My Yemen Blog

I was talking to my teacher this morning and a local house caught my eye. I had seen this place before, it has, inexplicably, a lot of trash on its roof. I asked him why and he told me the same thing that another teacher had told me, “It’s Yemen!” After we laughed a little, I asked him why there really was so much trash all over the place, didn’t people care about how Yemen looks? I actually cringed when he told what he thought was the reason, it’s because the government doesn’t do enough cleaning/enforcement. I tried the best I could to explain that the reason that there is less trash in other places isn’t because of the government, people just don’t like it. He casually threw out the idea that Sana’a wasn’t that dirty (he’s obviously never been anywhere else), so I used some other villages to press my point. He just shrugged his shoulders…

We did talk a little bit about Yemen’s government, what a mess. There is, of course, the president. There is also a “government” headed up by a prime minister. This is where all of the ministers of various departments are (electricity, culture, etc.). Unlike other countries that have a prime minister, this entire government is appointed by the president. Wait, it gets better… There is a parliament that is elected, this is where the opposition parties try to exercise some power. There is also a smaller body that works with the parliament called the Shura council. From what I understand, they are supposed to act in an advisory role to parliament, guiding them in matters of constitutionality and religious law. No law passed can go against generally accepted Sharia law. This council doesn’t get to vote on anything, but they wield considerable influence over parliament. The Shura council is appointed by… the president of course!

And I thought Bush had too much power! The president effectively has almost total control, and that’s not good. My teacher then informed me that most of the Arab countries (that aren’t monarchies) have a similar system. Gah, no wonder this area is such a mess…

Today I was in another class talking about food. At least this time it had popular ethnic foods in America as its context. It mentioned Italian, Greek, Chinese, Mexican, German, and Japanese food. There were a couple of students that recognized some of them, including a girl that had gone to an Italian restaurant in Saudi Arabia. Still, I couldn’t quite explain how much I miss Mexican food, SIGH. Anyway, we talked about different types of food here and other places. Fast food came up and just for fun, I asked them what a hamburger is made of. Predictably, some of them said ham, not that they knew what that was. I informed them that ham was a type of pork and got blank stares, so I used the Arabic word “hhanzeer,” and got a unified gasp out of them. Some looked more than a little worried, so I quickly informed them that all hamburgers are made of beef and everyone relaxed again… I spent the last 5 minutes of class going over common foods in the west that are haraam for them. They learned about pork, ham, and bacon. I also remembered that alcohol is used in a decent amount of desserts and other dishes so I told them about rum, vodka, tequila (mmmm, California pizza kitchen’s tequila lime chicken fettucini sounds REALLY good right now), brandy, Bailiey’s, and Grand Marnier. Man, that class made me really hungry…

The next class was hilarious. I had read the lesson the night before and prepared myself. It was all about some guy named Tom talking about his wedding day. Ooog, that took some explaining. It was really about the wedding reception, they didn’t talk about the actual wedding at all. The part where he talked about his mother dancing with his bride’s father took a little while to explain… Anyway, I did what I could and then I told them they could ask me other questions. They ended up learning about the wedding party, how the actual wedding goes, the honeymoon, bridesmaids, the Best Man, etc. They (well the guys) had a lot of questions about men only being able to marry one woman, I had one student with two wives! All of them seemed to be relieved that they could get divorced and remarried… Anyway, it was interesting, I think I managed to explain things pretty well, I hope they don’t think we’re too weird:-)

… if there’s anything you would like from here, just let me know. This is an offer for not only my family, but to people that have been here and are now living in the states (you know who you are!). Spices (saffron is crazy cheap here), perfumes, incense, whatever, just let me know. The Yemenis are crazy for perfume, I can get just about any “designer” (Tommy, D&G, Joop, etc.)perfume you can think of at really good prices. I’ll also be going through the duty free in Doha. I haven’t been there before, but if it is anything like the one in Dubai, I expect some really good prices on alcohol. 30 year old scotches, cognac, you name it, I can get it at good prices. Anyway, just let me know!

When people pray here, they have to perform their ablutions beforehand. Fair enough, they need to be clean to pray. The problem is the way they go about that here. It involves leaning over a sink and a lot of splashing. They wash their face, part of their arms, rinsing their mouth, and of course a lot of spitting. I have seen people washing their feet in the sink… After they are done, the entire area is soaking wet. I’ve seen this in restaurants, airports, and of course where I live. We have a tub, if you’re going to make a mess, why not do it in there? I have never seen anyone here care about how they leave the washing area, it’ll be nice to have my own bathroom again…

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…

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:-)