Categories
food

Dinner in Sana’a

I didn’t know what I wanted tonight, but I sure as hell knew what I didn’t want, roasted chicken or lamb with rice… So I hopped into a dabob and hoped that inspiration would strike. All of the decent places to eat are along (or right off of) Hada street. Most of them are just upscale versions of what I usually go to or a close relative like Syrian food. Maybe KFC, I still haven’t been there, but if the Pizza hut was anything to go by, it would be very expensive and not quite as good as back home. In the case of Pizza Hut and KFC, being not quite as “good” as home puts them in a rather unattractive level of eating… Anyway, As we were zooming along, I remembered the Chinese place that Michael and I went to. I didn’t have a very good idea of the exact location, but I knew the general area it was in. I got off and started walking. After a while of not seeing anything familiar, I asked someone. He gave me directions, then I asked someone else, then someone else and I was there.

Just like last time, the food is very good. I am going to go ahead and upgrade this place from being pretty good for Yemen and just call it a pretty good restaurant. For those of you that might be staying in Sana’a for a while, the place is called Beijing cuisine. I still don’t know exactly where it is… From Zubiari, turn left onto Hada street. Get off past the Porche dealership, take a street to the right off of Hada and start walking and asking directions…. It’s worth finding.

Anyway, I thought I’d have a straight shot back to the main drag Hada, but it turns out there’s a weird detour and other road work. I started down a side street and noticed that Dabaobs were zooming past me. I flagged one down, told them where I wanted to go and got in. Well, he got to the far end of his route (the opposite end of where i wanted to go) and decided that he wanted to eat, so I had to get off. Asshole… Anyway, I got another and eventually made it back to my place. The total time door to door was a little under 3 hours. The trip back was in what had to be the fastest dabob I have ever been in and hopefully will ever be in. The good news is that I found out that I can get to one of my favorite restaurants by dabob. I had always assumed that it was too far, but it turns out that it is very close to the end of the dabob’s route. Villa de Angelo has what I consider to be the best pizza in town. That probably means the best in the country I suppose. I really can’t afford to go to these places very often, they are about the same price as a regular place in the US. The food was good enough that I think I’ll have difficulty limiting myself to once a week…

Isaac

Categories
odds and ends

The Va. Tech conundrum

I’ve always had conflicting feelings about gun control. The idea of no one having a gun is appealing, but it’s completely unrealistic to think that it’ll ever happen in the US. There was a rule on the Va. Tech campus that banned guns, but that effectively meant that when someone brought a gun onto campus, they were free to do what they liked. I do believe that if someone was carrying a weapon and was exposed to this, things would have turned out differently. But here’s where my conflict comes in, it only takes one nutjob with a gun to lead to deaths. I think it’s sad that our best option for preventing the huge numbers of deaths is to allow more people to carry weapons, but I can’t think of any way around it. “The numbers” seem to back up the theory that states with easier to get concealed weapons permits discourage violent crime. SIGH, I can only hope that people don’t use this as an excuse to make it easier to create “soft targets” for homicidal maniacs…

Isaac

Categories
Music

Some music stuff

I heard a Pixies song in a Visa commercial the other day, a rather obsure one too, Isla De Encanta. It was on a station out of Dubai, not sure if it is in rotation in the US. That lead to a conversation with another student about how great songs and bands are being co-opted by advertisements. My examples were Cadillac using Led Zepplin, Jaguar using “London Calling” by the Clash, and even Chuck D was introducing Baseball Tonight on ESPN for a while. He agreed with me and said that what they were doing to Journey songs was terrible… After a classic condescending Isaac look he felt compelled to add, “What? Dude, Journey rocks!” Comparing two of the more “important” rock bands and one of the most influential voices of the crack ravaged late 80’s early 90’s inner city experience to an ad hoc, made for selling albums group didn’t seem like a good comparison to me.

I’m really happy with my latest download. This group is right up there with The Cowboy Junkies as far as having an obnoxious name that has nothing to do with the music. The New Pornographers are a power pop, post punk type of group. Imagine a combo of Cheap Trick, ELO, The Waitresses, Squeeze, and the Replacements with a definite post-grunge feel and you’ll get close. I’ve only downloaded one album, “Mass Romantic” and it’s going to cause me to download a couple more of their albums. In particular, I like “Mass Romantic,” “Fake Headlines,” The Slow Descent into Alcoholism,” and “Jackie.” “Slow Descent…” really reminds me of the Waitresses, I would have loved to hear the late Tracy Donhue singing that. Or even Michelle Ledoux, a student I knew at IC. She was in a (very) short lived band up there and had some real talent in the same vein as Ms. Donahue. It would have been fun to hear her sing this song, or even “Unchained” by Van Halen… No really! With Terry Jin on lead guitar it would have been great! I believe her main claim to fame was playing the hooded, kidnapped wife in the back of the car in the movie “Fargo.” OK, enough reminiscing about college… “Visualize success/ but don’t believe your eyes/ what good is a vision of the world/without the will to despise it?” That’s a quick snippet from “Jackie” and I’m not sure if it’s inspired, depressing, or both. In any case, the album is filled with superbly crafted pop goodies and is always “smart.” Check out the New Pornographers if you like poppy rock, they’re a lot of fun.

Isaac

Categories
Rants

One thing that Yemen and the US have in common

I find that there are very few people worth talking to. I keep telling myself that I need to get out and talk to more people to practice my Arabic, but as soon as we get past the formalities (how are you, how are you doing, etc.) I want to get the hell out of the conversation. Yesterday for example, a guy tells me a joke. “What do you tell a woman with two black eyes? Nothing, she’s already been told twice…” It takes a certain skill to pull of jokes like that. You have to either assume a persona that thinks that is OK (the humor being in the irony), or you have to go in with the idea “This is a terrible joke,” a la South Park. This guy did neither, he just thought it was a riot at face value. I didn’t stick around for long.

I have been accused of being antisocial before, and if that’s what I am I guess it’s true. Like so many other things that I enjoy, I have high standards for the people I spend time with. I can assure you that I love the company of the people that I hang out with, otherwise I wouldn’t bother. It’s really frustrating here, the locals are really underwhelming as far as conversation goes. A large part of it is just education I’m sure, but even the college graduates are disappointing. Inevitably they will pull out a gem like, “Our water shortage is caused by a secret Israeli pumping station under the Red Sea, they’re stealing all of our water,” or the ever popular question, “Do you think Jews control the world?” Of course that last question is a trick to see where my sympathies lie, the truth of that question isn’t in any doubt to them. Combine jewish paranoia with a general distrust and dislike of women (but of course they are fascinated too), a healthy heaping of Bush hate, and a general impression that living in America must be hell what with all of the whorish women and rampant crime and you get wonderful conversations.

The best conversations I’ve had here have been with other students deconstructing our experiences here. Most of it is just bitching of course, but there have been some interesting talks as well. I’m sure that the fact that I can talk with women has nothing to do with my appreciation of my fellow students… 🙂 So I guess part of my “problem” can be chalked up to being antisocial, but I like to think of it as having high standards. My standards help me from going insane, but they may also hinder my spoken Arabic….

Isaac

Categories
Yemen

Good looking coin

My favorite bit of currency here is the 20 riyal coin. It’s worth a little less than 10 cents US these days.

DSC00877DSC00880

The tree is called “The tree of life” and is found on Socotra island. I don’t know why it’s called that. This is a picture of the older type with what I believe is a brass center. The new ones are made from one metal, I think they are aluminum. The new ones are undoubtedly less expensive to make since they are stamped out of a single piece of metal. Abdul Summit tells me that many people cut the middle out of these older coins to make decorations for their jambiays, necklaces, etc. I like this particular coin, it has a good patina on it and makes the graphics easier to see. I’ll keep looking for a better one though.

Isaac

Categories
Yemen

What kids do here…

There really isn’t any place for kids to play in the old city, no good fields or open spaces to speak of. So they play in the streets and alleys. It usually involves some combo of a ball, rocks, various pieces of garbage, and lots and lots of yelling. Soccer is of course the most popular sport of course, so whenever there is a group of kids and a ball, a game usually breaks out. Strangely enough, the ball is ALWAYS slightly deflated. I had always assumed that it was a poverty related thing, but it might have more to do with playing in an alleyway. Maybe it makes for a better game if the ball doesn’t come off the wall so hard…

I have also seen kids playing marbles. I’ve never actually seen this in person before, it had always been in the movies or TV shows. The kids draw a circle with chalk on some relatively even pavement and then try to knock marbles out of the circle. I haven’t seen any of them with “shooters”, they just use regular marbles to hit the other ones. Another difference is that I don’t think they play “for keeps”, that would be a little too much like gambling. Let’s see, if we go by the marble measure, it means that kids in Yemen today are at about a level with kids in the US in 1950 or so… Not sure how accurate that is, but I think it’s about right…

The kids here seem to be very fond of dragging things on the ground. If they find some string or rope, they inevitably tie it around some refuse and pull it behind them. I have no idea what that’s about. I’ve also seen a fair number playing with broken parts of strollers or kid’s bikes. The most prized part is a shaft with a working wheel on an axle. They push this in front of them for hours. I guess imagination is a kid’s best friend all over the world.

Isaac

Categories
odds and ends

African sleeping sickness?

I managed to sleep through my class today. That’s bad since it doesn’t start until 2PM… I went to bed around 12:30 and had my alarm set for 10. Should have been plenty of time for sleeping, but when my alarm went off (after 9 and a half hours of sleep), I knew there was no way that I was going to be able to go to class. Don’t know what the hell happened, but I feel pretty good now!

Isaac

Categories
Yemen

"Smuggling" in Yemen

There’s an article in the latest Yemen Observer (
available here
) entitled “Smuggling threatens Yemen’s economic health.” It’s silly on a lot of different levels… The biggest one being that somehow people buying things without the government’s cut is going to do something bad to the economy. Actually, the article makes it quite clear that the smuggled items are less expensive and have more profit in them, how is that going to mess up the economy? If the government had it’s way, things would cost more and people would make less money selling them. In other words, they would be poorer… It’s unclear what exact goods the article is discussing. The text talks about some expired food, weapons, and maybe some medicines, but the picture in the article shows radios and other consumer electronics. I can imagine that there could be a safety issue with the first three, but radios? What really gets me is the implication that there are import duties placed on medicines. This is a common practice in many poor countries as it is a good source of revenue. A better name for an import duty is an import tax. People pay more money on things that they buy without any benefit coming to them for the extra cost. It always bothers me when a government acts in a profit maximizing way…

I got a laugh out of one official’s statement that the import duties had been reduced by 5% therefore there is no reason to smuggle items into the country. I was happy to see that the article does mention that Yemen is trying to be more trade friendly. It pointed out that local manufacturers used to be more protected from outside competition and that it resulted in low quality products at high prices. Ironically, by protecting local producers, the government aided the now widespread distrust of things made in Yemen. I have never heard of a country with such a low opinion of its own products. The article doesn’t say what the current tax is, but I’m assuming that it’s still high enough to make smuggling profitable since it is still going on. Another possibility is that the import tax is really low, but the bribes you have to pay customs officials may still be really high. Bribes are expected in just about every government transaction here and the customs officials are notorious in this regard.

The solution? Get rid of import taxes! Not only will this free up customs people to look for things that are actually dangerous (like weapons to supply an ongoing insurrection in the north), but most importantly, people will pay less and there will be more competition for those consumers.

Isaac

Categories
Arabic

Civilization is evil…

Civilization the computer game that is. I was up until 4AM playing that damn game, thought I was through with geeking out on computer games. It’ll have to be for a while, can’t do that too much and expect to function in class. Actually, today was pretty good. I did have the experience of my brain shutting down a little before the break. It was as if a switch had been flipped and my brain said, “no more.” I was OK after the break… Today we talked about the “2nd” form that verbs can com in. It is basicly the same as the first form, but you pronounce it slightly different. It also changes the meaning of the verb. In the second form, the meaning becomes either doing the verb more than once, or making someone else do the verb. This is a really strange concept for me and I think it is the most difficult one so far for conversations. In English we just add a few extra words to shade the meaning of the verb, here you pronounce it differently. I’m not sure when that’ll sink into my head. Only 8 more forms to go…

Isaac

Categories
Yemen

Another story about corruption.

In the latest issue of the Yemen times
(read the article here)
, there is an article about a guy (and his family) who is threatening to commit suicide in front of the capital if something isn’t done about his situation. What terrible thing has happened to him? He went to school with the President’s son, keep in mind that in most Arab countries president is code for “king”. There isn’t much doubt that the son will inherit the presidency, with fair and free elections no doubt… Anyway, the son apparently told him that he would get him a job with the national airline and a place to stay. Neither have materialized in 3 or 4 years. So this guy writes his former classmate and the Yemen times saying that he will kill himself if something isn’t done soon to alleviate his suffering. He also has the temerity to complain about corruption in the judicial system concerning some sort of inheritance issue. Where does someone get the balls to complain about corruption while at the same time threaten to kill oneself if his personal contact in the government doesn’t come through for him? The sad thing is that it really doesn’t surprise me, I can imagine most of the people that I’ve met here think like that (minus the killing oneself part). Why isn’t the government doing something for me? Corruption is out of hand, if I could only figure out how to make it work for me… I don’t know what is more frustrating, the hypocrisy, or the infantilism shown by people towards the government. At some point people have to realize that

A) They are not 4 years old anymore and should not whine about not getting handouts (current 4 year olds are excepted from this of course) and
B) Even if the government were to do something for them, they would inevitably screw it up and/or make someone else worse off.

Things do suck here, I understand. I understand about being desperate and asking for help. But to go to the organization (?) that has the greatest responsibility for making this place awful for help seems really backwards to me. Here, one has to succeed despite the government, if you succeed because of it, you’re just taking money from someone else and putting it in your pocket. The same could be said for any government but here it is much worse. The corruption is so transparent here, it is easy to see the money go from your pocket into someone else, sometimes it’s done right in front of you. If this society is to succeed, they will have to do what every other successful society does, value and expect to stand on one’s own two feet and not depend on the government. Of course the government is not about to get out of the way, the prince has to ascend to the throne one day….

Isaac