A Night out in Sanaa

Just got back from my first experience clubbing and I can say that clubbing in Yemen is just as lame as clubbing in Samoa or Seattle or anywhere else that I might imagine.

Yes, it’s the same lame music, the same flashing lights, and the same posing people tramping boredly around the dance floor. Yes, when I arrived they were playing some Arabic music, but this quickly changed to what my friend Jacob would call “bum-chicca-bum” music as if they felt that us foreigners would be more comfortable with this.

After a while, I snuck into the bathroom and stood in wonder at the mirrors and the shine. It was easily the nicest bathroom that I had seen in more then two years. I marveled at the flush toilets and the toilet paper that was neatly folded to make a little triangle and resisted the temptation to put it back into the same shape. (I was also tempted to go back a few mintues later to see if it magically transformed back to that shape after I used it, like something out of 1001 nights.)

When I returned from the bathroom, the DJ apparently took my absence as a cue to play some traditional Yemenese night club music and the patrons even decided to perform a traditional Yemenese dance. Or rather, it would have been traditional if the men weren’t so drunk and horny and the woman weren’t dressed in shirts and shorts to tight that they were threatening to burst out of with every wiggle. (Traditional Yemenese dance is pretty much as boring as traditional Samoan dance (see “A Easter Adventure”) however since it is done in groups and consists mostly of kicking and stomping the floor as you dance around in circles it’s a bit more fun to watch.) Apparently those girls had shown up earlier in the full burkas and then tossed them off to reveal clothes that made us suspect that they were prostitutes, leaving me to later gaze in curiosity at every black-veiled woman on the street, wondering exactly what they are hiding under there.