It has been raining off and on for the past three days. It’s nice to have humidity in the air again, I don’t feel like a mummy every morning. The old city was built around a natural riverbed, called the saila, so when it rains the water naturally runs down to it. It was paved just recently, I think about 10 years ago or so, paid for by the American taxpayer… When it’s not raining, the saila is one of the main roads in the old city. It connects several big streets and so it’s pretty useful to get around on. Of course when it rains, it is impassable. All of the rain that hits the old city flows into it. I have seen the water rise up to 8 feet in the saila.
With all of that water flowing downhill, the rain acts as a natural street cleaner. This entire area is always covered by various amounts of dust. If we get a small amount of rain, everything is covered in a slick film of silt. When it rains really hard, or it keeps up for several days, a lot of that dust gets swept away. It is the only time you will ever see the streets clean. As you get towards the saila, there is a bit of an accumulation of mud. The saila itself is as muddy as the York river. Children play in it despite God only knows what is in there and the sometimes swift current. I guess it’s the only time they really get to play in the water. Still, not only does the rain wash away the dust, it washes away everything else that is on the streets as well. Take my word for it, the streets here are pretty nasty. A day or two after the rain stops and most of the water has evaporated leaving the sailia a muddy mess, it is disgusting. The sailia smells like a sewer. People here still just walk through it in their sandals. I’m just waiting for the next Yemeni to lecture me about how western toilets are so unsanitary…
The newer parts of the city do not have any natural riverbed. It doesn’t rain here very often, but it does rain and that water does have to go somewhere. It looks as though no one ever gave that any thought when they built the roads. They aren’t crowned, the slopes are all over the place, and there certainly isn’t any storm sewer system, the water just falls and then it flows downhill until it stops. So certain areas can have as much as 4 to 5 inches of standing water. It wouldn’t be so bad, except that a lot of these places are at major intersections and on major roads. The water does evaporate pretty quickly, but it still takes a day or two for those places to be dry again. With the Yemenis’ penchant for littering and dumping all sorts of stuff, it gets pretty nasty. The fish souk is particularly fragrant these days… This does give a possible explanation as to why almost all of the speed bumps have a gap in them. The speed bumps act as a dam for the water, so they put a gap in it to allow the water to flow. That makes a lot more sense than giving the motorcycles a way to avoid the speed bumps…
The other thing that I have noticed since the rains have started are the mosquitos. Being from a rather swampy part of Gloucester county, I’m well acquainted with mosquitos. The ones here are particularly potent, I itch like crazy from their bites. I am also getting eaten alive at night. None of my windows have functional screens, I have yet to see any windows in Yemen that can keep bugs out. Since all of the sheets here seem to be made of synthetics (mine are at least), I broil under them. If I throw them off, I get bitten. I’ve had to resort to going to bed fully dressed in a long sleeved t-shirt and sweat pants and no covers. My hands and feet are still getting bitten, but it’s better.
When I go back home, I’ll be walking into the teeth of a Virginia summer. The weather itself will be much worse back home. It gets hotter and it is more humid in VA. On the other hand, it’s pretty easy to avoid those things by going inside. There are fewer weather problems here, but you can’t get away from the ones that are here…