a for profit company, they’ll approximate one due to the corruption involved and the dire state of the government’s coffers….

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Yemen

More misguided protests

There are ongoing demonstrations and sit ins down in Ta’izz because of the awful economic situation. The protesters are demanding that there be no more corruption when it comes to allocating government jobs, that the government do something to help college graduates find jobs, and to alleviate poverty in general.

I don’t have any hard proof of this, but it certainly seems that the government sector is a large part of the economy here. It certainly is in Sana’a. The problem is that the government sector doesn’t actually add to the productivity, and hence to wealth creation, of the country. Everyone here aspires to get a job in the government. The government does seem to pay better than most of the private sector jobs. That in itself could be a problem, if most of the capable people are in the government, the private sector doesn’t have much to pick from. In addition, the government sector “crowds out” many things that could be provided by the private sector, thus robbing the country of the greater efficiency and productivity that a for profit enterprise generates. Because government jobs are so popular, there are many more people applying for them than there are positions. People being people, where there is a demand, there will be an entrepreneur to take advantage of that demand. It is very common to have to pay very high prices in order to land the government job that you want. As long as there are long lines of people wanting these jobs, corruption will take advantage of that demand. The only way to get rid of this problem is to make the private sector more attractive and more lucrative. More pro-growth and smaller government policies need to be followed…

There is an ongoing problem with people graduating from colleges and then not being able to find a job. Most of this can be blamed on the continuing pathetic performance of the economy. More than a third of Yemenis are out of work so it’s no surprise that college graduates are among those. The other significant problem is that there are very few people coming out of Yemeni colleges with “useful” degrees. A startling percentage of graduates come out of college with a degree in Arabic. I think the number is well over 50%, many of the other people get degrees in English. There are a vanishingly small percentage of graduates in the sciences, mathematics, social sciences, and business. I’m not even sure that there is an equivalent of Engineering offered here. There are people with an “engineering” degree, but they seem to know little more than a contractor would know back home. They can build structures, but they cannot seem to tackle more difficult projects like tall buildings, bridges, roads, or dams. If you want one of those things built, you have to import an actual engineer… Yemenis could really help themselves if they started to pursue degrees in fields that have to be imported now…

The government can’t really alleviate poverty, but it could get out of the way. Curiously, no one seems to be asking for that. Instead, the protesters are demanding that the government do “something” about poverty. People need to understand that governments can’t create wealth, they can only take it away. With a minimal government footprint in people’s lives, they should be able to go about being productive in whatever ways they can think of. The cynic in me realizes that this is not what Yemenis want. They want the government to wave a magic wand and suddenly become like their neighbors in Qatar, the UAE, and of course like KSA. It’s too bad that the only wealth that they are familiar with is from an abundance of a very desirable natural resource. It never crosses their mind to wonder why the US is so rich, let alone Hong Kong or Taiwan. The US certainly has plenty of natural resources, but that is not why we are rich. Good old fashioned hard work and savings over the course of the past 400 years has produced what we have today. The Yemenis would do well to study places like Taiwan in order to become wealthy, not Qatar. Until they start to ask the government to allow them to prosper by their own cunning, they will always be poor.

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odds and ends

I’ve been busy…

My cold got better several days ago, but I’ve been doing stuff all the time. The teaching is going well. I’m enjoying it and the students seem to be enjoying it as well. The only real problem is that I don’t really know which class I’ll be teaching when I get to work. The principle did make a schedule for me, but it was immediately ignored and things were shifted around so much that it doesn’t make any sense any more. I’ve walked into several classes and had to ask “Which level is this?” It’s not too bad once I have the correct book, the lessons are pretty much all right there. I read out of the book, demonstrate their examples, and then answer questions. Even if the class starts out hectic, it always settles down into a good class by the end.

My apartment stuff is pretty much taken care of. I’ll be moving into it in January. It’s only $100 a month! My only difficult thing now is coming up with the first three months rent and the price of all of the furnishings. I’m over a bit of a barrel, if I don’t buy the stuff, the landlord will and then he’ll charge more per month since it’ll be a “furnished” apartment. I’ve got until the first week of December to come up with the money. After I do this, the money will not be a problem, but this big purchase and three months rent is a big chunk…

I’m doing well with the new teacher. Every once in a while, he is unable to explain a new word well enough and we have to resort to a dictionary, but most of the time it isn’t a problem. Being forced to speak in Arabic all the time, even about grammar, is making my brain work, and hurt on occasion.

My time is suddenly at a premium. That’s a huge difference from before. It used to be I’d have two hours of class and then the rest of the time was mine. Now I’ve got the two hours of class, teaching is taking up about 4 hours (with commuting time), and then I’ve got homework, I have to eat (and getting down Hadda or cooking takes time), and I have to attempt to prepare for teaching. I’ve got a window of time every day for using the internet, but it keeps getting squeezed. Anyway, it’s good to be doing productive stuff again, but I forgot how much time it uses up!

Categories
odds and ends

Took the day off

I just can’t shake this damn cold. I don’t feel too bad, but this morning my voice was pretty hoarse. Talking seemed to hurt so I decided to play it safe and call in sick for my lesson and teaching gig. I feel stupid calling in sick on my second day of work but I figure that I’m there so they an hear how I talk. If I can’t talk well, I’m pretty much useless. I really don’t want this to develop into laryngitis, so I’m staying home and keeping talking to a minimum. I hope I’m better tomorrow….

Categories
Yemen

Surprise!

A Yemeni friend of mine was just informed that he will be married on Jan. 10th. He’s about 23 or so and he’s a little upset. This is the traditional way of getting married here in Yemen, your parents tell you when they have found someone for you and all of the details are worked out between the families. Here in Sana’a, the bride and groom don’t really get to meet or get to know each other before the wedding. My friend’s problem is that he hangs out with a lot of westerners and had come to believe that he’d be able to pick out his own bride. His father gave him three months to pick out a woman. That’s actually pretty liberal, but my friend just isn’t ready to get married, so he didn’t pick anyone. His younger brother is getting married, I think that’s why the father is in such a rush. Weddings with multiple grooms are very popular, it keeps the costs down, I think his father wants to do a two-fer… Anyway, when he didn’t find a woman, his father picked one. The option of rebelling is apparently out of the question. From an American’s point of view, this seems like a picture perfect example of what to rebel against, but my friend made it clear that it wasn’t an option. I guess it’s a Yemeni thing, I wouldn’t understand….

By all accounts, the woman is decent enough, but he’s more than a little worried about marrying a complete stranger. It’s funny, I had always heard how awful arranged marriages were for the women, but I had never heard from a guy about it before. It sounds like it sucks all the way around. “Our customs suck!” was my friends lament. I can only assume that a lot of these arranged marriages work out well enough, why else would they continue generation to generation if they are hated so much? There is the issue of financial dealings between the families, but I’d like to think that the kids’ well being is put in front of any money considerations. Still, in an area this poor, I can imagine that a beautiful daughter could be quite an asset. I think I like our system better…

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