My Yemen Blog

I learned some interesting things teaching both the English class and the conversation class. I especially enjoyed some of the responses I got from people when they did their homework or answered questions in class. Once, I brought up the phrase, “money talks,” in the conversation class. Neena than said, “And something walks, right?” Ummm, yeah, let’s just stick to the first part for now…:-)

In the other class, one of the ladies wrote that if she could chance something, she would change her fiance! Ouch! The women were, for the most part, very impressive. The two in the conversation class were definately the most advanced, and the three in the other were the best students I had. The women in the English class were all professionals, there were two dentists, a store manager, and a teacher. The two in the conversation class were housewives taking the class in order to have something to do. Neena has been all over the Europe.

These are the people I had hoped to meet in Yemen, intelligent and curious. I hope I’m able to get a similar group next term.

It wasn’t quite as bad as it looks, but it wasn’t all that safe either. I’m taking a picture, not blowing my nose. This picture was taken by Ryan in Mahweet.

I was on my way back from eating at my teacher’s house when one of the administrators of the Arabic school I attend started to tell me how Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was actually caused by “powerful nations” in order to have an excuse to invade the middle east. I cut him off with some directions to where I wanted to get out.

I didn’t need to hear what he had to say, it was the same ridiculous crap I eventually hear every time I try to talk with one of these guys. The United States, Britain, and of course Israel (the Zionist state) are behind all of the problems in this part of the world. Why are people unable to admit that they have some wakos running things over here? When will they stop blaming colonialism, Jews, and the entire Christian world for the misery that all of these countries are going through? Yes, Israel is causing suffering among the Palestinians (whether it is justified is another debate) and yes, during the crusades, the Christians did a lot of terrible things. When are they going to finally say, “Even if all of those things have hurt us, WE need to do something now!” When will they take responsibility for how the countries over here are run?

Why would I want to talk to someone when I know I will get this thrown in my face?

Went to Mamoud’s house today for lunch. I usually avoid these types of things, but for some reason I went along this time. First, the good… The food was really good. I had some things I hadn’t had before, like stuffed eggplant. There was also this spaghetti, egg, cheese thing that had been baked, it was pretty good too.

Now the bad. As usual, we all sat on the floor. This causes me all sorts of problems, my hips ache and my butt falls asleep. After we finsihed eating, we went into the next room so some of them could chew qat. I got a wicked cramp in my left leg, I couldn’t stand up and it hurt like hell. They thought it was hilarious, they laughed and laughed… I got into the usual discussion about qat, they kept insisting that I chew and I kept refusing. One of the guys said that I should spread the word about qat in the US, and I just just couldn’t help myself, I asked him, “Oh, so that the US can be like Yemen?” It was actually pretty edgy humor, some of them appreciated it…

The rest of the chew involved the usual mishmash of racist and sexist comments mixed in with a healthy dose of ignorance. These things always depress me and I always wonder why I go. The irony of an Arab, a Yemeni telling me that blacks, and Africans in particular, couldn’t be trusted because of what they have done to Africa killed me. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! If an African had said the same thing about Arabs (and they just might), the guy at the chew would have been livid. I’m done, no more accepting invites to people’s houses unless I know them really well, the racism and ever present sexism is killing me. I try to be culturally sensitive, but really, c’mon. Some things are just wrong…

We were discussing proverbs today and had one of those, “Wow, I’m in Yemen moments…” The saying under discussion was “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” One of the gals in the class said, “Oh, we have a similar saying in Arabic.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Don’t name the baby until it’s born…”

I’m sorry, but there are some some things about this culture that just suck. I know, but political correctness be damned, some things are just awful here. We were talking about music in my conversation class and I even played some music for them. They liked “Stand by Your Man,” and “It’s not for Me to Understand.” I picked up that hint from a Laotian guy I used to work with. He told me that all of his relatives and most of the Pho places we would go liked listening to country music because the singers’ pronunciation was very distinct and rather slow.

Anyway, we finished up listening to them and it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen any bands around here. there are an endless number of kids chanting and singing in the streets, but no adolescents or older people doing music. There are the guys that do weddings, but that’s about it. I asked why that is. It turns out that it’s only socially acceptable to perform music if you’re from a certain “class” of people. It was made clear to me that it was a lower class and that they were considered undesirable.

I had heard that about drummers, really, who wants their daughter marrying a drummer? In rock bands, it’s always the drummers that are trouble… But to think of all musicians as being “lower” than you makes for a pretty awful environment for creative people. I can also only imagine what kind of weird effects that has on kids’ minds. Pop singers are universally admired, and many kids want to emulate the successful ones. But do they then aspire to a lower class of person?

BTW, when I asked them which English bands they like to listen to Celine Dion was the first off of everyone’s lips. Ugh. Some others were the Backstreet Boys, ABBA, Shania Twain, and Britney Spears. I was about to give up hope on them liking something that I really like when Batool said that she likes Elvis. She even referred to him as “The King.” LOL that made my night….