Month: April 2008

I mentioned in another blog post about how people complain about things here and not really understand some of the big reasons there are problems. Keep in mind that what they are complaining about is how they are suffering in comparison to other people. I am very skeptical of the idea that things were ever much better here than they are now. Certainly, from an economic point of view, I can’t see this current government being much worse than the caliphate that was here before. Granted, in many ways they are no better, but I think that they are not any worse. In the meantime, other countries (like the US) have surged ahead in productivity, and therefore their standard of living has gotten much better. What Yemenis want is to keep up with the prosperity of the west. Like I said before, deep changes have to happen in the culture for that to happen. They still have essentially the same culture as they had under the caliphate. It is an either/or situation, you can’t live the same way you did 50 years ago and expect to have big changes in the overall economy.

I think this is pretty obvious with examples like Yemen, but the same thing can be applied to the US as well. There are certain states like Michigan, New York, Ohio, and West Virginia to name a few that have not, and are not, adapting to new economic realities. If they want to change their unemployment figures, population loss, or any other big economic thing, they are going to have to make some changes. For right now, they are doing the same old same old and SURPRISE! they aren’t getting the results that they want. Times are different now, if you want to do better, you have to change.

I am at the end of my wits, but I can’t say that I hate this place. The problem, as it always is, is just one of my expectations. When I came here, I told everyone that I wanted to experience the culture and live in a place that isn’t the US for a while. That was all true, but I’ll let you in on a little secret, almost every westerner that comes here also has the idea that they will make a difference, that they can help in some way. I didn’t expect to turn the country around, but I did harbor fantasies of perhaps turning around a few people. If enough people pursue individual success, things will start to change. The economy could get better and with any luck they would put pressure on the government to stay out of the way.

Well, like most people that come over here with the idea of “making a difference,” I have been incredibly frustrated. Whether you are trying to get some ideas about the economy across (like myself), trying to help with women’s issues, trying to tackle the water problem, the qat problem, or anything else, the thought inevitably comes into your mind, “What is wrong with these people?”

Now, let me say that I am perfectly willing to tolerate cultural differences, as long as people are happy with the consequences of those attitudes. What I and so many other people get frustrated about is that the people want things both ways. They want everything to be the same, except, you know, different… When people here complain about something (and there is plenty to complain about), they never seem to connect the dots. I have had many conversations about how rich the US is and most Yemenis are pretty jealous. But the thought of working 40 hours a week or more is out of the question. The thought of taking a single hour for lunch is out of the question. The thought of not chewing qat for three hours a day is out of the question. The idea of not throwing away a month’s worth of productivity during Ramadan is out of the question. And of course the idea of allowing half your population (the women) into the work force is unthinkable, but they want to be just like the US economically…

It’s the same for any other thing that people complain about here. They don’t like something, but they have a total blind spot for the solution. I really wouldn’t mind so much if they said, “Well, we can’t do that because of our cultural norms, and our culture is more important than the benefit that you described.” OK, that’s fair enough, some things are worth more than others to different people. But of course no one says anything like that. Usually, they will either deny that there is something in the culture holding them back, or they simply don’t see how it is relevant.

And this is with the stuff that they complain about. There are plenty of people trying to change things here that the Yemenis, as a whole, do not see as a problem. If you think that women having equal rights (including FGM issues), reducing the population growth, or qat are problems, you’re looking at being massively frustrated. Here’s the thing, there has to be a critical mass of people that both understand the problem and care enough to do something for any progress to have any traction. No one can come here and “change” anything for the better. All you can really do is educate people about the problems and possible alternatives and hope that they eventually come around. Look at Iraq if you want to see a worst case scenario of people who “know better” coming in and attempting to change things. Oh things change all right, but not for the better. Until the bulk of people jump on the bandwagon, nothing will be accomplished.

I do like to think that even if the good intentions of the students here do not pan out like we fantasize we still have a positive impact. Especially the women that come over here. I think that the more independent, successful women that Yemenis see, the better. I hope beyond hope that I’ve impressed some things on my students that may trickle down to other people. Leading by example as opposed to by force is always the best way to effect change IMO. I’m not sure which is more frustrating though…

I read another children’s story in class today. It reminded me of the last time I read one. The first time I read one, I blogged about my reaction but I can’t find the page. That story was about a man that wanted to build a house. He had an axe head, but no handle. He went to the forest and asked the trees (they were sentient) for a small piece of wood so that he could make his axe. The trees decided that they would give it to him if he promised never to come back. He agreed and he got his handle. He made his axe and then decided that he still wanted his house. So he went back to the forest. The trees asked him why he had come back and he said that he had changed his mind, then he cut them all down (killed them) and he lived in his new house. Charming, eh? The point was supposed to be that you shouldn’t give people the seeds of your own destruction, but it comes off more as a story telling you that you can get what you want if you’re willing to lie and betray people that trust you…

This one was just as bad. Here’s the plot… A man lives in a cave and one day he notices an adder living in a small hole in his cave. Because the snake doesn’t do anything to him, he leaves it alone and they live together without a problem. One day, the snake leaves and the guy looks into the hole where the snake lives and sees several baby snakes. He decides to take them and see what the mother will do. So he hides them somewhere and leaves. The snake comes back and sees that her babies are gone. She looks everywhere and can’t find them. She decides that the man has done something to them, so she poisons his water jug. She then leaves and the man comes back. He puts the baby snakes back, unharmed. The snake comes back, sees that her babies are fine, then goes over and spills all of the water so that the man isn’t poisoned.

What a pointless story, right? Wrong! We are supposed to learn the value of faithfulness and being a real friend from this story. You see, the man tested the friendship of the snake, and the snake saved the man when she realized that she was being tested…

I struggled and struggled trying to figure this out. I assumed that I had missed something. Mahmoud was very patient and explained to me that it was not only important to test a friendship, he actually used the word necessary. Why? To see if they were really your friend of course. I still didn’t want to understand, so he asked me if he took my kids, just for an hour, and then returned them after I had been looking for them, wouldn’t that be funny? Wow, he actually made me really angry. I told him to remind me never to leave my kids around him… Then he said, OK, maybe not your kids, how about my cell phone? I said, in English because he doesn’t understand it, that we have a name for people that think that’s funny. We call them assholes. Then I told him in Arabic that that’s something I would expect a 7 year old to do. He said, maybe in America, but that is good here….

I shouldn’t be surprised, it was at his house that I was laughed at by 5 Yemenis when my leg cramped up. I was in serious pain and couldn’t stand up or stretch, and they thought that it was hilarious. A culture that teaches that it’s important to put your friends to the test to see if you can trust them and delights in frustrating or terrifying (missing kids!) their friends for comic relief has some serious issues. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if that culture looks a lot like what it looks like here…

As long as I have been here, I have seen children pushing broken parts of strollers, bicycles, roller skates, or anything else with a wheel around in front of them. Neither I nor my fellow students could figure out what that was about. I think I’ve figured it out, I think they are just emulating the hordes of teenagers pushing wheelbarrows all over the place. Every little kid wants to be like the big kids, I’m surprised it took me this long to notice…

I also had a student tell me something that really rang true and I think helps explain a lot here. I told her that she was doing well but that she needs to practice her reading skills. She told me that she hated to read. I figured she hated it because it was difficult, but she told me that she really doesn’t like to read in Arabic either. Of course! What, exactly, are they going to read? There are no libraries like we know here. Almost all of the books I have seen in Arabic are either religious or some other type of nonfiction. She could try to read the Koran, and maybe a newspaper, but there’s really not a lot here for kids or adolescents. You can imagine the consequences of entire generations, even the educated, not wanting to read.

It also helps explain why everyone I’ve met emphasizes learning to speak Arabic. I try to explain to them that no one speaks it in the US. In my mind, it’s a lot like learning Latin or Sanskrit, there is stuff to read, but no one uses it in a conversation. But they insist, “How else are you going to talk to people here?” Well, first off, I have never had any actual plans of living here for an extended period, and second, the people here do not speak Arabic, they speak a dialect of it. Once again, I have tried to explain that my effort needs to be in the direction that will allow me to read the things that I want, but they really don’t understand. I have a feeling it’s because they themselves don’t read.