Weddings, As American As Apple Pie, and Why Desert Drivers and Rain are a Bad Combo

Photos of: the fish market, a view from my room, and the Old City of Sana'a. Just some random shots of where I live!
This past weekend I forsook adventures outside the city and spent some time around Sana’a, attempting to memorize words I can barely pronounce and generally lounging. Now you’re thinking, lounging? Why just lounging? Kind of a waste of time…
Yes, but this weekend saw the northern front of a tropical storm hit Sana’a and we were more than a little bit wet. I’m not talking “the entire city flooded and I am on my roof in a liferaft” wet, but wet enough to be a little cold (didn’t bring the GorTex) and to bring out one of the world’s greatest terrors: Yemenis driving in rain. Now Yemeni drivers are bad—really, really bad. They’re what Egyptian drivers would be if a: there were less people on the road b: there were less police officers on the road and c: there were more motorcycles. Crossing even a 2-lane street is harrowing at the best of times as just when you think you’ve crossed that final lane and passed that final car, a crazed 20-something motorcyclist darts out from behind the debab minibus and makes a fervent attempt to smash into you. Add lots of water. Can we say hydroplane?
Meanwhile, I spent the day avoiding the maniacs on the road by studying, attempting to watch the news in Arabic on AlJazeera; about the only thing I can currently understand in any detail is the weather report. My key secondary homework avoidance tactic was an attempt to cook apple pie. All things considered, this was an extremely successful endeavor. And if the Europeans didn’t already consider me stereotypically American, this pretty much wrapped it up…
And finally, yesterday I enjoyed my first ever Middle Eastern wedding!!! It was a very fun affair, but very different than your standard western wedding… It was the wedding party of my teacher’s friend and consisted of 2-300 of her nearest and dearest female friends, family, and neighbors. The party is held in a rented mafraj—a big room lined with low Arab-style couches above a room lined in mirrors for the burquad and baltoed women to make last-minute alterations to their party costumes. In Yemeni weddings, there are two separate parties at two separate locations, thereby allowing the women to unveil and enjoy themselves dancing, singing, and celebrating. There is no food with the exception of maybe a little cake and some water at weddings; rather, people bring their own food if they choose to eat, their own hookahs if they want to smoke (and there was lots of smoking), and their own qat if they want to chew qat***.
The women resemble a flock of sparkly, beaded, butterflies, with everyone dressed to the nines in brightly-colored junior-prom/80s style dresses. Some of the younger girls, especially, were gorgeous and tasteful; seeing what women look like with hair uncovered was a fun adventure. But then there was that one woman, who at 40 and quite voluptuous, was wearing a baby pink crochet bikini top and miniskirt; I am still recovering from the shock of having that image burned into my retnas.
An hour or two into the party the bride arrives and begins her slow walk from the entrance of the mafraj to the gold and fake-flower covered dais at the front of the room. She wears a white, western-style gown in this case with a full hoopskirt and lacy-white veil. Her henna is not just on her hands and feet as is common in many Arab countries, but consists of small floral patterns on her arms, legs, and torso. Upon entering, a song unique to Sana’a is played congratulating the bride and reminding her of her imminent departure from her mother’s household. The younger women and her relatives crowd around, clapping and singing, as she walks and stops, walks and stops her way up a raised runway (it took about 15 minutes, which is apparently a fairly fast walk). Walking too fast is a sign that she is anxious to get married and apparently leads to serious harassing from the bride’s female relatives. Well my Arabic isn’t great, but the phrase “la la la, mashallah” is pretty easy, so myself and Hanna and Nicole (two German students here) were able to chant and sing with the best of them. Tragically, I am unable to do the cool tongue whistle wedding call and even more tragically, you’re not allowed to take photos, so I have no schnazzy shots to adequately describe these gowns. However, I will take photos of some of the dresses in store windows (well, many of them can’t really be described as dresses—I’d put them in the lingerie category) and if you’re lucky, I might even bring one back for you. (Kate, Erin O’Shea… just you be ready!)

*** Qat is a tree whose leaves have narcotic properties; almost everyone here chews the leaves for a couple hours per day, the result apparently being a cross between caffeine and amphetamines. It is also notorious as the source of the cheek bulge that causes many Yemeni men—from my taxi drivers to shopkeepers to businessmen—to look like chipmunks every afternoon and speak like they're playing the game "chubby bunny". As though Arabic wasn’t hard enough to understand to begin with…

Manakha and the Mountains

So I will never be an absolute language genius. I keep running into Europeans of various varieties who are here working on their Arabic. The difference between me and them is that they speak at least three languages fluently. I speak one. This one is sometimes debatable. New language tactic: distract the professor by asking complex socio-political, historical, or cultural questions and get off tangent. This tactic is working surprisingly well so far, especially in my morning class, as I ask questions about the school system, political parties, tribalism, and marriage.
This weekend I went to the Haraz Mountains and the city of Manakha. I had two days of fun hiking adventures and rather hysterical personal interactions. The first day we went to an Ismaili mosque and hiked from the mosque (precariously perched atop a freestanding rock formation) back to our hotel. We were 7-8,000 feet up in a string of arid, terraced mountains. Lots of cacti, lots of sedimentary rock, and lots of terraces. The towns are perched at the tippity top of the hills, protected by “fortresses”, and the hillsides beneath the towns are almost entirely terraced in order to allow the towns to channel water into their crops: tomatoes, corn, sorghum, potatoes, peppers, coffee, and qat. This collection of food, all of which show up endlessly in Yemeni food, lead one to determine that the food here must have been total crap before New World contact. The closest I can come to describing the food is a cross between Mexican and Ethiopian. I was hoping for a little bit more Indian influence, but at least the cuisine doesn’t suffer from the blandness that Egyptian food so frequently does.
As the photos indicate, this area is a great base for hiking; in fact, hiking is really the only reason to visit. This left me fairly confused by the width of some of the other tourists—did their guides have to roll them down the hill and hire a donkey for the journey back up (call PITA!) or did they spend most of their time in the Land Rover? Not quite sure, but its an interesting prospect to consider. Equally entertaining was the live entertainment the second night: and by live entertainment I mean both the other tourists and the trained performers. An odd collection of humanity gathers in a out-of-the-way country like Yemen. In addition to the rather “chunky” Spanish woman was what appeared to be a collection of youth on their way to Jesus camp. A very creepy Christian missionary sort of vibe… in actuality, they were Danish, but we have yet ascertain why they were wearing suit shirts and work-style hiking pants. The entertainment involved lots of spinning, singing, oud playing, jambeya waving, and rifles. It also involved a couple marriage offers and one highly tempting offer of a husband, kids, a house, and not having to work. Because those are my four greatest life goals!!! No fear, I politely explained that despite being an “old maid”, I actually had no intention of living in a small village where the modern amenities have yet to grace the 21st century (or the latter half of the 20th, for that matter). I think that might top the 50 camels though! I am increasing in value! Whoo hoo!!!
Day two featured a “4.5-5 hour hike”. Beautiful scenery and more terraces, cities perched at the edge of 1000 foot cliffs, and tea with a gun dealer. Right… at less than 3.5 hours including the tea break with the gun dealer, much of it on the road, I had to attempt to explain to Wassam (our guide who works at the institute) that it’s not actually a 4.5 hour hike, it’s just that the girls he went with last time were total candyasses.
Speaking of candyasses, I have now retreated to the glories of Coffee Trader, an American-owned coffee shop boasting good music, nice styling, and decorative coffee. Yeah, I have a bunny rabbit in my latte and it makes me happier than it probably should!!!

On Why I Carry and LED Headlamp and Why Underdevelopment is Only Fun on Vacation

At 10 I had my first real taste of a “lesser developed” country. Now while Costa Rica may hold a respectable position both economically and socially relative to its many neighbors, I still gained first-hand experience with sketchy bridges, hole-riddled roads, and daily electricity outages. It was delightful! A grand adventure!
I was not attempting to study Arabic.
My first few days in Sana’a lulled me into a false sense of electrical security. It is dusk as I write this—light enough that I can see the white outlines of my notebook, but dim enough that I can’t see a word I’ve written. Seeing as how I am barely able to comprehend what I have written in broad daylight, this is a huge problem. This is also the fourth time this has happened in three days. In good news, we have a generator for essential internet and electricity. In bad news, my bedroom is not considered essential electricity. And last night when the person who turns the generator on was asleep for the first 10 minutes of the outage? Well that, dear friends is why I carry an LED headlamp on my person. Useful and fun!
And the moral of this story is that we should all be happy we are from a developed (if economically slumping) country and you should all go give your local electrical worker a big hug next time you see him.

Weekend Adventures

So on Friday, the second day of the Yemeni weekend, we traveled to three cultural sights near Sana’a (yes Dad, of course it was in a well-trained army convoy). The first site was the palace of the former imam (he’s now in exile in London) and it’s essentially a compound. Big, impressively positioned built into a 70 foot rock, a virtual compound, but not very palace-like. No moats, no dungeons, no banquet halls of any sort—instead lots of white plaster, separate men’s and women’s rooms, fabulous stained glass and some fantastic food storage and cooling mechanisms that look really advanced until you realize the palace was inhabited until the 1960s. In 1820, that stuff would have been rockin’ cool technology!!! It was very picturesque perched on a rock near a high valley with guard stations above, men performing the local district’s dances with their jambeyas (daggers), and of course, everyone’s favorite photo opportunity: the blonde girl. I maintain that camera phones are the world’s worst invention cause there you are on a lovely starched white balcony overlooking small fields of qat trees, goats, and small children playing, and you suddenly realize that the 5 people “on their phones” are not actually on their phones, they’re taking a photo of me. Again. I would like to point out at I am, at the time, wearing hiking clothes and no makeup. Sexiness incarnate.
We next went to the village of Shibam, where we ate lunch at the only hotel and restaurant in Yemen owned by women. Since several of you have expressed concern that I am starving to death, I assure you I am not. There is lots of yummy bread and well-cooked vegetables in dishes that in North Africa would be called a tageen and here I’m not sure. And after lunch, we went up 3000 feet to a village located atop a plateau called Kawkaban just to enjoy the view and hike down (pronounced Coco Caban—it sounds like a Caribbean Island). Lots of fun geological features; don’t worry sissy, I took photos!
And finally, we went to Thilla, a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its unique tall, stone buildings and its location at the base of yet more cliff/hilly formations. In this town, I got to visit a little girl’s house, her baby kittens, and her family’s donkey; I was accosted by several children wanting me to buy stone bracelets (some of you are getting them as presents!); and I got to see old cisterns, hot springs, gorgeous architecture, alabaster windows and the architectural remnants of the city’s former Jewish population (who now largely live in Israel).
From this experience I have five key takeaways: 1. tall stone houses are pretty and a good idea in a rocky desert; 2. alabaster makes a better canopic jar than a window; 3. I am mashallah, just like scantily-clad Lebanese singers; 4. being told by no less than 6 men that they will dream of me and my blue eyes, which shine like the blue moon is a seriously creepy experience; and 5. I am worth FAR MORE than 50 camels. 50 camels? Seriously? While I have it on good authority that camels are worth more here than in Egypt ($5,000-7,000), my lifetime earning potential is greater than $250,000. Also, after one almost rolled over he and my mother, my dad hates camels. Alhumdelallah!
Much love…

"Welcome to Yemen" or "It's Like Egypt, but No Good Coffee and More Face Veils"

Day 4 of being in Yemen...

So my stories of Egypt were filled with harassment, dead cats, sand floors, general mayhem, and fun archaeological adventures. Alas, but this will not be the case. Not that we are without cats and the general mayhem is not much less, but the general level of excitement is quite a bit scaled down. But here goes…
As for my first impressions of Sana’a as I flew in on the plane:
Directive number 1: Remember to build your house on a rock. Check, rock. Lots of rock actually—surrounded by rocks of all sorts above, below, around, mountains of rock all over (sorry Candice, I haven’t checked to see what kind of rock yet, maybe I’ll bring back a piece and you can tell me).
Directive number 2: Make sure there is water. Wait? What? Water? Oh, yes, we have water in our hot springs. You mean that might not be enough? Hmmm… oh well, we’re going to build here anyhow. Yes, good idea!
So many of you reading this email have been to Arizona; half of you live in Arizona. And you think it’s pretty dry… and it is… but you’ve got nothing on this place. In the driest of mid-summer months before the monsoons, in the hillsides tough little grasses and cacti struggle to stay alive, but stay alive they do. And not only alive, but greenish. Looking up into the mountains surrounding Sana’a, there’s nothing. Not one blade of grass, one tree, or one sad little succulent. For those of you have been to Luxor, think the Theban Hills on a larger and more desolate scale. There has never been much water here and in the past 40 years, the population has doubled, then doubled again, to it’s present >2 million. Twenty years ago, Sana’a was going to be abandoned due to lack of water as hydrologists predicted Sana’a would run out of water within 10 years. Ironically, it could be global warming that has benefited North Yemen as the monsoon season has lengthened and rainfall increased. Combine some increased rain with strategic reservoirs and the capital city remains relatively healthy. I can’t say fully healthy, because it can’t be fully healthy—too much trash, not enough money for everyone to afford the necessities, too much corruption, and only fair to poor health services for much of the population. And Kate and Phil, the water pressure amounts to more than a trickle, but less than your average ornamental fountain—you’d die!
And here, in the midst of the ultimate desert, I am the ultimate outsider. I remain the only blonde girl I have seen the entire time I have been here and since I still refuse to wear the omnipresent black robe and ubiquitous burqua/nikab/face veil, I am the center of attention wherever I go. It’s sometimes bad and I nearly had to beat some 12 year old (news flash: don’t call me a bitch in my language, I speak it better than you), but still less verbal assault than Egypt. The entire place is a little depressing. As my teacher said, “we liked the president for the first 15 years”… but they’re now going on presidential year 35 and that means over 15 years of the president filling his pockets and diverting Yemen’s extensive oil and mineral wealth to his cronies, while development activities have essentially ceased.
But it’s when a place looks most hopeless and is weighing on your soul that you remember why you came. You came for the taxi driver that said “American? I like! Kwiiyes (good)!” in the midst of my impromptu Arabic and Sana’a navigation lesson. Or the shopkeeper that says “ You speak Arabic good.” No, I don’t, but it’s sweet that they want to make me feel loved.
So it’s a polluted backwater, the visible historical remnants have been diminished by successive invaders and the ravages of time (an inevitable result when you build with mud brick), but they build tall stone houses with tiny doors and gorgeous stained glass windows and city walls that I could take with two friends and a pack of sparklers, Sana’a has a set of fantastic souks that still serve the local community, and men wear daggers called jumanyas! (Yeah, they’re pretty badass)
So I’m giving it some time to see if I fall in love with it or not…
Photos will come soon-I am trying to see if I can get them small enough to post in a reasonable amount of time with my slow internet speed!!!
Love you all!!!!