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!!!