My First Demonstration! Oh Boy!

My friend got a warning from my embassy that there would be a protest which of course acted more like an invitation to people like me. A group of people would be meeting at Old Sanaa University and march towards the Lebanon embassy to protest Israel’s bombing of Beiruit. The first thing I thought was “that’s silly, why are they going to the Lebanese embassy? They should go to the Israeli embassy” and then I came to my senses. So easy to forget that I am not in America, even with the call for prayer reminding me five times a day.

My friend told me that these things “always start on time” so I aimed to be there a touch early. I hopped a shuttle and got there at 8:45, fifteen minutes before anything was set to start. I felt pretty conspicuous standing there, so I walked into the university and sat on a bench. Just when I was about to give up and go home, there was a racket outside and this gold-painted jeep that was covered with faded pictures of various figures and loudspeakers on the top drove up and started blasting Arabic music. I went outside and took a look at the protest mobile. It was painted (or rather, had been painted a long, long time ago) and was covered with various picture of important people who had been the cause of past demonstrations. There were four loudspeakers on the top, and a mess of fake flowers decorating the hood. I wondered if this guy rented out or what.

I stood around for another half hour while people slowly drifted in, greeting each other. I was the only westerner, and felt very conspicuous. There was a group of women there but they didn’t seem to want to have much to do with me. After a while my discomfort turned into sheer boredom and I headed to a local café and bought some bread in exchange for the privilege of being able to sit down and eat it. Finally, after a half hour, they got moving and I ran to catch up.

It was my first protest in about two years, and pretty much what you would expect except that instead of saying things like “Hell no we won’t go” they yelled “God is Great” and a few other remarks about various groups beginning with H. Everyone was very kind to me. At first I was a little shy with my camera, but when I dragged it out people started to point out things that I could take pictures of and the kids started begging to be in the shot. I have found that if you have encounter a group of camera shy people skeptical of westerners, the trick is to take a few pictures of the kids. People warm up to you right away.

After about an hour of marching we got to the Lebanese embassy. There was a bit of a tussle as the cops made a human wall to keep the less important protesters back while the featured protesters were able to walk up to the embassy and start making speeches using the protest-mobile. I hopped up on a ledge and got a good view from up high, snapping pictures with my crappy broken camera. At one point there was smoke and I jumped to try to photograph it and some kids saw me and called out to the crowd and they parted like the Red Sea. The kids pulled me through eagerly and I rushed ahead, nearly rendering myself blind when I almost walked into a smaller flag that was being burnt. Seriously, my eyelashes are a bit shorter. They burned it and stomped on it and I photographed it and everyone cheered and asked me where I was from. I told them I was Canadian.

So all in all, the protest was pretty much like the protests in Seattle. A useless outlet for anger and a way to make people think that they are doing something. Afterwards everyone all went off to chew qat and I was left alone wondering where the hell I was. A hour of marching can really take you out of the way.

Getting back to my non-existent Gypsy Roots

Went to my first “girl party" last night. One of the admins at my school decided to throw a party and she invited all the teachers. I couldn’t wait to go because this was my big chance to see “how the other side lives”, even though I am technically a member of the other side.

Now men are not allowed at girl parties, so this is when the burkas come off and the girls finally get a chance to really show their stuff. As I said, I am not sure what is worn under those burkas but tonight gave me a bit of a hint. The women would show up, fully veiled and immediately shed their black armour and out would come hair, bright clothes and jewelry. I sat there looking around and realized that although I had talked to these women dozens of times, I couldn’t recognize any of them. I poked one of my housemates and asked her to identify everybody.

I was amazed. With all that cover, you assume that these girls are shy. They are not shy. The music was turned up and the tables where moved aside to that everyone could jump up and give a quasi-bellydancing type dance. How could these woman possibly go back under when they seemed so happy to strut their stuff?

The room got hot and one of the woman expertly opened up the windows without so much as letting the curtains fall open for a second. I realized that even the windows in this country are designed for modesty. They have a special window at the top above eye level so that you can open them without the risk of anyone peeking in. As we were in the sitting room, most of the windows were fogged (like a shower door) so that you couldn’t see details inside.

I got into a conversation with a female Yemenese coworker who spoke of her travels in Egypt. What did she wear there, I asked. She said that she wore jeans, short sleeves and didn’t cover her hair. I asked her if she preferred it and she said that she did. I asked her then why she wore the veil in Yemen and she didn’t even seem to understand the question. It would be shameful, I suppose.

Anyway, after about an hour of this and practicing my limited Arabic, I got bored and grabbed my roommate’s hand and proceeded to read her palm. About halfway through I realized that the entire room was watching me, fascinated. Once I was done with Becky about twenty pairs of hands were shoved in my face and I spent the next two hours reading palms. Fortunetelling is probably another thing that isn’t exactly encouraged in Islam, so I made a big deal of the fact that only Allah knows the future. They agreed with me and demanded to know who their future husbands anyway.

Now I don’t really believe in palm reading and stuff (although I do have an interesting theory regarding Tarot and AI that I will share with you if you would like) but I must say that I saw patterns that I had never seen on a western hand. My skills at reading is basically limited to the information in a 50 cent booklet picked up at the candy isle of a grocery store that I didn’t even bother to read all the way through. Basically, you have three lines on your palm—the head line, the heart line and the life line, going from the top to bottom. Head line is your career, your life line is your heath and wellbeing and the heart line is your relationships. If it is a deep line the attribute is strong, if it has a lot of little branches you tend to get distracted in that area. The only other thing that I can do is to see how the heart and life lines connect and tell you how attached you are to your family.

But a lot of these girls had love and life lines that ran parallel to each other, even sometimes meshing. One woman had no love line, which I had never seen before. If you look at your own palm chances are that the two lines will form a ‘V’. This was interesting to me as intermarriage (especially between cousins) is very common here, and often a marriage will basically leave you in the same house with only a new roommate and a loss of your virginity as a difference. This would explain why the life line and the love line run together. To a lot of these woman, love and life/family are the same thing. What good is a love line when you husband is probably going to be picked for you by his parents? Most of the women had a strong head line (career) which would suddenly break off. This generally means that they have a lot of talent which is unused. In a society of housewives, is that surprising? (Anyway, as I said, I don’t believe that crap.)

Anyway, I was saved by the arrival of dinner (yummy!) and then we took off. It took me five minutes to find my burka. (I had to wear a long black robe, although I didn’t cover my hair, because I was wearing a Samoan dress with *gasp* no sleeves.) Took me a good ten minutes to find my burka from all the others. My roommate helped me look and asked me what it looked like. I told her it was black. (Ask a stupid question…)

Party On!

Well, the semester is over and now I am supposed to be on vacation, but in reality I am learning about the hell that goes into working as a teacher. I remember back in my college days how nice I thought it would be to have a job where you could go home and forget about it. Then when I got that job, I thought how nice it would be to be in a job where you were helping people and making a difference.

But all the students did really well and the pride that made up for that was all worth it. Specifically, the food at the party that they threw for all the trainees was worth it. We had a “trainee quiz” where they went around with a mic and asked impossible questions about thermal dynamics and such. My guys rocked. I was so proud!!

The next day my boss requested that I make an appearance at what I thought was the opening ceremony for a new high tech hospital in the region. What it actually was was a talk on hip replacement surgery. Fortunately, the guy who introduced the speaker didn’t have a very good grasp of English and said that the speaker was actually going to do a talk on “head replacement”. This sent us into giggles whenever he said “hip” imagining it was head. (OK, you had to be there. I mean, we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel for entertainment here in Yemen.) Anyway, the talk perked up once he started showing xrays of people who had fake hips screwed into their hip bones. Made the ride home a lot more fun as well considering that everyone in Yemen drives like they are on a suicide mission. Good food there, too, especially the pudding.

But the BEST food was the food I sampled at French Bastille Day Party that my French roommate snuck me into. As I have told my friends, underneath this wanna-be hard-core roughing-it development aid worker is a little rich girl screaming to get out, and she headed right for that red wine. I decided to let her have it—after all, I owe her. I never let the bitch spend any money. I got to rub elbows with all sort of people including the French and Japanese ambassadors. (Although rubbing elbows was pretty much all I did—it was pretty crowded in there.) My friends got me out of there a gin and tonic short of my making a total fool of myself and we staggered home with me singing and greeting the guards in Arabic—much to their amusement as they were just as bored as I was during the head replacement talk.

Finally, Yemen continues to be very safe. What is going on in Lebanon right now is terrible but it is also having no impact on life in Yemen. I continue to live in a very safe part of town, have a very safe job and generally live a very safe life.

Everything is Fine

Just want to say that Yemen is (at the moment) not being affected by the situation north in Gaza and Lebanon, and I am fine.  Thanks to all the people who have shown concern!  I will keep you posted, although right now all I can say is that life is very normal here (by Yemen standards, anyway!)

I have some time off from work now so I will be checking email sporadically.

The Old City

This is me, Sonia, Mirium and Marty in front of the stunning backdrop of Sana'a's old city. Please check out the following video that Marty took which includes the call for prayer. Warning: there is sound, and it's a bit loud, but it isn't as loud as when you are actually there!
Click here for the MySpace Video.

Goodbye Earl, I mean Tim!

Well, my manager Tim is back to Wales for a few days for a family emergency and even though it's only for three weeks I don't know what we will do without him... We had a send-off at Al-Khaima (The Tent) and took this charming picture. See you soon, Tim!!!

A Wedding Night in Yemen

Ah, the singing finally stopped. Back to the normal noises of people blasting their horns which sound so peaceful in comparison to what was going on before.

There is a wedding going on tonight and it is (was) driving me crazy. Yes, I know that it is a cultural event but although I haven’t been to a wedding yet I understand that they are pretty silly. Hopefully I will be invited to one and be able to speak about it first-hand, but for now I can just talk about what I have seen looking out the window.

First, they string lights over the street. See picture to see what I mean. Then at around 3’o clock all the guys get together and they sort of parade around and people throw confetti over them and they sing and do a “dance”. I put “dance” in “quotes” because the dancing is a bunch of guys standing in a line and soft of kicking their feet and holding their arms in the air while people yell and whoop. Then the guys go off somewhere and you think “Thank God that’s over. Now I can get some work done.”

And you are wrong. So wrong. Because then they come back.

They come loudly marching down the street banging drums and stuff. First there is a sort of chant that is done over loudspeaker. They have two loudspeakers in different parts of the city (I am guessing that one is at the groom’s and one is at the bride’s) and they chant at each other for a while. It’s a really cool effect for about five minutes. While this is going on, the men come back and do another “dance”, this one consisting of walking around in a circle and holding your Janbia (a sort of strange curved knife that all the men carry, do a google image search on Yemen and it will probably be the first thing that pops up) over your head. And then the singing starts.

How to describe the singing? Well, when I was a kid my mom had a harmonica. Every now and then I would get my hands on that harmonica and start to make what I thought was beautiful music until my mother would run out and scream at me and then hide the harmonica in a place where she thought that I would never find it. Well, the singing sounded a lot like that harmonica. Plus you have drumming. And this goes on for a few hours.

They did, however, have some sort of a flute thing going on, and I wanted to find out what a Yemenese flute looked like and how it was played so I got dressed and went out to the street. But during the time it took me to cover my arms and ankles and find my shoes and camera they had all moved inside. I wandered around and tried to peek at the party but girls aren’t allowed. A guy came out and sort of shook his stick, yelled at me in Arabic and closed the gate in my face. So much for famous Yemenese hospitality.

I don’t know what the girls do, but the guys sit around and chew Qat. One of my friends said that he didn’t understand what the big deal about a Yemenese party was because the guys just sit around and chew Qat which is pretty much what they do every day anyway. There is also a procession which apparently involves a lot of kissing of the groom and a lot of speeches. In other words, it sounds just as boring as a Samoan wedding. What is with these traditional societies? After thousands of years you would think that these things would evolve into something resembling one of those cool fish that glow underwater and have their own bait in their mouths but instead they resemble more like the two toed sloth who hasn’t bothered changed since the first time it evolved.

Well, anyway, since the wedding seems to be over (I hope) I am going to get some sleep.

A Big Milestone For Group 73

I just found out recently that my old Peace Corps group just lost another member. I take a bit of credit for this since I was the one that was the first to leave willingly after working there for a while. The rest of the people were like "Hey, Tima left, her head didn't explode, she seems happy, maybe...." OK, so I am probably giving myself too much credit. But this is an important milestone because it means that my group, group 73, has officially lost the MOST people off all the other groups that are currently serving. GO 73!!!!!

Update: And another one bites the dust. Poor Pete (half visible in the white shirt next to Mike with the flower in his hair) bangted up his shoulder and is away on medical leave. Will there be anyone else?

Happy 4th!

Obviously, 4th of July isn't celebrated here, so I don't have any big plans. There was an embassy party last night but I couldn't get invited because it was just for important people and I guess that a drop-out Peace Corps working for a Yemense company who is contracting for a French company doesn't really qualify. Seriously, the woman on the phone just laughed at me when I asked if I could come. Well, pooey on them anyway. I will celebrate the same way I do everyday, by going to class and making fun of my government.

Anywho, here are a few more gems from the homework I graded last night:
"Since the first man put his leg on the moon, the space centure was
started."

And my favorite, from when students had to write about a best friend:
"Once I had an accident when I was traelling to Shebam. As soon as [my friend] new about that horrible accident, he came to visit me and slept with me in the hospital."

I guess that person would be my best friend too.

Big Mistake

Asked my students to submit an outline for a paper they had to write.

"But Teacher, we already have to read so much science stuff!!!!"

"Ok, fine," I said. "Then write an essay about the stuff that you are reading." Big mistake.

So here is Mahmoud's Outline (or at least part of it:)

I. Introduction:
It is a type of saturated hydrocarbons, with three general formula of CnH2n+2

II. Body
A. The classification of Alkalines
1. Chain alkalines
2. Aromatic or Cyclic Alkaline
3. The Alkyl Group
B. Physical Properties
1. C1 - C4 are gasses
2. C5 – C16 are liquids…

And it goes on. Boy, I just can't WAIT to read that essay. Should have made them write about the Palestinian conflict or bears or beavers or something more interesting then that.

As the Term Finishes...

Not much new to report, I have been working really hard at YLNG getting the current batch of trainees out the door.  I get two weeks off, then I am going to be teaching "Technical English", which hopefully isn't' a fancy way of getting me back into teaching computers.  I've gotten really close to my trainees, even the ones that give me a hard time and I think that they have really warmed up to me.  The fact that I never pass up an opportunity to take a shot at Bush (no FBI, I am not speaking literally) helps to indure me to them, I think.

They are pretty liberal too, which surprised me.  One assignment I gave them was to write responses to "Dear Abby" letters.  For instance, one of the letters was a woman saying that she didn't want to have children.  Rather then telling the women to lie down and do her duty my student suggested that she "convince [her husband] about your desire.  Why don't you tell him about kid's problems"  My favorite answer, however, was written as a joke.  The letter was from a mother whose 12 year old daughter had a boyfriend.  Mahmoud wrote:

Dear my daughter, I love you so much.  But I don't want you to go with any boyfriend until you marry.  You should wait until you get your favorite husband.  This is our religion, and this is our custom.  Any one who lets his daughter or his sister to commit adultery the God will enter him in his fire for ever and he will never get out from that fire, My daughter if you want your father to enter in this fire you go to this boyfriend.  But I am responsible for you so we will leave this country that is full of adultery and we will live in our country that has a conservative society.  We will leave from now soon.

To his credit, he laughed as I read it.  I think that he was trying to shock me.

According to another one of my students, In 20 years "people will be eaten by spoons and forks".   My other favorite from one of my more cheeky students is that "Yemen will be making loans to the USA."  Could happen!