Meeting the Sheik

The morning arrived to the tune of braying donkey and screaming children. I was invited on an early morning walk to the water hole with some local women, tried to speak using my school arabic, and had them folded over with laughter. Not sure if they were laughing with me or at me...
Breakfast of course was beans, bread, cheese, and tea. Then we gathered our meager belongings, hopped into the trucks again, and headed out the rough mountain road to the house of the Sheik! When we arrived, Mohammed was manning the giant bulldozer, dressed in traditional garb, and pushing giant boulders down the road from the Sheik's house. The house itself was huge, especially compared to the one story made-of-mud houses that are spread around the region. The Sheik's house was four stories, with a beautiful mafraj on the top floor. The house itself was on top of a high plateau, so being in the mafraj with the huge windows was like sitting on a cloud looking down on the countryside.

The Sheik, much younger than I thought he would be, was in a 'meeting' when we arrived. We spent our time until lunch walking around the top of the plateau and looking at the scenery. The wind was blowing hard and the view went forever - something out of Lord of the Rings - with qat. After we returned to the house, the Sheik let us shoot more guns!
Lunch was tasty, the girls we fortunate enough to be able to eat with the boys. Rice, lamb, potatoes, salta, aseet, bint al-sahan. After lunch the men stayed and chewed qat and napped.
(One of our teachers, Ramsey)
The four girls went into the main house to visit the sheik's wife and were lead up to the glory of a mafraj. The wife, Ourz, was originally from Sana'a, had had an arranged marriage to the Sheik, and was one of the smartest, most down-to-earth and clearheaded women I've met in Yemen. She spoke very clearly so it was easy for us to carry on a conversation. We had tea, ate cookies, played with her two youngest children (she has five, but told the Sheik 'no more!'). We also were treated to perfume and incense. After a couple hours with her, we unfortunately had to leave and head back to Sana'a. After a weekend of rather depressing visits with women, it was wonderful to meet someone as unique as Ourz.

So that was the trip!

Since returning to Sana'a from Beyt Qatina, we have had several adventures. I was invited to lunch at a student's house. The family spoke in the arabic dialect spoken in Ibb so I had very little idea of what was being said. The food was amazing, traditional Yemeni. The old grandmother insisted that I eat enough to roughly double my body weight. After lunch I sat with the men for a few minutes and then went and joined the women's room. I was taken in by the sister of Jalal, my student, and doused in perfume, had my hair brushed, and (in true Emily fashion) had make-up almost forcefully applied to my face. Big Katie and I discovered later, when I arrived home looking like a clown hooker, that this is the kind of makeup that is not FDA approved in the states because it contains strange chemicals to keep it from (ever) being removed. I decided that day would be the best day to wear the niqab for the first time. So Big Katie and I went shopping for jambiyyas in disguise! We did pretty well, haggling in arabic in order to buy our jambiyyas for much cheaper than was originally priced.

The next day we headed to the Hotel Movenpick, where the best ice cream in all of Yemen is. It's a monstrous Swiss hotel up on the hill overlookinn Sana'a. We had been a couple times before, and Big Katie had read that they were going to show the Olympics there, so we went to watch the opening ceremonies. After failing to show us the opening ceremonies, and having to face what Big Katie calls her "angry white woman face", we were treated to a day at the Movenpick spa! Now, I can't say I'm much of a spa girl - but I have never felt so clean.
My last couple of days in Yemen have been spent finishing up teaching (with a heated discussion on who is better, Iran or Israel? The Arab viewpoint is much different than mine - I think we're working off of different information), shopping about for last minute gifts (a giant poster of Ali Abdullah Salah, President/Dictator of Yemen for myself), and wandering around the Old City.
Tonight I leave for Roma. Since Sana'a is such a huge international hub, and Yemenia's nine planes take up so much room, it's necessary that my flight leave at 12:01 am. Hmmm, maybe not so necessary... But I will be out of Yemen and in Rome by tomorrow morning. The summer has been an amazing cultural experience, great for my arabic. But there is a flank steak waiting for me in Baltimore, as well as a wisdom teeth removal. In 10 days I will be home - al-hamdu lallah!

Thanks!

Hiking into Paradise

As with all backcountry trips, we arose with the sun at 530 am to a wonderful breakfast of cheese, bread, and tea. Today is our 'strenuous' hiking day and the plan is for us to 'go for a walk' (as the British say) for about 5 hours to a natural spring located in the bottom of a deep wadi (valley) called Hamman al-Ayun. After another very bumpy ride, we stopped at a farm in the middle of the perfect horror movie setting, dismounted from my cab-top throne, and headed off into the wilderness.

We crossed over the first set of small hills and opening up before us was a landscape that rivaled the Grand Canyon, if not in color then in shear colossal size. The group quickly separated into smaller hiking groups. I was hiking close to the front with the tribesman. You know the saying, “If you’re not the lead dog the scene never changes”? My view was of a goat on the back of the tribesman in front of me. While I was aware that this was actually the only thing on the menu for lunch, I was unable to keep myself from forming quite the relationship with it. Poor Jemima.

About an hour and a half after starting to hike, we completed our descent into the wadi and you will never guess what was there! In the middle of desert/mountainous Yemen! A river!
Hammam al-Ayun is a natural spring that erupts from the mountainside to form a river flowing down the valley through the massive boulders and over stones of every color imaginable. Blue, purple, orange, yellow, pink, green, shiny black. The river was interspaced with shallow ripples and waist deep pools big enough to float in. As the rest of the group arrived, all the boys got into their swimtrunks, the tribesmen went into the river in their shorts, and hooray for the girls once again swimming in shorts/pants and tee-shirts. But the water was incredibly refreshing after the hike down, and the giant boulders were perfect for laying in the sun to dry off.
Jemima kicked the bucket and soon was in a pot boiling for lunch. There was plenty of time for exploring, swimming, napping, and talking. Around noon (we arrived in the wadi around 9), the tribesman called us in for tea and goat! Yum.

What better way to celebrate your lunch of recently bleating goat than by shooting guns. Ak-47’s to be exact. Until recently, men carried their AKs everywhere with them. In the countryside, in the middle of Sana’a, it didn’t matter. A couple of years ago, carrying an assault rifle in the city was made illegal, but in the mountainous countryside, everyone and their mother has a gun. (‘Like who?’ ‘Farmers.’ ‘Yeah? Who else?’ ‘Farmer’s mums.’) Well, maybe everyone and their son. Anyway, while I had held a gun in Al-Hajjarain, this time I was able to shoot one into the opposite side of the wadi. Ah, the power.

After the tribesman had had their qat time, we started hiking out of the canyon back to the cars. The group separated again and strung itself out across the hills. The first group, about five of us and most of the tribesman, trucked it up the hills pretty quickly. A couple of us contented ourselves with playing the famous person name game in order to keep our minds off the hike. The tribesmen chose to smoke cigarettes while hiking almost straight up the mountains. These men are nothing but muscle – machines!

We reached the farm in about 2 hours and had some time to spend with the family at the farm house. Tea or qat? Tea please.

Everyone else made it up to the farm as the sun was setting over the mountains, and we piled back into the trucks for our now dark and bumpy ride home. A brief stop at a small store gave the girls an opportunity to have more tea with more women and the most adorable fat month old named Ahmed.

The evening meal was beans, bread, cheese, and tea, followed by the evening entertainment of mind-bending riddles. Following the brave souls of the night before, I slept on the roof under the brightest stars in Yemen. The Milky Way. Constant shooting stars. You can’t make me leave!!!

Beyt Qatina

I'm going to do this installment the same was as I did last terms trip to Hadramout, in three pieces. Each day was so full, I'm sorry!
And don't get excited, it's not my camera, the pictures are all stolen from friends.

7/31 - Day One

The second term big trip! I signed up for a “strenuous hiking trip” to the region of Beyt Qatina in the mountains south of Sana’a. It was a small trip, 14 students as opposed to my 60 person trip to Hadramout, with 3 girls and 11 guys. We met early on Thursday morning and headed out of Sana’a in a bus. 2 hours later (after passing Shibam and Kokaban, we pulled off to the side of the road in a valley of qat fields. Awaiting us were a pickup truck and a Land Cruiser made circa 1970. There was a hole in the floor of the Land Cruiser and to be quite honest, I doubted its ability to make it through the weekend. I had no idea what this car, both cars, were capable of. Let’s just say I have some new plans for the adventure truck when I get home.

We piled into our two new cars which were going to take us around for our trip, as our bus ‘couldn’t handle the roads.’ NO KIDDING! After about 10 minutes on paved roads, we thought the bus driver was just lazy. I moved from the bed of the pickup truck where 10 of us were crammed onto the top of the cab in order to have more room. Then we came around the bend and the wonderful paved road disappeared in front of our eyes.
In its place was simply a blasted path on the side of the mountain. Rocks and sinkholes included. Riding on the top of that pickup was like riding a mechanical bull. What a workout. There were several times we struggled to get up a 45 degree incline on straight rocks, but our trucks never failed!

Before heading to our house for the weekend, we visited a small, hilltop village for a rural wedding! We were all excited, made even more so by the gunfire we heard as we drove up. They used to do this at ever wedding in Yemen – a traditional shooting of Kalashnikovs to celebrate. It’s been banned in the cities due to a tendency of people to shoot each other accidentally, but in the mountaintops of rural Yemen it is a common form of wedding celebration. While the men talked guns, beat drums, and danced with their curved knives called jambiyyas (ah, the manliness of being a man), the women thought it would be even more fun to go and join the women’s party. In Sana’a the women’s wedding parties are a blast. Whistling and yelling, loud Arabic pop music (although if you’re lucky you just might get ‘I’m a Barbie Girl’), an overdressed bride, and the Mecca of 80’s prom gowns and sequins. Same thing right? Wrong... nothing could have been more wrong. First of all, the bride was 13. We sat in a dark room with a scared girl in a wedding dress a couple sizes too big, huge fake purple flowers and gold bracelets and tiara, and women who realize that this is not an exciting day for the bride. Silences mixed with words of comfort to the girl. But we thought it would be ok, we could eat and then be happy. In the rural villages the women eat the leftovers of the men. Literally. One of the guys took an after picture of their lunch. That was the before picture to ours. Once you got over the fact that you were eating someone else’s leftovers, however, the food was pretty good for the boonies!

We joined our male compatriots at the qat chew following lunch. I set next to a Yemeni man who, before we arrived, had apparently told another member of my trip that all he wanted was an American wife. I guess I’m all set! I consented to try a leaf – the evils of peer pressure! DISGUSTING! I know it’s bad for the economy, and I know how incredibly unattractive chewers are, and I know how its inhibiting agriculture, but honestly, the taste is enough to make me never want to touch it again. I don’t know how 80% of the country chews it for hours a day. Gross.

We left the wedding to head to our house for the next 2 days. A normal Yemeni farmhouse, the building had two rooms with cushions around the walls for us to live and sleep in. The locals chewed more as we played cards, after which we took an effortless stroll around the qat and coffee fields adjacent to the house. The highlight of that short hike was the local kids, who use small pieces of metal to slide down the irrigation tubes at breakneck speeds.

Dinner that night was a simple meal of beans, bread, cheese, and tea. Night falls early, especially because the house is in a wadi (valley) and the sun sets earlier for us. With an ancient propane lamp we were able to gather inside and play Mafia ( a game of deceit, lying, persuasion, and death – hours of fun!). Highlights included the consistent killing of the sole British kid in the beginning stages of the game leading to calls of a nationalistic form of racism, allegations turning as petty as ‘Well, he’s twirling his hair….’ (guilty, that was me, and it worked), and our big lovable Blake being unable to defend himself against allegations of being in the Mafia because “The light, it’s so round…and bright…I can’t take my eyes off it…”

Being in the country is not complete without an uncomfortable sleep – so bring on the floor!

P.S. Only thirty people from the Yemen Language Center in its 23 years have been to Beyt Qatina and we're pretty sure they're the only center that runs this trip into the tribal lands. Baller!!!

Teaching Conversational English

In a new addition to my Yemen routine, a week ago I began to teach a class in conversational English at a small English school in Sana'a. I had a class of 9 that rapidly grew to 22 as other students joined, hearing that an American was teaching, and other teachers from my school wimped out and left me with their students. It's an eye-opener for sure.
The class is about half male, half female. But about 90% of the girl students wear the full niqab, so I all know of them is their eyes! A little intimidating. But the second day of class I brought them my marker stash and we made name-tags. The students are all between the ages of 20 and 28, with university education either underway or already completed. Their english is pretty good. So far I've already been caught misspelling a vocab word on the board....embarrassing, to say the least.
The topics have been varied and interesting. The first day we discussed, at their request, Islam in America post 9/11. Baptism by flamethrower. I was asked that day what the secret was behind the US's relationship with Israel. Since then the subjects have calmed down. A day talking about women in the workforce and an assignment to write on the women who made breakthroughs into their fields - the first woman doctor, the first woman president, the first woman scientist. Instead I received essays on the first wife of the prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him) and the first female martyr for Islam and the prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him).
We also spent a couple days (at my request of course) talking about children's stories. For homework the students summarized, in english, their favorite childhood stories. The next day we listened to Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, Alla Al-diin (Aladdin), "7 With One Blow!", "Don't Be Curious", a version of "The Little Princess" which they told me was a cartoon on TV. We also discussed the cultural influence on stories, the differences between written and oral tradition, fables and folktales, and whether grown-ups (such as ourselves) could still benefit from children's stories. The responses were great! and what they lacked in grammar and vocabulary they made up for in thoughtfulness.
The last class, my first day with the full 22, we discussed the government and the media in Yemen. One of the boys looked at me when I announced the topic and gasped: "But teacher, we will walk straight out of this classroom and straight into jail!" I think the color must have started to drain from my face as I realized maybe freedom of speech hadn't quite reached Yemen yet, but he laughed at me and said it was just a joke.
For today, they had to research other governments. I have 45 minutes to come up with a topic that has something to do with that...
But in the meantime, I would like to leave you with a fable summarized in English for you by Amani Abdullah. Not only is it there a lesson to be learned, but it's the only one I still have, as I returned the others last week. Enjoy.
"Don't Be Curious"
Once there was a little boy. His name is Ali. He was a little bit clever and good boy in his school. He liked cake more than anything else. He had a fault. He is a curious. He likes checking other's things without taking their permission. So his mother was so angry with him. Although she always told him to take off this bad behavior, he didn't care for her advice.
One day, Ali's mother thought of a plan, then she started it. She wrote a message and put it inside an envelope. She asked him not to open it at all and taking it to his grandmother. While he was walking, he thought of that message. He asked himself, "What did my mother write?" Because of his curiosity, he insisted to open that envelope.
Oh ... When he opened the envelope, the butterfly flied away. He tried to catch it , but he couldn't. He still had the desire of reading that message. He read that his mother requests her mother to give him a big piece of cake and canady if she found the butterfly inside the envelope. After he had read the message, he was very sad and grief. He though better of his bad behavior. He knew his mistake. therefore, he came back to his mother asking her to forgive him. He also promised her that he will never be a curious boy." Amani Abdullah


It's a great experience, and truly a window into the thoughts and minds of normal Yemeni men and women my age. And it's forcing me to practice my spelling.

Much love,
Katie

Ahhhh...Africa

In the break between summer terms, a group of six students (including myself) set off for the unknowns of Africa! We booked our relatively cheap flights for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, took our final exam for the first term, and headed to the airport. I wish I could say that this was a vacation to paradise. That I saw lions and tigers and tribal dances (oh my!). And, to be honest, that was almost the story I wrote down. But, while it was possibly the worst vacation I have ever been on, oh, what a story.

It began with a suppressed feeling that we were about to be abducted by aliens. The Amharic script, the national language of Ethiopia, was what I would have expected to see on the inside of an alien spaceship as it spirited me away to the Horsehead Nebulea to translate 'Battlestar Galactica' episodes to the alien general army commander. It told me where my floatation device was (under my seat) and, while I could use my laptop on the plane, I was not allowed to my printer or separate speaker system while the plane was in flight. And to think I left my printer at home. We flew over the Red Sea and landed in Djibouti! Despite the best efforts of my classmates, we were not allowed to get off the plane to get "Get Djibouti on the Dance Floor!" or "I've Been to Djibouti" teeshirts. We're so mature. We landed in Addis to cold weather. Cold. WHAT!! The summer season for us is the rainy season in Addis, and therefore it is colder than it is the rest of the year. Each afternoon is an afternoon spent gambling on whether or not you can make it inside somewhere when the freezing cold monsoon (with hail?) hits. It pours for about an hour, forcing everyone inside or into the buses or shoved under awnings outside of stores. A friend of one of our fellow students in Yemen met us at the airport and took us to our hotel. The Beta Abrham is a new hotel very close to the airport and located on the famous Bole Road - the heart of Ethiopian nightlife. We went to a traditional music and dance restaurant. The Ethiopian traditional dance, while very interesting and exciting, reminds me more of someone having an epileptic fit rather than a dancer. The traditional dance involves jerking your shoulders around very very rapidly while throwing the head back and forth. I don't think my body could physically do that, so maybe its mostly jealousy.
Our first full day in Ethiopia, we moved to a much cheaper hotel near the Piazza in the center of town. It was here that I discovered I no longer had my camera with me. Not my camera, my dad's camera. Shoot. So while everyone else went to explore, I spent the day calling the airports, the hotel, emailing the airport and the hotel, searching through my things. All in vain. I have since come to the conclusion that when I took pictures of the Djiboutian airport, it didn't make it back into my bag. My own fault. After calling and emailing, I went for a walk and encountered my first scammer (apparently, everyone on the trip had an experience similar to this). A young man named Soloman approached me on the street and started talking to me about the US and Ethiopia. After buttering me up for about 20 minutes, he mentioned how he was taking a big social sciences test the next week, but he didn't have the money for the book to study. If I would only lend him the money, then he could pass the test! To bad his story was repeated almost word for word in 'The Lonely Planet' under the heading of "The Notebook Scam." Unfortunately, he wasted 30 minutes on me that he could have used scamming someone else. That night, Big Katie, another girl named Anya, and I decided to journey off the next day to Bahir Dar and Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile. The town was about 7 hours by car, so we arranged to leave at 4 am the next morning.

The next morning came quickly, and by 430 am I was wedged in the very back of a Land Cruiser, lying on baggage, as all the other seats in the car were taken. Three Ethiopians sat in the middle, two British travelers sat in the front with the driver, and Anya and Big Katie sat on the seats facing each other in the back. 45 minutes out of Addis, the driver hydroplaned on a wet road, side swiped another car, and went straight off a curve and we rolled down an embankment. Everyone is ok. Everything that could have gone right in a crash like that went right. The car was solid, the ground was soft, there were no trees. Everyone is ok. However, people were pretty banged up except for me - being wedged between the bags and the door, I actually barely moved at all. We got all the people and bags out of the car, I used my limited first aid supply to bandage up any cuts and bumps, Big Katie took a truck to the next village to get a bus, and off we went, back to Addis and to St. Gabriel's Hospital. The Ethiopians chose just to go home, but the Brits - Bod and Ross, a couple taking a year off from working with BBC to travel Africa and now in their 10th month on the continent - had the roughest time, having been in the front seat. Whiplash and a cut wrist and bruised jaw between them. Anya had a cut on her knee and a badly bruised arm that she thought could be broken and Big Katie had twisted around the muscles in her back. We all were checked over by a wonderful doctor named Dr. Yosef, got our (incredibly inexpensive) x-rays for those who needed it, and headed out. We went back to our cheap hotel, got our money back for the trip (which was a lot harder than it should have been. The fact that we had paid to go to Bahir Dar, clearly weren't there, and wanted our money back didn't have the quick results we wanted). After that we decided we were done with dirt cheap places, ran back to the Beta Abrham, and slept for the day. Waking up at dinner time, we decided to celebrate our survival by treating ourselves to come great Italian food. We were very very lucky!

The next day, God, feeling sorry for me that I really hadn't experienced Ethiopian hospitals as I had walked out of the crash with nothing but a scratch, decided to let me have a second chance. I awoke at 4 am with severe food poisoning from the spaghetti the night before, and by 8 was demanding that I be taken to a hospital. As I was rolled into the examining room, throwing up, I heard a laugh, felt a kiss on the top of my head, and looked up to see the same smiling Dr. Yosef asking, "Weren't you the healthy one yesterday?" One blood test later, and I had an IV in my arm replenishing my fluids and giving me a double dose of Ciproflaxin to kill all the bacteria in me. 3 hours later, I was feeling better and headed back to the hotel to sleep through the rest of the day, awaking only to eat crackers and watch BBC World news.

Our last full day in Ethiopia, I decided that, regardless of my health, I had to get out and see at least a little bit of the city. We had a wonderful breakfast of pastries and headed over to the Zoological Museum. Addis has more traffic circles than stoplights, and in the middle of each one is a splendid monument to some massacre or king or event in history. The Zoological Museum was a true pleasure. It was only 5 rooms, but each one was packed with the mammals, bird-life, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and marine life that Ethiopia possessed. There were giant snake skins on the wall, frogs crammed into jars, bats (that according to Big Katie, looked as if someone had caught them by slamming them between the pages of an Encyclopedia), every bird ever found in Ethiopia, all the great mammals of the plains as well as the small mammals of the forests - all stuffed to perfection. We met a 'bloated leopard whose stuffer did not know when to stop stuffing' (according to 'The Lonely Planet'), a crested bustard (a funny looking bird from the bustard family), a zorrilla (a kind of skunk), locusts, tortoises, giant fish, antelope, warthogs, elephant femurs next to human femurs, anything alive at Ethiopia at one point or another. We also were lucky enough to be the only people in the museum at the time, and got a personal tour from the museum's director explaining the zoological background of each animal to us. Wonderful!
Next on the list was the Ethnological Museum, located in the middle of Addis Ababa University. The walk through the university itself was wonderful - so incredibly green! The museum itself was also the headquarters of the Institute for Ethiopian studies at the university, and was located in Haile Selassie's former palace. Haile Selassie was appointed Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930 and reigned until 1974. His rise to emperor sparked the beginning of the Rastafarian religion, who honors him as the religious symbol of God incarnate. Anyway, this museum took us through three sections : Birth and childhood (birth customs, childhood games, traditional stories, childhood clothing), Adulthood (marriage customs in different tribes, war, religion, farming, weaving, house construction), and Death (burial customs, burial structures, etc). The also had the bedrooms of the Emperor and Empress preserved, including the bullet hole in the mirror from the coup and the all important bathrooms. A young boy from Michigan wrote in the guestbook, "I really feel good about the Emperor's bathroom."
After this Big Katie and I headed back to the hotel for naps, as neither of was were 100% healthy. We met Anya and a new friend from Portugal, Pedro, for another traditional dinner with traditional music and dance. Pedro is doing graduate research in Addis, and explained that the government is rationing electricity, so his section of the city doesn't have power every Monday. But the dinner was great and the music was wonderful. It was a great last dinner in Addis.

Our last morning, we decided to head into the Merkato, the largest open air market in Eastern Africa. It was HUUUUGE. It went on forever and seemed to have everything one could ever want. Except, however, the Beyonce tee-shirts from when Beyonce performed in Addis. Big Katie and I saw them on the streets and decided that no trip to Ethiopia would be complete without them. We failed. By the way, Ethiopia is on the Coptic calender. This not only allows them to say, for serious, that they have 13 months of sunshine, but it also means that they are about 7 years behind the rest of the world and so just had their Millenium celebrations last year.
After wandering through the Merkato for about 40 minutes, we caught a ride back to the airport and flew home!

Looking back on the trip, it was an experience of incredible variety. We got an upclose and personal tour of the hospital systems, but ate well, saw most of Addis, and arrived back in Yemen safe and sound. Unfortunately, there wont be any pictures, but I'll try and snag some from Big Katie when she gets them on her computer.
Much love,
Katie

Aden

This past weekend I was supposed to go to Aden with my new roommate Wendy and her Yemeni friends Majed and Hassan. Everything was good, we got our travel permissions, our passports copied, etc, etc. However, at the last moment, we were told by our school (after they gave us the travel permission...) that we weren't allowed to go with Majed and Hassan. We weren't told why, but guessed that it was two foreign women traveling with two Yemeni men. I miss the US. So we thought our weekend was shot until we were told that another group of students had rented a bus and were heading down to Aden to meet a friend of John's, a YLC student. They offered us a spot on the bus and we said, hey, why not.
The bus ride to Aden took about 8 hours. We drove through the mountains west of Sana'a for several hours, and by the time we arrived at the coastal plain it was already dark. If you had asked me, after sitting squished in the front row for 8 hours, if this trip was worth it? I would have said no. I want my bed. But then again, our room had been infested with bedbugs and had to be bombed, so the bed I wanted was actually on the roof of the center. OK, I'll give this trip a chance.
We arrived in Aden at 1030 at night and picked up Amr, John's friend who he had met while studying at the University of Wisconsin. He was great, hopped right into our bus to head to the hotel, and passed out an itinerary he had printed out for the next day. Wake up: 530 am. There is no way this trip is worth it. We arrived at the Al-Bousi Plaze Hotel in Crater, Aden, and finally fell asleep to replays of the Euro2008 on Al-Jazeera Sport around 12. Wendy and I had spent the previous hour deciding that, since we weren't technically in the group, we could definitly skip out on that 530 stuff and just go to the beach whenever we wanted.
Well, I woke up at 6, everyone was still getting going, and Wendy and I thought, hey, why not? (Seems to be quite the theme). BEST DECISION EVER. The entire day was packed full of stuff only a local would have taken us to and we saw more of Aden than any guidebook could have pointed us too. Plus the weather in Aden is close to unbearable. I know I said the weather in Hadhramout was rough, but at least that was a dry heat. Aden is consistenly in the high 90's and has the humidity of a coastal town as well. Amr's schedule was designed to have us inside napping during the hottest part of the day - smart man.
We started the day off with some hiking. I mentioned earlier that our hotel was in a neighborhood in Aden called Crater. Think about it... I slept in a volcano!! Inactive, sure, but I slept in a retired volcano! The island at the tip of Aden that forms the harbor is a volcanic island, and the neighborhood of Crater is located in the old crater of the volcano.
This is Wendy and me on the side of the volcano with Crater in the background. And you see the island on top of Wendy's head? The Qu'ran says that, on the Day of Judgement, that little island will be dissolved into flames as the last sign before the ultimate judgement. I stood on top of that island a few hours later, daring it to even try to end the world. I won.
Anyway, also on the wall of the volcano was the 'Zoaroastrian Tower of Silence." Kind of creepy. The Zoaroastrians believe that your body is to dirty to even go into the ground or be cremated after you die? So they left you in these rings of stones inside a tower and let the vutures eat you. Sounds like the least sanitary of them all. I don't think they still do this. I hope not.
Anyway we climbed down from the crater wall and headed to climb the 'Judgement Day' island to the castle up top. It was a rough climb but the castle at the peak gave us an amazing view back into Crater as well as the Indian Ocean. Graffetied onto the walls were several anti-American messages - "Bush go to hell", etc - but they were scrawled right next to several other messages proclaiming the authors support for "LIVERPOOL" or "ARSENAL" so I guess politics are on the same level as football.
I took the opportunity on top of the castle to claim the island and entire Indian Ocean as my own.
Unfortunately, I left my flag at home, so the government of Yemen decided to ignore me.
After the castle, a most of the group headed for the National Museum. Wendy and I decided that, after the National Museum in Sana'a and the National Museum in Hadhramout, we couldn't take the confusion of which museum was the true National Museum. So we opted to walk around Crater and take in the sites. Like garbage cans (noticably absent in Sana'a) and bright colored clothing (what! not black!). We joined up with the crew for a nice lunch of chicken and rice. It was great to have something culturally unique to Aden... After lunch, Amr's itinerary had a couple hours dedicated to naptime, but 6 of us decided that we had already been in Aden too long without getting in the water. We (I) convinced the driver to drive us to a hotel beach on the other side of the island where the girls could get in in swimsuits (and t-shirts, and shorts). The range of beach wear in Yemen is incredible. We did have the true tourists flaunting their bikini's, we had younger girls in t-shirts and pants, and we had the Yemeni women in the water in the exact same thing they wear on the streets of Sana'a. Balto, hijab, niqab and all. I can't even imagine how much sand they must take home with them. I swam in my third ocean! After the swim, Wendy and I returned to Amr and his itinerary, though the rest of the group stayed at the beach.
Amr took us next to the Aden water cisterns. Of the 52 interconnecting chambers built some time before the 10th century AD, only 13 remain. But they hold more than 15 million liters of water when full! The cisters collect the rainwater running off the crater wall. They are HUGE.
I think my house this year would fit into this cistern with quite alot of room left over. We had tea time at the cisterns and then headed to Al-Rehab Mosque. Amr has several friends working at the mosque who were thrilled to show us around the mosque, which is located in the middle of the Al-Rehab shopping center. First we stopped in at the Muslim education center, where the have all kinds of Muslim literature for free. Some of it was interesting - Muslim Faith and Modern Science. Some was Helpful - I now have a Qu'ran with the English translations - granted, this is the edition put out by the Wahabi's in Saudi. Perhaps a little biased. Some were, to me, quite funny - "Let the Bible Speak," a chronicle of all the sex, incest, and racism in the Bible. "The Virtues of Polygamy," on why polygamy is actually more selfless and helpful than monogamous marriages. You get the idea. The best part of the night was being able to watch the evening prayer. Normally non-Muslims aren't even allowed inside a mosque, let alone allowed to watch prayer. But I guess if they're really trying to convert you, they'll let you in. Being able to watch prayer was an amazing experience, especially in the quirky ways it differs from Catholic masses. The actual prayer starts before most of the people arrive. Only men were in the section we were looking down onto, and they file on, shoes off, and line up shoulder to shoulder on the lines in the carpet. No pews. No kneelers. Each row is filled up before the next one is started (Quite different from the Christian practice of only sitting on the aisle and making people squeeze by you to fill up the row). Kids are running around the back, but when prayer starts they are lined up between big adults doing the prayer calethenics right alongside their fathers. There was something very peaceful in watching the simultaneous standing, bowing, sitting, prostration, sitting, standing. People who came late simply did the same movements and prayers at their own pace.
After watching prayer, we sat in the office of the Imam and were lectured to about Islam. It was sad, in a sense, because I had so much enjoyed watching the prayer, to be told that women were equal! There is only one God Allah and Mohammed is his prophet! To have my religion put down so that Islam could look better. If our lecturer had taken a more objective approach, answered our questions less subjectively, and not slipped in a line that Muslim men could marry non-Muslim women because, obviously, their children would be raised Muslim. But Muslim women could not marry non-Muslim men because they are too weak to have their children raised Muslim. The lecture sparked a lot of the debate in the bus on our way to the fish market! Where wer bought fish and took them to a local restaurant to be cooked and eaten. The day was so full it felt like several days, and once again we fell asleep to replays of Euro2008.
Another 6 am wakeup and Amr took us to a local beach to swim. Again, we are all in shorts and t-shirts over our bathing suits, but it was a little bit chillier because it was so early.
I built a sandcastle, threw rocks at it, and then tried to build it up again. I can only imagine what the Yemenis watching me were thinking - "Ah look at the American. Building something up, bombing it to hell, and then trying to rebuild it again. The parallels are just to easy."
Finally we said goodbye to Amr and headed home. The driver wanted to go through Ta'iz and Ibb on the way back to Sana'a instead of the way we came. He claimed it was the same distance so we said hey, why not. LIAR. It took us 9 hours to get home but it did take us by Ta'iz, through the village of Al-Qaeda, and through the town of Ibb. Ibb is a region of green. Brilliant green everywhere. It's so unlike anywhere else in Yemen and I took so many pictures and ah. It was so refreshing to see green mountainsides and green fields and grass.
It also thunderstormed as we went through the area, to make the experience complete. The rest of the bus ride involved keeping ourselves from jumping out of the bus. We sang, played song games, and kept asking "Are we there yet?"

Overall, definitely a trip worth taking. So anytime someone asks you, "Wanna go to Aden?" all you have to do is think, "Hey, why not?" and go. It's a volcano. On the Indian Ocean. Fantastic!

Tomorrow I leave for Ethiopia for the break between terms. Hopefully the pictures and stories will surpass anything I've seen so far!

Much love,
Katie

Wadi Hadramont - Seiyun

Woke up early this morning, our last day in Hadhramout, to take pictures before the dust and haze got too bad. The above picture is a panorama taken from the roof of our hotel. A quick dip into the pool and breakfast before we hopped back into the bus for the quick ride into Seiyun. I rode with the police again and told them the 'talking muffin' joke in Arabic! Success!
In Seiyun we took a quick trip to the National Handicraft Heritage Museum and Souq. A mess. But then we walked around the main souq and through the National Museum in Seiyun, which used to be the Imam's palace when the city was the capital of the Kathiri Sultanate.
After the museum we went to a fort on the outskirts of Seiyun that had completely fallen into disrepair and had just finished being restored. They had done the restorations using the same building material and tools as the original builders, hundreds of years ago.
The director of the fort met us at the door and walked us through the history of the fort before allowing us to walk around inside. It was hot, almost 110 F, and to be honest, most of the day consisted of reluctantly climbing out of the air conditioned buses and wandering around, waiting to get back in. We spent the morning in Seiyun and then did lunch and the pool one last time at the hotel, hopped in the airplane, and back to Sana'a we went!
Although the picture is a bit hazy, it is the only picture I have that shows the two separate levels in Hadhramout. The bottom part of the picture is the bottom of the wadi, and mid-to-upper section is the plateaus separated by the different wadis themselves.
All in all, it was a great trip. Hadhramout is a region unique from the rest of Yemen in both the people and the geography (and the weather - brutal). But definitly three days well spent.

Wadi Hadhramout - Al-Hajarayn, Shibam Hadhramout

Our second day in Wadi Hadramont included trips to Al-Hajarayn and Shibam Hadhramout. The swimming pool proved even more popular at night than during the day, so a 2 hour game of keep-away left everyone a little sleepy at breakfast. We had a two hour drive by bus to Al-Hajjarain, our first stop of the day. Most of the cities in Hadhramout are built along the bottom of the valley, but Al-Hajarayn is built on the steep hills that lead up to the plateaus. Therefore, our valiant attempts to get the buses up the switchback road failed miserably. While the town itself is dusty and dirty, it overlooks the junction of two wadis and a large date palm farm. The town is known best for its honey, allegedly the "best honey in the world." Well I had several different varieties of "the best honey in the world" poured straight into my hand so I could lick it out.
Maybe its a result of my upbringing, but my favorite was the least expensive kind. We made good friends with our tourist police protection men with guns who had no problems butting the line to get sample honey for those who stayed outside. On the way back to the bus I had the wonderful opportunity to (close your eyes Lolly and Nana) take a photo with an AK-47! I would put it up but Big Katie's uncle added a beard and mustache to it and it might prompt the US government to refuse to let me back in.
After all of this, it was time for lunch. We drove back towards Shibam and saw a bunch of wild camels on the side of the road! And guess what was for lunch? CAMEL! I was very excited and loudly proclaimed my intentions to eat an entire camel by myself. Until I tried it. I'm sure that if you are stuck in the desert drinking water from a cactus and your only source of protein is a camel, that it would taste pretty good. But coming from the land of steak and hamburgers, I will be the first to say that unless I am stuck in the desert drinking from a cactus, there is no way I am eating camel again. Oily and greasy, its unpleasant slide down my throat led me to pass the plate along and ask where the veggies were. Sorry if anyone is eating.
We rode back to the hotel for our break between cities, jumped in the pool and played some sharks and minnows (interesting how we had to explain the rules...I thought that game was universal).

After the break we drove to Shibam Hadhramout, "The Manhattan of the Desert." They weren't lying. Shibam was founded BC and was built up in the 16th century to be, according to our tourist sheet "one of the oldest and best examples of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction." I don't know if that was their exact wording in the 15oo's, but the buildings, like the rest of Hadhramout made completely from mud bricks and clay, rise to seven or eight stories. Skyscrapers! We wandered around the city admiring the architecture, the majesty of human engineering, and the goats that seemingly outnumbered the people. I made another tourist police friend, a man from Sana'a, who helped me by a traditional Hadhramout man-skirt for 1/3 the price it would have cost a regular tourist.
As the sun sunk lower in the sky, we piled back on the buses and headed across the road to a nearby mountain and climbed up in order to have a bird's eye view of Shibam Hadhramout for sunset. A small group of us decided the first viewing spot wasn't adequate enough, and climbed about halfway up the mountain for a better view. By the time we got there, the sun had disappeared behind a cloudbank above the plateau's, making the sunset rather disappointing, but the view of the valley from where we were was incredible, miles down the wadi in both directions.
After the sunset, we made our way back down to the buses and had a run-in with the cousins of lunch.
The bus trip back to the hotel was full of Arabic riddles and jokes, and I am proud to say I now know how to tell the 'talking muffin' joke in arabic. I will be able to die happy!

Wadi Hadramont - Tarim

Today we awoke at 530 am after not getting home until 1 am due to the most important thing in the world to non-Americans - football. Germany beat Turkey 3-2 in the Euro2008 in a thrilling match. It's official. The arabs do not say gooaaaaaal with the same gusto as the Spanish. Anyway, we were all up early, and by we I mean the four of us now living in my room. One of the other dorms has gotten a gift from the Yemenis - Bedbugs! So two Bab al-Sabah residents are squating in our room.
Regardless, our plane left Sana'a for Wadi Hadramont, a region in the east of Yemen located in a long river valley running through high plateaus. Coming in by plane, the region looks like two different worlds. The high mesas are all about the same height and a rocky brown, while the valley is green and yellow with towns spread as far as the eye can see. Oh, it's also in the desert. At 9 am when we touched down, the temperature was already nearing 100 degrees F. Luckily, we have airconditioned buses! After a quick stop at the hotel in Seiyun, the capital city of the region, we headed east to Tarim. Tarim has long been the center of Islamic learning, not just for Yemen, but internationally. Before we went into the city itself, we stopped at a gypsum-making factory and a brick-making factory. Factory is a generous term, these places were completely open air with no modern technology, which makes their acheivements all the more impressive. Gypsem is a white doughy substance used to preserve the mudbricks that about 90% of the houses in Yemen are built of. It is smeared an inch thick on the outside of houses to keep the rain away from the mud and heko keep the temperature in the houses stable. The gypsem itself (sorry, I found this absolutely fascinating) is originally from a particular type of rock. The workers pile these rocks into a giant ovan

(thats about 12 feet high) and bake them for 24 hours. After the day in the heat, workers pull the rocks out and, before they cool, pour water on them. Normal water. The resulting reaction is going to be my first question in next semesters Chemistry class. The grey rock becomes, in front of your eyes, a white powder and boils the water as it mixes. This happens even after the rock has cooled down! The picture shows the bubbling of the powder and water. After the powder and water mix and cool, it is beaten by a man with a cane. Yes, Yemeni technology. After a couple hours, the substance has become doughy, is slapped into bags, and sold for about 500 YR a bag ($2.50). Gypsem gives Wadi Hadramont is traditional white houses, different from the rest of Yemen.
Next was the brick factory where mud bricks are made from clay, dried for 2 days in the summer and 4 days in the winter, and then used to make the houses throughout Hadramont. The workers make huge pools of mud and mix in straw. Then they use wheelbarrows and wooden frames to shape the bricks and HOORAY! Mud bricks.
We headed into the city of Tarim where we walked around the souq. A lot of people bought straw hats resembling witches hats which I thought were just a tourist gimick until I saw the women in the fields wearing them! On top of their full black. I don't know how they don't all die in the heat. The library was interesting with books dating back to the 12th century, and the palaces built by rich Hadramis abroad in the 40's were beautiful, though now leaning towards run down.
Lastly, we walked by the minaret of the Tarim mosque which is one of the tallest earthen structures in the world!
Made completely of mud and straw. Yemeni Technology. It's quite impressive. So far this trip is looking amazing. Yes it's hotter than anywhere I've ever been, but the hotel filled their swimming pool just for us, and nothing cools you down like the wind in your face as you ride in the back of the Tourist Police escort.

Manakah and my introduction into the Ethiopian Community in Sana'a

Today I went on a day trip to Manakah, the most beautiful place in Yemen.

Today I awoke early and we were off on the road to Manakah!
It was a long drive through the mountains west of Sana'a, made longer by our hour long stop at a military checkpoint while they made sure the way was clear. When we arrived at Manakah (I may have slept...), we drove through the town located on a ridge between two mountains to a high peak. After hiking up halfway with the goats, we arrived at the house of one of our Yemeni staff. Manakah is the hometown of the owner of the college and most of the staff are related to him in somewhere and are from Manakah as well. The view was amazing with high peaks and deep valleys, and green in a way that Sana'a definately is not.
From the mountain, we bused over to Al-Hajjarah, a village on a mountain peak (literally, 3 out of the 4 sides were cliffs!). Mohammed, a 7 year old, volunteered himself to be my guide of the town. For about 3 seconds I was so surprised with this generosity, until he told me 20 feet into the tour that the last stop would be his family's shop. Oh well. The tour was wonderful, I saw the oldest building in Al-Hajjarah, the Jewsish settlement, and the amazing views. And the inside of Mohammed's shop. The children here were incredibly well-trained. The bus rolls into the village and almost immediately is surrounded by little 'port-a-shops' on card tables. An interesting town, but the kids were a little too eager.
After Al-Hajjarah, the bus took us back into Manakah for lunch at a hotel, complete with traditional music and dancing! The music was great, and the dancing was complete with swirling jambiyyas. A little scary but a lot of fun to watch.
Our last stop in manakah was al-Hoteib, an Ismaili village and pilgrimage site with pilgrims coming from as far as India, America, and Indonesia. By far the nicest and cleanest town in the area (possibly the country - I would debate that), it receives a lot of money from Ismailis abroad and has been able to keep the town looking beautiful and the mosque whiter than the white house.
We climbed to the beak above the town to the 6th century tomb of Ismaili scholar, ready?, Hattem bin Ibrahim al-Hussein al-Hamadi. I considered adding more names to be funny but someone would wikipedia that and catch me in a second. The view from the peak, while hazy beyond a couple miles, was incredible. The entire countryside is terraced to the last meter and thus is green as far as the eye can see.
It reminds me of all the photos in National Geographic of the Chinese countryside. I can't get over how beautiful this place was and have resigned myself to the fact that none of my photos will ever do this region justice.
The ride home from Manakah was just as awesome, as the sun set over the mountains behind us, there was a light sprinkle (gasp! Rain? In Yemen? Nooo), and the descent from the mountains after sunset into Sana'a.
That weekend I had my first taste of Ethiopian culture at the Ethiopian club, a dance club in Sana'a, and was subsequently invited to an Ethiopian wedding! It was a huge dance party! And I know I inherited some serious dance moves from my mother, but I looked like a tree with roots next to these powerdancers. I simultaneously learned some new dance moves and entertained an entire wall of old Ethiopian men and women who were wondering who this white girl was. The food was strange but the music and the dancing kept me there for hours. I'll get a better look at the Ethiopian culture in a week when I head to Addis Ababa for 5 days during break!

Much love,
Katie

Girls Day!

Wednesday was a day of surprises. Instead of going to class for the last two hours in the morning, our teacher took us a couple blocks away to the National Museum. Inside was a very eclectic mixture of random artifacts, an entire room dedicated to the life of the President, pictures from the 1930's taken by some German eccentric, three fake lions from Kenya...you get the idea. Not really Smithsonian standard but what was interesting was seeing if I had the arabic to read the exhibit signs. In a separate building was an audio-visual exhibit on Soqotra, an island off the southern coast of Yemen that has been labeled "the Galapagos of the Middle East". That exhibit was very well done and really made me want to visit Soqotra while I am here. Unfortunately, in the summer it is incredibly windy and stormy, and the only flights to the island are for food and supplies. We also received a pamphlet on "Islam for Infidels" (not the actual title) which lectured us on the things Islam has done for the world. While I agree with some of the facts, there are others that are completely laughable to me. That the veil prevents women from getting raped in the arab world? Personally I think it's because the woman's family will kill you but hey, I am an infidel.

Later that day, 7 of us from the school set off to play soccer with Yemeni women. We went by taxi to the Yemeni International School, which had a field (of gravel) surrounded by high walls. Women here do not take off their niqabs unless no one (with the exception of other women and their husbands) can see them. One Yemeni woman and one woman from India who taught biology in Sana'a came to play with us. Before going to play, the four Danish girls, Wendy, and I all went and bought the Yemeni soccer uniforms (for 5 dollars), so we were ready to play.
After doing some drills made more difficult by the fact that we only had 2 balls, we split into teams and scrimmaged. My team was me and 3 of the Danes, all in matching uniforms, and we rocked that gravel field. The goal of the team is to get Yemeni women in a place they feel comfortable and teach them to play soccer, so next week we're hoping to get more women from Sana'a to come.

After soccer, I got into a taxi with two other girls from the school and went to a women's party that was being hosted by a sister of one of the male teachers. I wasn't sure I wanted to go, but once I got there I didn't want to leave! Since there were no boys allowed, all of the women were dressed in fancy, slightly scandalous dresses and everyone was dancing. There was a ton of food, fruit juices, tea, shisha, and qat. Whenever girls got up to dance, everyone sitting on the couches around the room would clap and sometimes the Yemeni women would do that "ALALALALALALALLALALA" sound with their tongues that you only hear in movies with terrorists. While Hollywood uses that sound for crazed extremists, in Arabic countries it's simply an expression of joy. After a couple hours we finally had to leave, and all the women veiled back up to leave the house, donning the all black that left me unable to discern who was who, even though I had been dancing and talking with them for hours.

I think the most interesting thing I learned today was how women in general live behind the scenes. You see them on the street and they're veiled to the point where you can only see their eyes. They don't work in the stores so you don't interact with them when shopping, women cannot eat in public so you don't see them in the restaurants, when they ride the bus they are normally very quiet. But there is this underground culture of women behind closed doors that is full of laughter and smiles and great dancers and snappy dressers. It's all very unexpected but I am so happy that it's something I can enjoy while I'm here. The women here have such strong bonds of sisterhood with each other, and are amazingly willing to apply the same sense of hospitality and fun to strange westerners. I've started to ramble but the whole day was a peek into the world of women here in an Islamic society.

Much love, and while I do love the female community here, I love shorts and t-shirts more.

Katie

The first weekend

(It's long, I'm sorry, I really am)
As a special Happy Weekend! present, on Thursday morning all the students staying for over one month walked over to the Yemeni Health Laboratories for the HIV test required in order to obtain a residency visa. It was definitely not the hospital of a developed country but the needle was opened in front of me by the female doctor (female for the girls, male for the boys - we were separated by curtains even though all we were exposing was our arm). No bandaids for the boys either - tough love. My 'non reactive' results back today and hooray! I can stay in Yemen.
Also on Thursday was my first trip to the Shumaila Hari - the supermarket. Six of us piled into a dabub and headed to Hadda Street about 15 minutes away. The Shumaila Hari is two stories, but only a quarter of this is actually food. The upstairs has clothes only (although a guy at the gym told me that he bought his shirt, which has an angry gorilla on it and says "Unleash the Beast" - tempting) and half of the downstairs is appliances, etc. Most interesting is the cheese section and fruits and vegetable section, both of which are filled with a variety of foods that I have never seen before. Yemen is also well known for its honey, and there is a section of the food area devoted to the 15 or so different varieties of honey, which you order and they ladle into a glass jar. There are also armed security guards at the door, but a Baskin Robbins stand outside - that balances out right?
Overall, the military presence in Sana'a is very evident. Outside of every Parliament building and Government owned building there are at least two guards. Since there are 3 of these buildings in my neighborhood, the soldiers are hard to miss. Which I don't think I could ever do anyway, due to their incredible uniforms. There's the regular camouflage of course, but then there is also a bright purple camouflage, as well as a bright orange camouflage. The purple isn't bad, but the only place I can see the orange working is at Laser Tag.
13 June (Friday the 13th, actually) was my first excursion out of Sana'a and into the surrounding countryside, and it was amazing. We left at nine in the morning from the Markez and headed off in a bus with 14 students, 8 Yemeni staff from the Markez who spoke enough English to say "Everyone here?", but that was about it, and one absolutely insane driver. I have realized by now how much Yemenis love their car horns, but this man would be completely alone on a country road and honk his horn. Our first stop out of the city was Wadi Dahar, a Yemeni "Scenic Overlook" over a fertile valley that contains the Dar al-Hajjar, the imam's rock palace.
While I did get a picture with a falcon on my shoulder, I didn't realize that, when a man comes and puts a falcon on your shoulder without you asking, you still have to pay. Whoops.
Our next stop was Thula, a city on the UNESCO tentative list for inclusion as a World Heritage site, which it should be, as it was first settled in the 2nd century, and is the best preserved fortified town in Yemen. It is at the top of a hill and surrounded by a thick stone wall about 10 meters high, with four baabs, or gates, that were opened during the day.
The town was full of houses several stories high made of mud bricks and stones, and has several cisterns within the walls. It withstood several invasions by both the Egyptians and the Ottomans. It has become a tourist attraction, which means that there are small children everywhere either trying to sell you things on the spot or drag you to their parents' antiques shop. The view of the surrounding countryside was incredible. Most of the farming here is done with terraces built into the sides of the hills.
We left Thula and headed to Shibam for lunch at a hotel. We ate in a mafraj, which literally means 'room with a view' with couches on the floor and low tables. Everyone had to take their shoes off in the hall way, and the other rooms around ours were segregated into men and women.
I have never seen so much food. Johanne from Germany, Tina from Thailand, and I personally saw that an entire pan of honey cake did not go to waste. After lunch and tea, we rolled ourselves back into the bus and headed 350 meters practically straight up a mountain to the village of Kawkaban. There were several points at which I was convinced the driver was going to lose it and we would start rolling backwards. Kawkaban is a village on top of a mesa-like formation, 350 m almost directly above Shibam, at 2800 m above sea level. In times of war, the villagers of Shibam would flee up vertical (more or less) path up the cliffs to Kawkaban and take refuge within its 20 m high stone walls. There is only one door into Kawkaban, and it is still locked every night. Throughout its history, the town withstood invasions up until the invention of air power in the mid-1960s, when it was holding out against the revolution.
In both Shibam and Kawkaban, the prime attractions were the antique shops. Small children were constantly following us around, either asking for money to buy soccer balls or for pens. The main highlight of Kawkaban was the incredible view.
We also hiked down the cliffs to Shibam, but as amazing as the view was, my attention was primarily focused on the ground so as not to fall.
We finished the hike down the mountain in about an hour and headed back to Sana'a. On the way back (as well as the way out) we encountered several military checkpoints checking all cars on the roads. Nothing like the sobriety checkpoints in the states, these had armed tanks sitting in the crossroads. Overall it was a great trip, I know the pictures don't do any of these places justice, but enjoy them anyway!
Saturday signified the end of the weekend (weird, right?) so we had class all morning. But on the way home from lunch, I was accosted by a bevy of small children who had been playing soccer near the Markez and had let me try for a goal. The oldest, Ahmed, demanded that I come and play soccer with them later that day. I went to the gym first, and on my way home found myself in the most ridiculous dabub in the world, and I wish I had had my camera, because I'm not quite sure I am going to be able to do it justice. First of all, the inside of the dabub was unlike any of the others, which are covered in a cheap vinyl. The inside of this dabub was plush red velour. With Celine Dion on high volume. A giant stuffed heart with flowers around it was dangling by my ear. The normal white light had been removed and red mood lights were in place for the nighttime riders. And last but not least was the sticker on the window that said, in english, with giant red lips - "Kees Me!". The dabub was looking pimped out, until the driver turned around to collect his fare with a cheek that looked like it contained a softball. Incredibly unattractive.
Anyway, I arrived back in my neighborhood, walked through a small door into a courtyard to play soccer. Ahmed, Abu Bakr, Ibrahim, and Zait were waiting for me. Their ages range from about 6 to 9, Ibrahim and Zait are brothers, the courtyard has a mound of wooden chairs in the middle, and they all call me 'cat-ie'. A recipe for a great time. I was playing in my baltu and hijab (HOT AS AN OVAN) which meant that I could hide the ball under my baltu when no one was looking. Since the courtyard was small we played mostly keep away with no teams until Ibrahim kicked the ball through my legs. Then there was a new game - kick the ball through cat-ie's legs. Ahmed's mother came out to meet me, as well as the aunt of Ibrahim and Zait, who speaks about as much english as I speak Arabic. This was my first experience seeing women here without the full Yemeni garb. Because they were in a private home, both women were dressed in tee-shirts and jeans. I left after45 minutes for dinner, completely winded, and having promised several times to come back.
I can't believe how nice the people here are. Between my new friends next door and Mohammed and Ali (who we went and visited again) and my new friends at the gym, everyone is very open and everyone who knows I am here to study Arabic forces me to speak to them in Arabic, although a lot of them like to practice their english on me.
I've already started planning some pretty cool trips with friends here at the Markez, so not only will I hopefully have some good stories but I will have some awesome pictures.

The bus, the gym, and the Russian Club

(The view from my window)


Happy Weekend!!
Well at least it is for me!
The weekend in Yemen is Thursday and Friday, so we are out of class for the weekend. Wednesday after classes let out was also the Welcome BBQ that featured unknown meats, unknown veggies, and an extremely talented fellow student named Anoush who plays the oud. It is the Arabic version of the lute, sounds similar to spanish guitar players, and was accompanied by all the Yemeni staff whenever they knew the words. I learned that the Sana'a city soccer team plays on Fridays against teams from other cities in Yemen and that the stadium is packed, so that's definately going to be on the list for the summer.















(The baltu sleeve)

I bought a baltu - it's the long black dress that the Yemeni women wear, along with their niqabs. I just figured when I walk alone it best to fit in as much as possible. But now that I own one I've been wearing it all the time. As a westerner, I have to wear long pants and a long sleeve shirt that covers my stomach and my chest, and that gets hot very quickly. Under the baltu I can wear shorts and a tee-shirt and am much much much cooler (both in temperature and in style, of course). It's also a lot like wearing a uniform, and twelve years of Catholic school has definately left me very lazy when it comes to my fashion choices. With the baltu, put on whatever you want (with me that probably means it doesn't match at all) and throw the baltu on top and voila! you are good to go. Plus it feels like a really long, really comfortable nightgown. PJs 24/7!

Class is going well. The small size (8 people, which is actually big for the school here) is much better than my 15 person classes at Georgetown. On Wednesday we had to write a one page essay on anything and then read it in class - mine was on the hijab shopping experience with Mohammed and Ali. And then, in grammer, my teacher Sultan gave me thumbs up and told me one of my sentences was both long and beautiful. Wahoooo!

But it's the weekend now! We killed some time before the Welcome Barbaque with a massive Pass the Pigs game (yes..the pigs have made it to a different continent to rave reviews!!).
Yesterday was also my first trip to the gym. I went with Ken, a guy who has been here since October, another boy from DC, and my roommate Katie. Collectively, my roommate and I are known as "the Katies" and separately are known as big Katie and little Katie. I tried to convince everyone that 'I AM A BIG GUUUUYYY' but they didn't go for that and big and little Katie has stuck. Anyway, the gym is across town and so today was the big day that I figured out the bus system here. Dabub, as the buses are called, are not buses so much as mini-minivans. They fit 6 people in the back on two benches facing each other, one in the passengers seat, and a driver who almost always has a tennis ball of qat in his cheek. A 15 minute drive through traffic for 20 YR (about 10 cents) took us past the grand mosque (I'll get a picture next time I go by it, it's huge) which is being built with the President's own money and has architechts and artists from around the world working on it.

The gym itself is a nice western gym, owned and operated by a body-building afficiando named Najeeb who has a picture of himself with Arnold Schwarzenegger at the front desk. There are women's hours, but they are early in the morning when we have class. The gym is westernized enough, though, that as long as the women is a westerner herself and dressed decently it's not a problem at all. There were two other women in the gym besides Katie and myself, but besides that it was all Yemeni men in jeans and tee-shirts working out. For inspiration, a video of the Mr. Universe championship was on all the TV screens. I don't think anything has ever made me want to work out less then severely tanned men in shiny speedos and incredibly well developed muscles right under their arms which I think lizards also have to help them glide through the air. Just a guess...these guys are not flying anywhere. The music was incredible, to be honest. For a moment I thought they had stolen my workout mix and were playing it over the loudspeakers. Then I heard "Apple Bottom Jeans" in Yemen and felt slightly sick. But the most incredible thing about this gym (it's a Weider gym so there is a shrine to Joe Wieder on the wall - I'm not kidding, its a greek temple like structure with his upper body painted on the wall) is the picture of Ahhnold himself on the wall. But not just the picture - it's signed "Keep pumping, Arnold Schwarzenegger". After seeing that I couldn't wait to get back to the weights. It was a little hot in the sweatpants but nothing I can't get used to.

Then, after dinner and some homework, was an adventure to the Russian Club. The Russian Club is a bar/dance club owned by two old Russian men in the Tourist City, a walled part of the city which Yemenis are not allowed in. To be quite honest, between the massive amounts of smokers, Russian music videos and bad 80's music (to be fair, they did play 'I will survive' but I think that might have been the high point), and arrival of Somali women of the night, Katie and I decided by 1230 that we had had enough. I don't think we'll be back, but we did meet a wonderful girl from the gym there who lived in Baghdad teaching English for a 10 months in 2007. Her story of her posing with an AK-47 was both entertaining and also made me happy I was not in Baghdad.

But yes! So in the past couple days I have been wearing a baltu, eating with my hands, and conquering the dabubs and the taxis. Tomorrow a small group of us are heading out of the city to Shebam Kowkaban. "Look out at the ancient palace of Dar al-Hajar, visit the ancient cisterns of Thula, and the breathtaking views of the mountain villages of Kowkaban and Shebam. Enjoy a traditional Yemeni meal in Shebam and then, depending on students, we may either hike up to Kowkaban (strenuous) or hike down from Kowkaban (easy). Those who do not wish to hike may take the bus to the destination point." My pride will not allow me to step one foot in that bus so we will see how the legs feel on Saturday. And now that I have the pictures figured out thanks to a guy on my floor there's no telling what you might see!!
Much love,
Katie