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