My newish roommate hasn’t shown himself to be very prepared for this place. Tomorrow he will go on a UN sponsored trip to some mountainous areas down south. We had a power outage of course, so he was having difficulty packing. He asked to borrow my flash light. I said sure, I wasn’t using it. He goes into his room and comes right back out. “Hey, I’ve got some sort of problem with my ATM card and I can’t get any money out of it. I have 2000 riyals right now, could I borrow another 2000 riyals? I’ll pay you back on friday…” I was dumbfounded. OK, things happen and banking in Yemen from anywhere can be a bit of a pain. What surprised me was the fact that he was willing to go on a 4 day trip into the outlying areas of southern Yemen with the equivalent of 20 bucks in his pocket. Not only are credit cards useless out there, there are no ATM machines either. Everything is done with cash, how can you even think that 20 bucks will be enough? I tried to loan him another 8000, he would only take 7000. The boy doesn’t seem too with it, or incredibly naive, or maybe just really inexperienced. Maybe all three…
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