Part I: Mandering in Marib

This blog entry is part of a three-part series that I will be publishing in piecemeal as I write it.


Now that classes are finished Sonia and I decided to take an adventure in Marib, the kidnap capital of the world. Joining us again was Thameer, who was the one who escorted us through Al-Houdada. Marib was recently the target of an attack on oil interests, and it's sister kidnap consort, Shebwa, recently housed two French hostages (who were released without harm.) Therefore, foreigners are not allowed to enter Marib without an armed escort. To get around this, Sonia and I had to don niqabs (the cloth that covers the face) and go as two nice little devout Musim sisters. Sonia, who could speak passable Arabic, was often mistaken as his gentle sister while I was his illiterate, mute, deaf, and slightly retarded deformed sister.

Our first stop was Marib, where we stayed with my student, Hussein. Hussein's family was building a new farmhouse, where we stayed the first night. As you can see from the picture, Sonia was not particularly happy with the digs. The mattresses were bug-eaten and the air was filled with mosquitoes. In addition, there were some pretty impressive knuckle-sized ants that we practically had to jump over to avoid. The farm, however, was beautiful with a friendly dog and a very charming camel. We had to stay at the farm because Hussein's family was building a farm and didn't have space for us at the tent city where the rest of the people were staying until the farm had a roof.

Marib is also known for the famous Marib dam. Although not very impressive to see, the dam itself if very old and one of the first dams built. It is still in use today, and was recently renovated. Although this is the most touted thing in Marib, it was basically a large pile of rocks with water on one side and road on another. For more damn Marib Dam pictures click here.

After Marib dam we visited Belquis Palace and the Sun Temple. The Sun Temple was closed, but we manged to sneak into the Palace (also closed, but as adventurous and retarded Yemenis they let us in. I was a touch disappointed to see that there was a gated viewing platform, although I was also happy that they were taking the time to preserve the monument. My disappointment vanished when Thameer hopped the rail and started wandering around. I quickly followed him.

Balquis Palace was brought to Yemen by a Genie who transformed it to the place to prove to it's owner that he was indeed an all-powerful Genie. I will bow out to Google if you want the full history on this place. This is a pillar with some impressive carvings that can be found all over Hadromont. You can find more pictures of Belquis Palace and the Sun Temple here.

My student, Hussein, generally wore the YLNG uniform of a grey shirt and black pants, but for this trip he donned a traditional scarf, balto and jambia that most men wore and picked us up from Sanaa looking like a young sheik. To protect the jambia (a curved knife worn at the waste) from sand and rain, men will oven pull their white robes over the instrument, giving the unfortunate image that is seen here.

Marib is famous for guns and camels. I will get to the guns in a minute, but first let me talk about the camels. They are not used much for riding, the only camels that I saw were either standing around or doing work like this one. This poor camel is grinding sesame seeds. The reason that this one is wearing a hood is so that he can't see that he is actually walking around in circles all day. He spends his time plodding forward, looking for a way out of his eternal darkness. In addition, I was able to ride a camel. For pictures of camels, click here.

One can not go to Marib without seeing a gun, and one can not spend any time with a man who has a large gun without eventually asking to fire it. Everyone in Marib carries Guns-- it's "An Eye for an Eye" mentality in that city (another reason that foreigners are not allowed) and everyone carries a large weapon to protect themselves. Hussein's father was recently killed, and both him and Jabber (another student that showed us around) actually had people after him. Hussein's cousin, Abdullah, proudly showed us the bullet marks that we on his house. Sonia beat my ass when it came to shooting a tin can from the top of a sand dune (although I kicked her ass when it came to taking a picture of it.

The highlight of Marib was Old Marib. This was a town built 3,000 years ago and is currently in ruins. All the houses were built of of mud, straw and logs and most of them are still standing. Some of them we were able to crawl inside. Sonia and Thameer were wimpy about going into a building that was 3000 years old and made of mud but after I led the way they reluctantly followed. I pointed out that if it had help for so long it would manage for another fifteen minutes. Sonia was unconvinced. The man who owned the place came up and told us first that the place was haunted by genies. Then he pointed to another building and said that it has collapsed three days earlier, sending Sonia to scream at me to get out of the building that I was currently in. You really have to see this place to believe it. For more pictures of Old Marib, please go here.

After Mabib, we hopped a bus to Seiyun. Check back for pictures and stories in Part II: California Kim and the Lost Cities of Wadi Dau-ar!

Back on Sanaa, safe and sound

MALI didn't pay the DSL bill, so internet at school is out and I am at a internet cafe with a broken shift key that is driving me mad. Fortunatly I can touch-type because all the letters on the keyboard have been rubbed out. Needless to say, this will be short.

I realized that it has been quite a while since my last post saying that I had run off with Sonia to the kidnap capital of the world (OK, maybe not, not with Baghdad) but I am back safe and happy. We had a very good time and saw a lot of incredible things. Check back as I will be writing more about it when I have a computer that works.

Ho ho ho

How easy to forget that 'tis the season to be jolly. 5 days till Christmas and I haven't even begun my shopping yet.

To celebrate Christmas Sonia and I are taking a road trip to Marib and Sayoun. Foreigners arn't allowed in Marib, so we are going to have to wear a niqab (the cloth that covers the face). Fortunately for me, I have dark eyes so when wearing a scarf and niqab I can pass for a Yemeni providing that I don't talk, walk, stand up or move. In Marib they have the famous Marib dam as well as a bunch of camels that I am going to ride. We leave in T+11 (everything runs late here in Yemen.

But since I will be on the road, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Dog, cat, cow...

The local TV station often shows reruns of popular sitcoms, and a few days ago I was watching an episode of Fraiser. In the episode, Niles is trying to teach a hopeless Daphne how to play the piano and having little luck-- after a few lessons, Roz is able to play a song while Daphne can't even handle a simple scale. He assured Daphne that he would continue teaching her as long as it took. "You're a lot nicer then my last piano teacher," she tells him.

Niles is shocked. "You've taken lessons before?"

Daphne goes on to talk about her old teacher, a master of piano, who instructed her every day for fifteen years. He eventually killed himself, she says, right after one of their lessons. She said that she was the last one to see him alive.

I know just how that piano teacher felt.

I had an exercise with my class to teach them relative clauses. Since the examples all focused around relationships ("I like guys who are smart"), which doesn't translate well into a society where mothers pick their future daughter-in-laws, I decided to let the students pick their own topics. I handed out pieces of papers and told them to write a noun on it. The students were baffled.

"What do we do, teacher?"

Write anything, I told them. Any thing. After 16 pairs of eyes continued to stare at me blankly I said: ""You can write anything you want... dog, cat, cow, whatever."

Happy, the students dropped their heads and started to write. After a moment I walked around to check their progress. Dog, dog, cat, dog, cat, cat, cow...

"No, no, no," I said. Write your own word!" I collected the paper and asked them to try again, and this time not to use cat, dog, or cow. "If I was doing this in Arabic," I told them, "I would write something like kitab (book) or qalam (pen)."

They started to write and I went around the room again. Book, pen, pen, book, pen...

Thank God this is my last day.

Wild Shouf

As my preparations for departing Yemen, approach, the most pressing problem that I am faced with, again, is what to do with the cat. Cats here are considered vermin, and I am trying to make an anology for myself to understand people aversion to them. I guess it would be if someone adopted a pet cockroach, fed it, and let it sleep in the bed and carried it around in thier arms. Anyway, all my Yemeni friends just laughed when I asked if they would take him.

So, after asking just about every expat that I could find, I gave up on a permanent home and decided that the best thing would be to let him go at MALI, where the other cats are fairly docile and (most importantly) very fat.

This has been a gradual process. I didn't want to just dump him, so instead I will drop him off in the morning before going to the gas company and would check on him while I was teaching classes during the evening. So during my breaks, I would stand outside and call out "Shouf! Shouf!" and he would run out to say hello.

"Shouf" is the imperative for "Look!" in arabic. So please imagine the following... you are in classes at your school, calmly sucking down a cigarette during your break when this six-foot tall foreigner walks out into the middle of the lawn and starts screaming "Look! LOOK!" I got a lot of strange looks and the first day people where pretty baffled at what I wanted them to look at. After Shouf showed himself people caught on.

Then came the annoying process of people educating me on the meaning of "Shouf." The first person who came up to me to jabber excitedly "Do you know what Shouf means bi-arabia, Teacher? It means look!" The first person who did that got a smile, the second person a polite smile, and the twenty-third person a look that could kill.

Shouf is doing well and seems to like his new home. I told the cafeteria guy (and my driver) Abdul about him, and Abdul just laughed at my suggestion that he keep an eye on the cat and give him scraps. However, the next day Abdul picked me up with stories of my cat, first telling me that the cat was speaking English and then saying that the cat was thirsty so he gave Shouf some cream (which gave the cat some pretty bad runs so I was really, really, really glad that he was outside). I think that this guy is now as attached to the cat as I am.

Goodby Sweety Kim

No, Mom-- I didn't spell the title wrong, as you can see this is how they spelled it. As they are my students, I only hope that they just ran out of room.

My students had a good-bye for me on the second to last day of class, and I was very, very touched. We had planned sort of an end-of-the-term thing but it was supposed to be about them, not about me. These are my 6B students, and so after this class they are finished with MALI and are moving on. I know that they are going to do great because they are some of the most talented kids I have ever met (except for Fouad, who isn't a kid, but is rather old enough to by my father.)

Assem wrote a great speech wishing me well and making suggestions for each person in the class. Fouad wrote a poem about the "Dancing Teacher" (I will do anything to get my students attention) that I was also very touched by.

The group shot is my entire 6B class. From left to right: Mohammed, Elvira, me, Fouad, Abdullelah, Mohammed with glasses, Afif, and Assem and Ahmed in the bottom row. They brought sparklers and drinks. Ahmed even brought a can of "fake snow" that he covered me with because he thought that perhaps I missed the snow in Seattle. (I didn't have the heart to tell him that there wasn't really any snow in Seattle.) It was a blast, and I will miss them terribly.

This picture is me and my two female students, Elvira and Khlood. I was teasing Khlood right before the picture was taken by telling her to wear the veil that covers her eyes over her face. She thought I was serious and pulled it down. I laughed and went to push it away when the picture was taken. You can see the light material that covers the eyes in the picture and the thicker material that covers the face. She rarely pulls down the eye-covering material but always wears the face veil-- I have no idea what she looks like, and neither does anyone else in the class. She's a great student and one hell of a writer. Elvira is the girl next to me, a student from Russia who I held dear to my heart because neither of us spoke Arabic. She pronounced her w's as v's and sounded like a little vampire. Although she begged me to, I refused to correct her accent. It was way too cute.

And here is me cutting the cake. It dawned on me that I haven't posted a picture of myself wearing a veil! I am really getting sick of it but I can't take it off. My students, most of which have seen me without it, asked me to take it off and I felt like I was stripping for them.

Teaching 6B alone made Yemen worth the trip. Thanks, guys.

(Check back, I will be posting Fouad's poem here in a day or so.)

Sawatdee Khrab!!

Get Thai'ed!
You're talkin' to a tourist
Whose every move's among the purest.

It's official, I am leaving Yemen on January 4th to a new adventure. This time I will going to Thailand to work with refugees on the Thai-Burmese border. I am terrified, especially since this is unpaid volunteer work and I really don't know what I am getting myself into. At the same time I am really looking forward to not making money for a change, and concentrating on people who really need my help, rather then people who are taking English to get a better job.

I am going to be based out of Mae Sot, which is about as far as you can get from Bangkok and still be in the same country. I am going to be teaching English although there are going to be chances for my to branch out into development related fields. Their website is here: http://www.geocities.com/maesotbvp/. As you can see, I won't be working with them directly but will actually be farmed out to an NGO or perhaps a refugee camp that needs an English teacher. Other then that, I really don't know very much which explains my fear!

A lot of people are curious to why I am leaving Yemen so soon. Well, one of the main reasons is that I am having a hard time with the conservative life here. I plan to come back to this area, but I think that I am more likely to go back to Palestine or perhaps to Jordon. But for now, I feel like I am ready for a new adventure. If you've been following my blog, you'll see that staying in this situation isn't really an option right now anyway.

More to come on this, you betcha...

Pearls of Wisdom from Level 6B

"If people had wings, there would be bad traffic in the sky."

"If people had wings, they would fly from the house to the restaurant"

"If water wasn't heavier then air, it would float everywhere."

"If I had been absent from class yesterday, I would have been killed."

"TV Ads tell us to buy creme from pimples"

"He should either be fired or move to another planet."

Al-Houdada

This weekend I FINALLY made it out of Sanaa and went to the beach town of Al-Houdada on the Red Sea. Joining me were my housemate Sonia, two Frenchmen (Olivier and Eric) and a guy from Madagascar (Tojo).

The purpose of the trip was twofold. The first was to have some sort of adventure outside of Sanaa. I haven't left the city since I got here, which is akin to going to LA and not leaving your hotel. Most you need is there but you have to get out anyway.

The other reason was to decide if I was going to stay in Yemen until March. I have a group of kids at the gas company that I feel obligated to be there for. They will be finishing in March and my heart tells me that that is the right thing to do. On the other hand, I am not really wanted here, things between me and Schmucko (see below) are getting worse and I really feel that I am ready to move on.

The trip actually made a good case for staying in Yemen (haven't decided yet, actually I have but I will save that for another blog entry) but in the wrong way. I chose Al-Houdada because my recent experiences have been so negative that I thought it would only be fair to make the decision while with a nice group of friends on a pretty beach. However, the minute I got off the bus I remembered something vital about living in a tropical climate that I apparently blacked out upon leaving Samoa.

Tropical climates are hot. And humid. And there are a lot of bugs.

I had forgotten what it was like eating dinner with one hand waving away the bugs and the other getting food into my mouth before something flew into it. Sonia ordered a tea at one point but 30 seconds pushed it away after a fly flew into it.

Do I really want to do this to myself again?

Hot weather aside, I had a great time. I will really let the pictures here do the talking. The trip up there was the best part (apart from my motion sickness partway through) and it was the most beautiful scenery that I have ever seen, although the road was terrifying with huge drops and pathetic guard rails to protect us. After a while I fell asleep, and awoke to a sight that was both familiar and strange- a landscape with no mountains. I don't think that I have seen anything like that since I left Iowa years ago!

Upon arriving in Al-Hodata, we were escorted to our hotel room. Turns out that it wasn't really a hotel room actually. I had worried about staying in a bug-infested hellhole but when I opened the door I found that we had been booked into what can only be described as a suite, complete with a kitchen and living room with Satalite TV. I was prepared to spend my break there.

Sonia went to pray and I found out later that hotel rooms come equipped with both a prayer rug and a helpful sign telling one where Mecca is. Something I would not have thought of were I in the Middle Eastern Hotel biz, but very important!! After a rest, we went out and had a meal of fish on the beach where I became reaqauinted with flies and more flies.

We went with a MALI student named Tamir who was a real gentleman. His cousin, Mohammed, showed up in his SUV (yes, Sarah) and took us on a whirlwind tour around Al-Houdata. With little care for his suspension he drove off-road onto the beach and we bounced around the dunes screaming our heads off. We hit a local fish market (not literally, but close to it) and Mohammed impressed me by telling off a guy who was beating a mule with a stick. The man was making the poor animal carry too much ice and Mohammed told him that he hoped that his ice fell into the sea for the way that he was treating the animals. We became quick friends and I told him that I would happy to be his second wife.

While cruising through town we encountered a few checkpoints. They looked at the car suspiciously until it became clear that they were traveling with an American, and then we were waved right through. Did they honestly think that I would get troops there if they didn't do as I said? One of the guards kindly asked if I needed bodyguards to join me in my travels. I told him no thank you, I left quite safe with my current escorts. The French were pissed at my royal treatment. (Perhaps if they had joined the Coalition of the Willing then they would have been offered bodyguards too.)

Another highlight of the trip was when Sonia and I got our hands henna-ed. I had shied away from this custom because when a friend of mine had it done she broke out into an ugly rash. Turns out that she got the black henna, I went with red. As you can see, Tamir's cousin did a bang-up job.

The next day when we hit the beach I stayed in the water for only a half hour and then vainly choose to sit in the sand and read a book. I said that I was tired but really I just didn't want the ink to fade. (That, and I am understandably not particularly interested in hanging out in the water after a year and a half in Samoa.) We took a boat to an isolated beach and the guy stopped and let us jump out and play in the coral reefs of the Red Sea.

Back to Sanaa for a week of work hell.

Can't wait until I can get out again...

The Yemeni Bridget Jones

A piece of advice: don't EVER shag your boss, no matter how lonely or desperate you might be.

At the time I figured that I could handle it. If things went wrong-- sure it would be uncomfortable but not unbearable. I've gotten along okay with my other ex'es.

But what I didn't forsee is the situation where HIS boss calls him into the office to ask if they should promote me to be his assistant. He has two possible answers: “No, because we used to sleep together” or “No, I don't think that she would be a good fit.” One way makes us both look bad and the other way just makes me look bad. So, all my hard work and long hours flushed down the toilet. So, if you are going to shag your boss, at least make sure that your boss has a shred of integrity first.

The only good thing that I got out of the relationship is that he walked off with my scale so I have stopped obsessing about my weight.

So the bad news is that I am being pushed out of MALI but the good news is that I have been accepted into a really exciting program that allows me to work in Thailand with refugees from Burma. It's a volunteer program that recruits English teachers, something that I feel confident enough to call myself now. Plus it is volunteer with only accommodations provided.

It will be nice to get away from the money market for a while. The boss is a really nice woman, which is more good news because that means I should be able to avoid getting myself back into this recent mess.

Unless I decide to go back to women again.

Which I might just do.

Just an update

Hey, sorry that I haven't written in so long. I finally got my computer fixed so hopefully I will have more time to catch up on emails.

This English teaching thing is proving a lot harder then I thought it would be. Do you have any idea how many tenses these poor kids have to learn? Three continuous tenses and all these perfect tenses that I never even realized existed. Did you know that by the time I finish this job I will have been working here for six months? It's true, I will have been away and I will have been living overseas for two years. My students ask me why English needs about ten tenses when Arabic only has two. I am still trying to think of an answer.

I am teaching eight hours a day (and four hours on my "Saturday") and it's murder. I have a level 2 in the morning at YLNG (the gas company) and I have two level 6 classes at MALI so I have been really crazy busy. My level 6 classes are proving to be pretty challenging with all their stupid perfect tenses. But they are lucky-- especially my level 6B class-- because they are after my level 2 and they get compared with people who say things like “Yesterday I studying all the night ago.” Still, I am overworked and so I rarely get to plan a decent lesson plan. My students who are paying $150 a head to be in my class deserve more me coming into class five minutes lates, plopping down in a chair, rubbing my eyes and saying “okay, uh, so, what do you guys want to talk about today?”

I have taken to wearing a headscarf and balto around town. Women here wear three peices, a long coat called a balto, a scarf over their head, and most women wear something called a necab, which is the scarf that is worn over the face. Most nicabs are two parts-- a dark piece of cloth that covers the face and a sheerer cloth the can be pulled down over the eyes to completely cover everything. A lot of the women also wear gloves to hide every little piece of skin.

Now although I am against the idea of wearing this much (I think that the nicab is going a bit far) but I am more against the idea of being whisted at and stared at too. It does have it's moments, I will admit. One day I litterally managed to stop traffic while crossing the street. And the other day I went out without covering and actually managed to cause an accident. On the other hand, I went out and some guy grabbed my right breast. I went to punch the guy but Sonia wouldn't let me.

Anyway, although my housemate Sonia tells me that I will get over it, I love the balto. It's the first time in about two years that I can walk around the street without getting stared at. It's really nice. My old Samoa friends can probably relate. The best part is that if I wear a nicab no one can tell that I am not even Arabic, espcaically if I am not walking. My favorite place to get take-out, a fasoulia place down the street, is ony accessable by walking right past the apartment of my asshole ex-boyfriend. So if I don't feel like dealing with the world I throw on the nicab and I doupt that even my mother would recognise me. The hardest part is not walking like an American but I am getting good at pulling even that off-- you just have to walk like you are afraid that something really big is about to fall on your head.

My students also seem to really enjoy my wearing a scarf, although I am not quite sure why. They got used to it very quickly as well. The other day I was teaching my YLNG students, and came up with an idea. These are the students, by the way, who had me scarfless for about a month. Anyway, I was teaching using words like first, next, finally, etc., and after having them teach me how to use my cell phone and open a coke bottle, I came up with the idea of having them show me how to put on my scarf. I reached up to unfasten it and my students freaked out before I even got a pin off. Some of them went so far as to cover their eyes, and most of them looked away. All of them yelled at me to stop. I reminded them that they had seen my hair about a million times but they seem to have forgotten.

Those Darned Kids

A funny thing happened a while back when I was walking come from work. I was walking through a residential street when I heard a *knock knock knock* on one of the doors. I stopped and looked around, confused because I didn't see anyone knocking on any of the doors around me. I heard the knocking again and realized that it was coming from inside the gate. I walked to the gate and saw that it was bolted shut-- from the outside.

You see, Sanaa is a city of walls and gates. Watch coverage on CNN and you will notice that most major Middle Eastern cities (such as Baghdad, or rather what is left of Baghdad) is filled with walls that are interspersed with metal gates. In the morning, the shop keepers come out and unbolt the gates and pull them aside. Imagine that you are in a giant outdoor shopping mall, but with piles of trash sitting around and no helpful signs letting you know where the post office is.

The other strange thing about the gates that are on the houses is that they can be bolted from both the inside and the outside. I noticed this on our kitchen door in our house, and was told that this design was to keep the women in the kitchen when needed. What this means, of course, is that someone could theoretically go around the streets of Sanaa in the dead of night and lock a majority of people (the people who don't have guards outside their houses, that is) inside their houses and there would be no way that they could get out, unless a passing stranger, like myself, heard their cries and unbolted the door.

Which is what I did. A young girl, about twelve, peeked out and thanked me and ran away. It wasn't until I shared the story with my housemates that they pointed out that she was probably locked up for a reason. I hadn't thought of that, but I later decided that I was fine with liberating trapped girls from their houses as a form of protest. Plus, it was a fire hazard.

A few days later I discovered why perhaps these kids should be locked up. Ramadan is over, thank goodness, but during this month it was the custom to set off firecrackers. I had always assumed that the kids were tossing "poppers", those little bits of gunpowder wrapped in paper. I wondered why they always threw them so close to my window all the time. I later learned the hard away that they were not being set off in my proximity, the blasted things are just very, very loud.

I was on my way to work when a kid was lighting firecrackers and one landed about two yards ahead of me. "This is just great," I thought and stopped to wait for it to go off before I continued my walk. Little did I know that the little bastard had just thrown one a few seconds before that was about three inches from my shoe. It went off like a gunshot in my ear, I screamed and it felt like my head exploded. The kid thought that this was really funny and started to laugh (at least I think that's what he was doing since all I could hear was a loud ringing) but he stopped laughing when I dove across the road and started screaming at him, cursing the fact that I didn't know enough Arabic to REALLY give the punk a piece of my mind. A few minutes later some women came to my aid. I told them that I wanted the firecrackers. The kid said that he didn't have anymore. We frisked him and found about 20. The stupid kid really put up a fight when we took them away. I am not sure why he did, I know that he can get more. I was at the store buying a Coke the other day when some kids ran in and bought what I thought was candy-- when I walked out they were lighting a 911 call waiting to happen that flew around the sidewalk shooting off sparks. (Lets not forget that most of the cars around here leak.)

Speaking of cars, I also had a bit of a double take when I was walking home from work (for an area about two blocks long, a lot happens on that road) and two SUV's came bursting around the corner, obviously racing. I jumped and pressed my back against the wall-- one was attempting to pass in on a road that can only be described as one lane. Normally I would have assumed that they were drunk idiots, but people can't drink in this country. (I mean that, alcohol is VERY hard to come by unless you have a lot of money, and even then it's not easy.) As the cars passed I saw that the drivers were two kids, neither looked like they had hit puberty or even could reach the gas pedals.

I shrugged and continued on my way. Just another typical day in Yemen...

Shouf

So after complaining incessantly about the fact that neither of the care packages that I am still waiting to receive (things are slow around Ramadan) one of my housemates suggested that I tramp down to the post office and ask them.

So I put on my balto and headscarf which I have taken to wearing (and the harassment as miraculously disappeared) and started the hike down to the Hadda post office. Ramadan hours: 8-10PM. I got there and was told that I need to take an even longer pilgrimage to the post office down by the old University. My frustration at initially going to the wrong place was trumped by my pride that I actually knew where this place was and I started off again.

Half an hour later I made it. The homeless beggar women outside the office doubled as an information booth and they waved to me to where I needed to go. Not that they knew what I wanted, but I have come to learn that most people here have limited physic abilities. Once inside, I was faced with something that looked like the scene from "It's a Wonderful Life" where the bank is out of cash and people are screaming for their money. Tons of Yemenis were standing in front of the counter waving pieces of paper over their heads and screaming. It was pretty terrifying. I slunk unnoticed along the wall feeling that my attempts to blend in were putting me at a strong disadvantage for once. I stood in a different line which held the appeal that there were only three people in it, and none of them were screaming. The man behind the counter took my PO box number and vanished, giving me a spark of hope which was quickly dashed when he came back ten minutes later smelling of cigarettes and told me the dreaded words "mafeesh." (Nothing.)

Demoralized and depressed, I decided to walk back. It was a nice night and since I had planned to spend the evening playing with the contents of care packages I had nothing to do anyway. I was about three-quarters of the way home when a little brown cat walked up and rubbed against my legs.

I leaned down and pet the little gold and black striped six-month-old cutie, and picked it up. Most of the cats around here are terrified of people and would never allow this, which made me suspect that he belonged to someone else. So normally, I would never have done what I did-- which was to keep walking and take him home-- was it not for something that happened about a month ago.

A month ago I was walking to work when a black and white cat leaped in my path and meowed at me. I pet him and he followed me to work. On the way home, he was back. I started to bring cat food for him and we became good friends. I called him Ninja, and I didn't take him home simply because I assumed that this cat must have an owner. A few days later Ninja didn't show up, and I was worried that something had happened to him. My fears were answered a few days after that when I found Ninja's body dumped unceremoniously in a garbage heap. He had a hole in his stomach-- I don't think that he was hit by a car.

So holding Shouf in a busy and non-residential area, I couldn't help but remember Ninja, covered with flies in a pile of rotting food and old scraps of shoes. To my credit, I did stand there for a few minutes waiting for someone to come running out asking what I was doing with their cat. When this didn't happen I walked home. (I also went back the next day and wandered around looking for someone looking for cat.) Shouf didn't complain once during the walk, sitting in my arms like he'd been born there. In my bedroom, he took a quick sniff around and then curled up in my lap and fell asleep.

He's adorable and just what I really needed right now. Quiet, clean, friendly and affectionate-- he reminds me of Kiki, my Samoan cat who died suddenly in my arms at just one year old. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised by that-- a cat is obviously going to remind me of another cat, plus Kiki was hardly quiet. But I couldn't help but feel that I didn't find Shouf, he found me.

Kim's Ramadan Daydream

"What are you going to do when you get off the plane?" is a common question that expats get when people find out that they are going home after being away for a while. Well, I'm not planning a trip home but Becky and I did decide what we are going to do. This little plan was hatched while trying to walk down Hadda street one night after being whistled at, ripped off and generally gawked at.

First, I am going to find the area in my neighborhood where there is the highest population of Middle Easterners (preferably Yemenis) and I am going to first drive around said neighborhood and every time I see someone who looks like they might be of Middle Eastern decent I am going to lean on the horn, screech to a stop and scream "Marhaban!" ("Welcome!") at them regardless of how long they look like they have lived there. When this gets old, I am going to get out of the car and wander around the town saying "Kaf Haluk?" ("How are you?") and "Habibik!" ("I love you!") to every immigrant and expat I see. If this fails to get their attention then I will just whistle or make strange noises. If I should see something even slightly out of the ordinary (like-- God forbid-- a woman wearing a headscarf) I will come to a dead halt right in front of them, let my mouth drop open and stare at them with wide eyes while saying "Ya' Allah!!" ("My God!"). When I am inevitably arrested for harassment I will tell the cops that I am simply a friendly and curious person and that people shouldn't have been offended at my attempts to reach out to them.

Eventually I might meet someone who gives me the time of day. When they respond to my cries with a "hello" or a "what do you think that you are doing" I will exclaim in loud and condescending tones "My God, your English is wonderful, where on earth did you learn to speak English like that?!?" I will then ask them for their name, their age, where they live, where they work, their marital status and find out what they think of America. When this interrogation is done I will take their arm and give them a tour while saying lots of very condescending and obvious things. "Here's a McDonalds! Have you seen a McDonalds yet? It's a restaurant. You can eat food here. Have you ever tried a hamburger before?"

Okay, I am not going to do these things of course, but imagining myself doing them is keeping me sane as I walk through the streets of Sanaa.

FIP, Becky

(FIP: Fly in Peace)

Well, my housemate Becky leaving just me and Sonia (which I am very happy about, Sonia). She left last night and we had a tearly evening farewell at the guesthouse gate. About two hours later we got a call from same saying that her flight was cancelled and that she was coming back, which was made even more inconvient by the fact that I was about half finished moving into her room. Anyway, they managed to get her on another flight today and it looks like everything is a go.

My two week break has been a bit of a bust. I had plans to go to Taiz, Kokoban, Marib, Ibb, Shahara and a frew other places but one by one each plan was shot down. The family that was supposed to take me to Taiz had a "family emergency" and the person I was supposed to go to Shahara with ran out fo cash... blah, blah, blah. I am going to try to escape next week but that is a bad time because it's going to be Eid.

Gives me time to catch up in my grading. One of my students, in a paragraph where he was to describe himself, wrote: "I am handsome man. I am black hair and I in gray shirt, brown shoes and black panties."

He meant pants. I hope he meant pants.

Adventures in Teaching

Yesterday I walked into my Level 1 class and asked them, "Okay, what did you learn in your science class yesterday?" (They have chemistry classes as well as English.)

A hand shot up like a rocket and the guy was going "ooo!! ooooo!!!!" I called on him, surprised by his excitement. "Yes?" I said. For good measure I repeated the question. "What did you learn yesterday in Chemistry?"

"3!" he said triumphantly.

Iftar

Is Ramadan over yet? No, the moon is full which means that we have two more weeks. This is my last week of classes, however, and things should get a lot more relaxed when I no longer have to get up at 7:45AM after getting to bed at one in the morning.

Ramadan is the time of Iftar (I am probably not spelling that right), also known as breakfast although it is eaten around 6PM after the sun goes down. It's a tradition to invite people to dinner, and Sonia (my Muslim housemate) has been going out about every night and when I am lucky she brings me with her.

The traditional Iftar meal starts with a quick appetizer of dates and samosas. Generally stuffed with either cheese or meat, these things are to die for. After that, the people all go off and pray after having their hunger for the most part fought off. When they get back, the women will spread a large plastic sheet on the ground and spread food on it. The names of the foods escape me right now, but for those who are interested please check back. I will get someone to photograph the spread of the next meal and write down the names for me. But generally there is this dish consisting of that spongy Ethiopian bread in a yogurt sauce of some sort, and it rocks. A meat dish and a big platter of rice cooked with potatoes and meat. Everyone is given a spoon and told to dig in. There is usally flat bread that gets passed around when the salta (another dish which is actually kind of gross and in my opinion looks a bit like puke) comes out.

After dinner it's desert time, generally a jello thing (called jelly here, like in Samoa, which was a shock when I bought some "mix-it-yourself" jelly that I made and tried to eat off bread) and some cake type thing. And coffee. Needless to say, I have put on quite a bit of weight!! (The nightly Pilates sort of died out.)

After that there is conversation. We've figured out a way around this by having a friend give up an emergency call at around 7:45 telling us that there is a roach in the bathroom, the toilet is overflowing, genies are talking over the world—whatever is needed to get us the hell out of there before we have to meet someone's grandmother, mother-in-law, grandmother-in-law, 2nd cousin and so on. Becky and I were wondering if they do this to each other. The same thing happened to me in Palestine… I mean, could you imagine going to your friends house, having a nice meal, then having them say "Well, let's get in the car, we're going to Grandma's house so that you can meet her?" Keep in mind that this is made worse by the fact that we don't speak the same language.

Iftar is cooked by the women of the house, and they generally eat separately from the men. In many of the dinners that I would be at I wouldn't even see a woman, except for an occasional smiling grandmother who greeted us at the door. When we were introduced to the women, they would come pouring out of the door like a clown car. Becky and I did recently go to an Iftar where we were the guests of the women, and it was a very different experience. It was a special occasion and there were easily 60 women there, and I only saw the men at the beginning of the evening. For me, it was sad to see all the identical black-robed women walk into the room and show such personality after they threw off their scarves.

Anyway, tonight some of our housemates made dinner and we had our own Iftar. Tim and Derrick (a new housemate) were cooking and we girls sent them into the kitchen while we lounged around and watched TV in our Bizarro version of Yemen. It was nice until I was told that I would be the one to wash the dishes.

Do We Feel Safe Yet?

The other day I was heading to work in the Gas Company with my driver, Abdul. In addition to the two of us, the car held a payload about ten boxes of textbooks that were needed for the next class. We got to the gates of the Gas Company (uh, remember as you read this tale that there have been about three attacks on Gas-related industries here in Yemen in the past few weeks) and Abdul honks for the guard to let us in.

The guard came out and had a word with Abdul. I didn't recognize the guard, but that's not saying much as there are a ton of them and they all look alike in their matching guard uniforms. Abdul and the guard had a short argument and the guard eventually waved us in.

I will admit that it was in Arabic and that I didn't know a word that he was saying. Abdul is a sweet man, and he's worked at MALI for years, but he doesn't really know very much about the in and outs of what I am doing. He knew that we were delivering textbooks for MALI and the name of the director of said institute. But in reality, Abdul doesn't really know anything that you couldn't find off the Internet in about five minutes (from my blog alone, in fact.)

So once inside the gates, we quickly unload ten unmarked and very heavy boxes to various floors in the building. The guard even helped us. On the way out, he finally got around to asking me my name. Turns out that he was new and didn't know who I was. I gave my name to him and he went to the office to write it down. He didn’t ask to see any ID, including my "official" gas company ID card. (I put "official" in quotes because after waiting a month for the card I got sick of signing in every morning and swiped a card from a former employee and simply scotch taped—not glued—my name and picture over the old name and photo.) By the time he got to his office, Abdul and I were happily out of the compound and bouncing away down the road as he took me to a different entrance.

It wasn't until afterwards that I realized that ANYTHING could have been in those boxes.

US Foreign Relations Fucks Up Again...

Today was my last weekday off, so I took the opportunity to head to my embassy. I went for a few reasons… the first was simply to see it and see if it looked anything like the one in "Rules of Engagement" and the other reason is that I had two passports—my Peace Corps passport and my regular passport. I had to use the Peace Corps passport to get into Yemen because the other one has an Israeli stamp on it, and it was only good for three months after my service finished, and I didn't want to be with a visa in an expired passport.

So I walked to Hadda Street and hailed a cab. He said he wanted 600 hundred rials, I stood firm at 400. After I started to walk away he relented and I got in feeling smug. But the bastard got his own back. We got to the embassy; he pointed it out and kicked me out of his cab. I nervously walked up to the heavily fortified entrance holding up my passport. The guards told me that I had to go around. "Around" consisted of about a ten minute walk on a busy highway with no sidewalk and nearly every taxi or bus that saw me screeching to a halt and honking in hopes of getting a western fare. You see, this is why I hate taxi drivers.

I finally got to the place and they waved me in. I had to walk halfway back to where I had started and entered a line with a bunch of bored looking Yemenis. After waiting for about ten minutes, I realized that it wasn't a line, rather just a place to wait for something that wasn't going to happen. I asked the guard if I could just go in and he waved me to the door.

In the door, I handed in all my junk to a Yemenese woman wearing a matching headscarf and bullet-proof vest and was ushered through a metal detector to conciliate services. The embassy really looked like what you would expect. Big, modern, lots of guards and a big wall all around it. I went to the conciliate office and waited for about a half hour (for some crazy reason I had neglected to bring a book) and then someone came to help me. I had to shout my problems through a glass wall about a half foot thick. "I have two passports," I told them. "This one is my Peace Corps Passport, it has my visa", I opened and held it up, showing the visa, "but it is only good for another month. And this is my other passport, but it has this," and I showed him the Israeli stamp. He nodded and I slipped both passports under the window. He told me that he would have to speak with his boss about it.

More waiting. The power flashed off and the generator kicked in. Finally, I was called back. He told me that since my Peace Corps contract was cancelled, he had gone ahead and cancelled the Peace Corps passport. He gave me back my Peace Corps passport and I looked at it in horror. He had punched a few holes in the cover and put a big "cancelled" stamp in it. "What about my visa?" I asked.

"You will have to transfer it to your second passport", he said, giving said passport back.
"Are they going to put a visa in it, with this?" I asked, holding up the stamp.

"No," he admitted. "I guess you'll need a new passport." He got me an application and demanded $67 bucks. Fortunately I had planned for this and handed over the money. He then asked for two identical passport pictures. I had not planned for this, and felt like a real idiot since I had two spares in my desk at home.

"But what about my visa?" I asked.

"You'll have to put it in the new passport. You'll get it in a week."

"But since my current passport is cancelled, isn't my visa cancelled as well?"

The man blinked a few times, obviously not having thought that far. "Well, yes, theoretically," he stammered. "But if anyone gives you any problems, just call us and we'll sort it out." I thought about when I got arrested in Israel and the only support that the embassy gave me was a stack of outdated Cosmopolitans and a call to my mom. Needless to say, I didn't feel much better.

Anyway, I asked where there was a picture place and they told me that there was one to the left. "But you'll need to take a taxi, it's too far, you'll never make it."

"How far?"

"About half a kilometer." I wondered what would happen if I was arrested more then half a kilometer away from the embassy. I set out on foot and ten minutes later I found the place. I asked (in Arabic) for some passport pictures. I said that I needed them NOW, in ten minutes, and was the place digital? They nodded. First they tried to sell me ten. I talked them down to four. They told me it was 250 rials, and I paid the bill and they gave me a receipt.

"Where do we take the pictures?" I asked. The man shrugged and pointed at the lights. "No power", he said. I remembered that it had gone out an hour ago.

I bought some melting ice cream and sat outside to sulk and wait for the lights to come back and wonder if it would bankrupt the bloody embassy to provide themselves with a simple digital camera and printer along with their fancy useless generator.

When the lights came back on (I was lucky, it only took about fifteen minutes) they ushered me into a room and sat me down to photograph me. The guy snapped my picture and I looked at the camera suspiciously. "Digital?" I asked. He nodded as he pulled the lever to advance the film. I went back out and asked when my pictures would be ready. I was told to come back in about three hours.

"No, I need them now," I said. I was offered two hours and the very Yemeni "it's okay."
Another 250 rials on the table and they were able to wrestle up an actual digital camera and their photographer begrudgingly took my photo again. It looked terrible—I swear that he messed it up on purpose. At that point I didn't care. I ran them back to the embassy and hopefully I will never have to step on that particular patch of American soil again.

So here I am, in the Middle East illegally. Again. This morning I was legal and a trip to the US embassy changed all that. Thanks, guys.

They Hate Us, You Know

I was walking down the street a few days ago with a friend when some young boys hung their heads out the car window and whistled at us. I ignored this but my friend sighed and told me "They hate us, you know." She went on to say that Yemen was the most intolerant place she's ever lived. I didn't agree with her at first, but now I'm not so sure.

It was a pretty shocking thing for her to say, especially since I was more or less under the impression that I was a welcome visitor to this country. But talking to her made me realize a few things... namely that the horn honking and the "hey baby"'s mean something a little different here.

After living in Samoa for so long I more or less got used to the unwanted attention and stares. However, something that hadn't occurred to me was that in Yemen, unlike Samoa, it isn't really cool to sleep with as many westerners as humanly possible, and it certainly isn't cool to brag about it. Rather, it is Shame, and most things sexual-- from sleeping with someone to hooting at someone on the street-- isn't really something that any man-- even a teenaged one-- would be proud of. In Samoa you called out to palagis to impress your friends. Here, no one is going to be impressed. No, the whistling and the cat calling has a different meaning here.

After I saw it that way, things started to look different. The stares are starting to look a little more hostile and a little less curious. The anti-American sentiments that I hear seems a little more pointed and I find myself feeling like an idiot-- did I really think that I could just stroll into this country and everyone would like me? Did I really think that just because I have certain views and actions people would treat me differently? You can't get into Yemen if you have a Israeli stamp in your passport-- even if you were working in Palestine-- and neither the government nor the people have a problem with this. It's politics, just like anywhere else. We are judged by our appearance here just like anywhere else. Am I such an "Ugly American" that I didn't forsee that?

Anyway, don't get me wrong. I have a lot of friends here although it's hard to be friends with the woman (who can't leave the house and who you can't hang out with) and it's harder to be friends with the men who people will assume you are sleeping with, thereby bringing shame to their family.

One of my students, Aziz, took some of my friends to Old Yemen to see Ramadan at night. I didn't go because I was tired and I assumed (correctly, as it turns out) that night at Babel Yemen would be like any other night. Anyway, Aziz and my friends (all western girls) went into a shared taxi and their way to the gate. A woman sat next to Aziz and according to him (admittedly Aziz can exaggerate sometimes) the women started questioning him about the girls. He asked him if he was sleeping with them. When he said that no, they are my teachers, she said that he should stay away from us, that we do bad things and that we come from evil places. Not entirely inaccurate, I will concede. Still, how much is said behind my back when there isn't someone who can translate the conversation for me later?

PS: Who the hell is Anne Nicole Smith and why won't the news shut up about her?