yemeni lunch & merry christmas!!! :)

so i went to lunch yesterday at the home of the female guard from amideast, jameela. unfortunately i learned on our taxi ride to her home that she would be let go at the end of the month and nobody would tell her why...i told her that i would talk to the boss if she couldn't figure anything out, but she stayed in very high spirits and was a great host despite this bad news :( when we got to her house, she introduced me to her landlord, a man who lived in NYC from about 1960 to 1984 (if my memory serves me correctly, which it usually does not). during his rampage about how horrible yemen is and how bad the people are here (which lasted for a good 20 minutes), i learned a few interesting things. he has US citizenship and actually served in vietnam for 2 years. all of his children have american citizenship as well, i believe his exact words were: "every time i have a kid, i take it to the embassy and get it the citizenship"...not quite eloquent, but it got me wondering why he doesn't just move to the states if he hates yemen so much. he's been back here for a good 20 years and hasn't been back to visit, even though he has 2 children with his (italian) ex-wife in new york. perhaps it has something to do with the house that he bought or his yemeni wife not having citizenship, but neither of these things seems like a huge obstacle (and i don't mean that he should leave his wife here, but if she has a husband and 3 kids with US citizenship, i'm assuming it wouldn't be impossible for her). actually now that i'm talking about this i just had a dream last night where about 99% of the people i was traveling with (mostly kids, for some reason...) were rejected visas at the airport? weird. also i think gob from arrested development was there...perhaps i need to get out a bit more.

anyway, after this man (hezam's) monologue, i finally went inside where i chatted with jameela's husband and 4-year-old son while she and her sister prepared lunch. her husband now lives with his new wife in hadda, the "posh" part of sanaa, and jameela and her son midyan live in their own small but cozy apartment (where we were). he dropped by for lunch i suppose, which seemed a bit strange (and jameela complained to me a bit about the situation later). i didn't realize before that different wives lived in different homes sometimes, and i'm still not sure how often this is the case. it seems like it would be very hard for the first wife, who probably has little to no say in the matter, and jameela was definitely and understandably annoyed at the whole thing. but it was nice chatting with him, and especially with midyan, who i think is one of the smartest kids i have ever met (aside from gav and micah when they were growing up, of course! micah with his little cross-eyed looks...cute! haha). anyway, this kid has the conversational skills of at least a 10 year old, and during the past work week would ask me every day when i was going to come for lunch. he also told me throughout the week that i would eat with them, nap at their house, and that i should come back all the time. anyway, eventually lunch was ready and we ate shufuut (hard to describe...dad and micah will try it when they're here), rice and goat meat, stuffed squash/peppers (MMM!), salad, yemeni bread, french fries, salta (another tough-to-describe yemeni dish), and finally bint assakhin, which is a flaky yemeni cake/sweet which jameela drenched in delish golden syrup :) actually, she sent some home with me and now begins the struggle as to whether i should finish this post or go eat it immediately...perhaps i will continue to write for as long as possible.

anyway, as we were finishing up we had another visit from hezam the landlord. first, he informed us that his wife had lost her appetite and that he wished this would happen every day. he told us how fat she was, and later told me she was 300 pounds. he also said that when she saw and asked about me, he told her that i was his italian ex finally come to visit. he then proposed to jameela's sister, eman, a number of times. she politely declined and told him that she wanted to live alone. he said he would get her a house, and then she said she wanted a 21K gold ring. when she couldn't decide what kind of car she wanted, i suggested bmw or mercedes, then jameela suggested a plane, and i suggested a palace. all the while hezam kept feigning sighs and huffing, walking out of the door and back in. it was quite amusing. eventually he left, at exactly the right time as i was slipping into a food coma. i lied down in the mufraj, and sure enough midyan fulfilled his promise that we would nap when i came to visit. he fell on top of me, and soon slipped down beside me and passed out on my arm. i think we slept for about an hour, and when i woke up my arm was completely asleep and jameela's friend and sister had come to eat/visit. soon her sister left, and after a long and heated discussion with her friend (which i think was about why her sister had just come to eat and then left very quickly when i was just waking up), her friend left as well. after sitting around chatting and drinking some tea, i left as well after spending a relaxing 5 hours at jameela's home. it was quite a nice afternoon, and very amusing as well. throughout most of it, i think midyan was on a very intense sugar high and couldn't stop giggling and shouting and running around (often to the annoyance of his parents).

today, i'm off to have a christmas meal with debra, the women who had my job (as a real job, combined with a ridiculous number of other responsibilities) before me, and her family and friends, including various other amideast peeps. then going to see the women's side of a yemeni wedding for the first time this evening! i'm not sure how i feel about going to a yemeni wedding on christmas, but hopefully it will be a good experience and keep me in a festive mood!

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all my loved ones!!!! i miss you all TONS, and look forward to seeing the fam and many of my friends in january in pittsburgh & DC! :)

<3

november/december!

eeek so i haven't posted for almost 2 months! i know you have all been consumed with disappointment and boredom. i read some of victoria's blog today and was inspired by her endless amount of unbelievably lengthy and always amusing/informative posts...so i decided to make one post :) november was a pretty good month, i am tempted to say excellent but that's just because near the end of the month i was happy, and my feelings of frustration/exhaustion earlier in the month had largely faded. for my first few months here i think that i was kind of living in a state of euphoria/obliviousness because i was so excited to be in a new and unknown place...and out of the boring predictability and regularity of life in the states. i ignored the many things that tend to drive people CRAZY in yemen...the impossibility of getting anything done promptly/ever, the extensive incompetence, the laziness, the lack of various items/places of entertainment (you know what i'm sayin'), etc etc. but sure enough, it did eventually hit me and i basically a good chunk of time becoming annoyed at just about everything i saw/heard. from what i have both experienced and heard from others, i think that it's quite normal for foreigners to go through up and downs fairly regularly here...there are so many things amazing things about yemen, but there are equally as many things that can just make you a cranky, pissed off person. i really should have been posting more in the past couple months, and i will try to post more in the future, but since i'm feeling lazy (of course) and you probably don't want to read the longest post in the world, i will consolidate a bit. here are the last two months in a nutshell:

1. traveled to aden for the first time in early november to interview students for the YES high school exchange program that i run, and again in early december during eid al-adha holiday with alumni from the same program. the humidity made me quite happy that i'm living in sanaa, but it was nice to get out for a bit and go to the beach (i actually felt somewhat comfortable wearing my bathing suit at the nice hotel down there). my first impression of aden was that it appeared deserted, run down, and full of unfinished buildings, but that negative impression may have been intensified by the humidity and my resulting crankiness. either way, much prefer sanaa

2. had a fumigator come in in november to get rid of my bed bugs...wasn't quite sure if he would know what he was doing (and was very surprised when i initially learned that they have fumigators here), but i think that my problem is solved! my wonderful landlord bought me a new mattress, and i am no longer sleeping in my mufraj (living room with diwan cushions)!

3. my birthday fell on thanksgiving this year...wasn't sure at first whether i thought this was a good thing or a bad thing. as it turned out, it was an absolutely WONDERFUL day, almost certainly the most fun i've had in one day since i've been here. we had a big thanksgiving dinner at a foreigner house in the old city attended by around 15 people. lots of salad, rotisserie chickens, potatoes, gravy, roasted veggies, etc etc....delicious! hailey and paul, a very sweet couple who live in the house, baked brownies and an apple pie for my birthday with candles and everything! both quite scrumptious, and very touching. thennn the real party started, and after downing 3 bottles of wine and many, many vodka & lime juices we somehow made our way to the russian club where we danced for about 4 hours straight. my friend laura and i were insistent that we should head out to the russian club around 8 or 9 when we hit tipsiness, but luckily the others convinced us that it was not the best idea (drinks at the russian club are around $10 i think). we ended up going around 11, and essentially took over the dance floor for the remainder of the night :) i should also mention that the day before my birthday, the YES alumni threw me a wonderful party at one of the student's houses and then took me out for shisha/food at a very nice restaurant...pretty good birthday all in all, considering that i had only been here a few months and wasn't really sure what to expect :)

4. also, in late november my closest yemeni friend (mohammed's) sister painted (?) naqsh on my hands and lower arms. not sure if you say painted, but it is somewhat like henna but black, and yemeni women have naqsh done for weddings and other special occasions. it was quite beautiful, you can see some pics on facebook!

5. in VERY exciting news, i will be traveling home in january for 2 weeks!!!!!!! i'll be in pittsburgh from jan. 7-17, and then in DC for a few days before heading back to yemen. i am very much looking forward to this, especially because i've been getting fed up a bit lately and need a little break so that i can appreciate yemen more when i return. and of course am SO EXCITED so see my family and friends, who i miss a ridiculous amount!!!!! also very grateful since i didn't think i would be returning at all this year :) i will be escorting a group of YES exchange students to DC, and basically my responsibilities end once we arrive in DC and i can go straight home!

6. dad and micah will be coming to visit YEMEN in january as well....crazy!!!! very glad that i had a dad/brother crazy enough to do this :) they'll be here for a week beginning jan. 27th, and i will show them around sanaa and hopefully take them on a short trip to the mountain village of manakha, my favorite place so far in yemen. micah will probably be writing some sort of report about yemen and volunteering at AMIDEAST a bit, in exchange for his school letting him take the week off. soooo basically january will be a GREAT month!!! :)

i'm sure that i'll have more to report soon, especially since i have quite a busy schedule this weekend including a christmas dinner and various yemeni parties/weddings/meals, but i will leave that for my next post (hopefully to be made sooner than 2 months from now...)

love and miss you all, and hope to see you in january if you're around!!! :)

x

the water problem in yemen

pretty depressing, but good article.

my job

sooooo i will write a bit about what i do, for those of you who are interested. first off, i am supposed to put in 6 hours/day (since i am actually a paid intern) and i usually end up working at least 7...something i definitely need to work on. i think it depends on whatever's going on at the time though, and we've been pretty busy ever since i got here. basically, i work as a general adviser for anyone interested in studying in the US. this often consists of answering questions like "where can i get the scholarship" or "i need the college application." i usually just tell people to come back for one of my general advising sessions, which i hold every saturday to tell people about the application process, required tests, choosing a school, scholarships, etc etc. i also help people individually if needed (often for those who are asking about grad school, or something specific that i don't address in my general session), for which i am supposed to charge them $20/hour...usually doesn't happen. it just seems a little ridiculous when all i'm doing is basically google searching everything that they would be unable to find themselves. in addition to general advising, i am in charge of sending US school/college transcripts to the US embassy for verification/accreditation. this actually takes up a lot of time as well, as i need to verify each school and write a letter to the embassy each time...in addition to the time i spend checking transcripts to see if i think they will be verified (which i often cannot be sure about) and telling them what i think they should do. and then of course they call me to see if their transcripts are ready, which is fine, but all they say it "i am mohammed, you remember me from last week?" no, i do not.

in addition to these things, i am in charge of 2 programs: the YES (youth exchange and study) program for yemeni high schoolers to study in the US for one year, and the OG (opportunity grant) which basically covers students' costs throughout the application process (sometimes even including travel to the US and start-up costs). we are currently in the process of collecting applications for the next group of YES students, visiting schools to advertise, holding YES alumni meetings, etc. in terms of the OG, i am getting them signed up for all the necessary tests, providing them with study resources, and making sure that they are on the right track throughout the application process.

sooooo all of this really adds up, but i think i'm getting the hang of it and just need to know when to say no to people. also, i work with some AMAZING people at amideast, both employees and interns (mostly yemeni), and i really really enjoy their company. so while i usually come home with a headache each day, at least i get to feel like i definitely accomplished something and got a lot of laughs at work. :)

alright, off to my first yemeni wedding!!!! very excited! :)

it is time...

...to finally finish my post about our travels! this will probably be a bit shorter and less detailed, because i am lazy and also i have probably lost 70% of my memory of that trip already. so after we swam at the lovely cove beach on kamaran, we returned to the hotel to hang out for a bit while awaiting our motorcycle taxi. we ended up meeting some crazy old russian dudes who had just arrived at the hotel and were going to be in yemen for a couple weeks spearfishing and drinking...and they of course began with the drinking. when we met the first russian, we weren't sure whether he just spoke horrible english and was kind of a weird guy, or was just ridiculously sloshed already...we were kind of learning towards the latter. his friends appeared one by one over the next half-hour or so, and they were very friendly and of course soon insisted that we start drinking with them. each had brought 6 liters of alcohol to yemen...yes EACH. the limit is 2 liters/person, but apparently it was acceptable because they were russian. so we proceeded to take way too many shots (i kept telling them that a) i am not russian and b) i am very small, but they just kept pouring us shots). i made the unfortunate decision to eat some fresh sushi with them, which would backfire on me in manakha. eventually our motorcycle taxi showed up (it was during ramadan, and so we of course had to wait until after iftar), and we sadly said goodbye to our new/soon to be wasted friends. we made the somewhat uncomfortable trip back to the dock cramped on one motorcycle taxi, and took the next boat back to salif. when we arrived in salif, it was quite late and there were no taxis or minibuses around, so we hopped into the back of some guy's pick-up truck along with a random assortment of yemenis, and made our way back to hodeidah. along this trip i had my first and hopefully ONLY experience in a yemeni public bathroom...i really really had to pee and absolutely could not wait, but (luckily i think) it was so dark that i couldn't see anything, and so it wasn't as unpleasant as it could've been.

the next morning, jared went out to find us a shared taxi while i waited in the hotel with our things (which wasn't really necessary at all, but very kind of him...especially cuz i was still being so cranky). he came to get me once he found one, and we eventually got going after the guy filled up his taxi. i became gradually happier and happier as the temperature cooled with the rise in altitude, and we soon arrived in the beautiful mountain town of manakha. we checked into the hajjarah tourist hotel, which was an extremely refreshing change from our hotel in hodeidah. it was a bit expensive, $15 each/night, but well worth it as they are very used to having foreigners and really make your stay very pleasant. our room was beautiful and clean, with a western toilet and windows on 2 sides overlooking the town and the mountains...since we were the only ones staying there, i think it was their nicest room. our delicious and sizable meals were also included in the price, along with a very fun night of yemeni jambiyya dancing, shisha, and tea. dad and micah, i will definitely take you guys here when you come!!!

the day that we arrived, we basically spent our time in the hotel relaxing and recovering from our somewhat exhausting trip to kamaran. we ate a huge meal, participated in the yemeni jambiyya dancing, and generally had a very nice time. the next morning, we were supposed to go on a baby hike to a nearby town called hajjarah, but unfortunately i got really really sick shortly after we set out (from the sushi, of course), and had to spend the remaining time in manakha back in the hotel recovering to the point where i could made it back to sanaa. but at least we got to stay in manakha, take beautiful pictures of the mountains (i especially liked the views at dusk/dawn), and recover from our "vacation" of the previous few days. :)

things i bought today that were cheap

just so you can get an idea of how much things cost here:

taxi to work: $1.50 (have gotten too lazy to take the mini-bus, which is 10 c)
shayy bihalib (tea w/ milk): 15 c
sandwich w/ beans and cheese: 35 c
bottle of fanta: 30 c
taxi home: $1.75 (a lil extra cuz he stopped for me)
credits for my phone: $10 (actually not sure how long these will last, hopefully a while)
shawarma at a street stand: 25 c
fresh guava juice: 35 c
2 maps and a book on arabic translation: $5
arriving home to find my landlord fixing my table: priceless

(must add! delicious ethiopian dinner including beverages: $3.50)

sooooo, all in all not bad!! and today was the type of day where i actually spent a lot more than usual (the maps and phone credits).

in other news, my landlord told me that there's an older woman who works at the UN moving in downstairs, inshallah. she apparently wants to rent both the first and second floors, which sounds a little ridiculous (my apartment is one floor and often seems too big for one person), buuuut whatever you gotta do lady!

fun yemen fact of the day...

"yemeni jam is to real jam as tang is to actual juice" ~jared

some catchin' up

SO. time to catch up a bit on my bloggin for all y'all big FANS out there. there are two things i previously promised to post about, if you recall, namely, my apartment and jared and my trip during the eid (too many commas? perhaps). you can see a bunch of pictures of my apartment on facebook, so you know already that it is BIG and beautiful and has a western toilet :) it is i suppose kind of lonely sometimes living alone, but i think that i prefer it after some experiences sharing kitchens/bathrooms before. i reaaaally don't like sharing kitchens and bathrooms other than in my own home (where to be honest mom does most [read: all] of the cleaning, but i think the dishwasher helps and the fact that nobody in my family is disastrously messy). i have visited a few houses where a bunch of ajaanibs (foreigners) live together, and while i very much like many of these ajaanibs, i can't see myself living in such a house. some factors that compound the loneliness/occasional freak-outs are that i am in fact the only one living in my entire building and that there are power outages every night around 11 pm or so...so that's a bit scary. there are 4 floors in my building, each of which is an individual apartment unit, but the other ones are all empty right now (i think a tunisian is renting one of them, but apparently he is never in the country). hence, i try to be in bed watching a movie with my computer fully charged and all four doors (gate, building, apartment, and bedroom) locked around this time haha. i've been meaning to buy some battery lights/lamps for...a while now, but obviously i never remember. i'm hoping that at some point in the near future my landlord will get on trying to find some other renters for the building, but i think the family is quite rich/unconcerned (they own a hospital) and many of them are often traveling. if i mention this to the one brother who has been taking care of getting me settled in, however, i wouldn't be surprised if he took the task to heart...he has been extremely nice and concerned about every little thing and always in-and-out of the place. he let me move in about 5 days before the beginning of the month with no extra fees (i was quite eager to get out of the hotel), has been paying all of the bills through september without any concern as to water/electricity i may have used, got me a discount on my modem/router, picked up said modem/router in addition to beginning my internet service himself (all i had to do was sit at home and pay him when he came), replaced every light in the house when some of them weren't working...etc etc. very kind guy, and i think EXTREMELY, almost unbelievably efficient by yemeni standards. so that's my basic housing situation, and i am quite happy and will be completely content once i get the place organized and start having people over, inshallah :)

aaand the trip! you can also check out the trip on facebook, i posted pictures from every leg of the journey, but i'll just tell you a bit about it as well. during the eid (holiday) that muslims celebrate after ramadan, jared and i took a 3-day trip to the west coast of yemen/the red sea and through a beautiful and quaint town in the haraz mountain on our way back. we started off on a 4 am bus to the port city of hodeidah southwest of sanaa, which took about 7 hours if i remember correctly. the bus was perfectly fine/pleasant, but i can tell you that speeding up and down winding mountain roads in a rather large bus (and when you look out the window seeing nothing but an immediate drop) is quite scary and a bit sickening. we (or at least i, as jared managed to pass out for much of the trip) comforted ourselves with the fact that the bus driver had probably driven this route hundreds of times, and we would most likely arrive in one piece...which of course we did. any mild unpleasantness i had experienced on the bus was immediately multiplied billionfold upon our arrival in hodeidah, where unfortunately this time of year it averages about 3000 degrees with about 40 billion percent humidity...and there are very few taxis to be found. needless to say, we did not explore much and spent basically our entire night (except for a brief dinner) in our air conditioned hotel room trying to decide whether the tv or the fan deserved the one power outlet shared by the two...i think we ultimately decided on the fan, and watched a bunch of episodes of prison break on my computer. i won't dwell on it much, but i will mention (for those of you who have not experienced it firsthand, and to jared's credit) that hot/humid weather turns me in a raving b**** and a red-faced sweaty psycho, and thus from the moment we stepped off the bus until the point when our taxi reached higher altitudes/cooler temperatures on our drive back through the mountains 2 days later, jared was forced to deal with quite a few irrational outbursts and generally unpleasant behavior...sorry boo!!!!

you might be asking why we even came to hodeidah if we were just going to sit in our hotel room and do nothing but watch episodes/whine and moan...and the answer is of course the island of kamaran!! a bit north of hodeidah just off the coast of a town called salif lies kamaran, a somewhat beautiful, somewhat desert-like and deserted island that is home to a few yemenis, many motorcycle taxis, scattered withering plant life, one hotel, and a beautiful multitude of surrounding underwater life. after wasting much of the morning sleeping in our hotel room in hodeidah, we finally wrestled up the nerve to venture outside and find a ride to salif. after waiting entirely too long in the ridiculous heat for the driver to fill up his vehicle, we departed in a "dabbab (mini-bus) with 16 year old driver, smelly man and bicycle, and niqabi in the back" (these are jared's words...for some reason, most likely the fact that i was born without the gift of memory, i don't really remember this ride). we arrived in salif a few hours later and had to wait for another at the shurta (police) stand near the dock for the 90 pound police officer to get permission to let us leave for kamaran (even though we already had permits from the tourism police in sanaa...go figure. i haven't been mentioning it, but all throughout the trip we had been stopping at various check-points to present our travel permits). when we were finally told that we could go, the only boat that seemed to be available was an empty boat willing to take us for the sensible price of 3000 riyals...about $15, and probably more than anything should cost in all of yemen. after a short period of time, another boat started inexplicably/silently filling up with goods and people, and after a bit we came to our senses and started asking why we couldn't go on that boat. nobody really gave us much of an answer, so we just hopped on the boat and ended up paying 250 riyals/person...quite a discount.

upon our arrival on the island, we had to AGAIN pay a visit to our friendly island police to register yet again, before hopping on a few motorcycle taxis to the island hotel. it would be absolutely haram (forbidden, most often used in an islamic context) for a woman to ride a motorcycle taxi in sanaa and probably in most of yemen, so i felt quite daring and adventurous on my very first such ride, and took a short video that i will hopefully remember to post. we relaxed at the hotel for a bit before making our way to a nearby cove beach recommended by the hotel owner. fortunately for me there was nobody else there, as i had forgotten my burkini and was stuck with only the real thing. we swam in the beautiful, warm and clear water and took some gorgeous pictures of the beach, sunset, and underwater life. i also collected a few decorations (some shells and a crab claw) which are now adorning my lovely apartment, along with an egyptian trinket from a very sweet student at AMIDEAST who traveled to cairo during the eid.

as it turns out, this post is getting to be quite a bit longer than i expected, and if i want to continue my narrative in such an engrossing and humorous fashion, i think that i must now retire and leave the rest to another day (inshallah tomorrow). my brain is feeling a bit fried from the combination of my non-stop 7+ hour work day (supposed to be 6), some intense g-chatting, and of course narrating with such cleverity...yep, cleverity.

i am REAL!

as usual, i am too lazy (and too exhausted) to post much, buuuuut i just wanted everyone to know that i am now a real adult: my name is now listed on the amideast website :) yayy!! right above the driver haha. work is quite exhausting, and i think it's going to be quite hard to limit myself to 6 hrs/day (which is what i'm supposed to be working), but i really like what i'm doing and the people i'm working with. i am in charge of general advising for anyone interested in US higher education, as well as the coordination of two programs (a high school exchange program and a college prep grant) funded by the state department...and a few other things here and there. while there are a few americans working at AMIDEAST (the country director and some english teachers, etc.), i work mostly with yemenis which is very nice...and beneficial to everyone involved in terms of language exchange :)

well, i must go close my windows now in a desperate/hopeless attempt to block out the chorus of calls to prayer (many resembling screeching), some very impassioned sermonizing, and an extremely aggravating and ceaseless number of fire crackers being set off right below my window. some important advice: if you don't like fire crackers, never come to yemen.

Good article...

here's a good article that kind of sums up a lot of yemen's problems, a large chunk of them revolving around qat usage.

also, just uploaded an a new fb album with pics of my new apartment, check it out!!! only a few problems so far: broken washing machine and table, and my water kind of smells like eggs haha. i think the water problem is because nobody has been in the building much recently (the only guy who is renting there is apparently out of the country a lot), so the water has probably been sitting in the tank for a while. inshallah, i will get nice smelling water once i use it up :)

xo

Update!!

so clearly it has been a bit too long since my last post, mostly due to the fact that i've been lazy...BUT other factors have influenced me as well, including our 3-day trip to the east coast and mountains and our return to jared's now internet-less apartment. this post will probably be quite random, and will include anything i've been meaning to write about in the past few weeks and other things that pop into my head...not unlike my other posts, in fact. :)

so one thing that i've been meaning to write about are the drastic changes in schedule that accompany ramadan, the eid following ramadan, and the return to normalcy as well (in fact, i have yet to experience what normalcy is like). during ramadan, most people (unless otherwise dictated by their work schedules) will wake up around noon or so in order to decrease the amount of time that they will have to be awake during the hours of fasting. iftar, the meal that breaks the fast, is eaten around 6:30 (when you hear the call to prayer), and the vast majority of yemenis will eat iftar at home with their families. as a result, while you might think that you would have a wide selection of restaurants opening around this time, this is not the case and you are limited to the bigger restaurants and some (unpredictable) smaller ones...a bit annoying, but you get used to it. after iftar, men will begin chewing qat around 7-7:30 and often continue to chew throughout the night. the streets really come alive around 8-9 pm, and around midnight or so many yemenis (mostly men) will eat another, smaller meal in one of the many restaurants open at this time. i'm not really sure what time people actually go to bed, as i was still working throughout most of ramadan and tried to go to sleep by 1 at the latest, but from what i have heard from exhausted coworkers many people will stay awake until at least 3-4 am and perhaps even wait to sleep until after suhoor, the meal that is eaten right before dawn. i probably would have conformed more to this schedule (out of convenience mostly), if not for the fact that i work from 9-3. jared and i usually ate breakfast before work (except in the case of oversleeping), skipped lunch (or ate a small snack discretely), snacked after work, and either ate a big meal around iftar time at home or waited for midnight in order to eat out, usually at a traditional yemeni restaurant in the old city.

if possible, the schedule during eid el-fitr (the holiday that marks the end of ramadan, which was actually on sept. 20-21 but in reality extends for 4 or so days) is even more unpredictable and disconcerting, as everyone is traveling to visit their families or on vacation and you never know what will be open or when. many stores are closed throughout this whole period, and even some larger stores alter their schedules or close unexpectedly (at least it is unexpected to me haha). jared and i didn't really know what to expect, and were surprised that sana'a was somewhat of a ghost town this past week. the festivities in yemen will extend through tomorrow, a national holiday which marks the establishment of the yemen arab republic in north yemen in 1962. i will return to work on sunday, the 27th, and then i guess i'll (hopefully) see what it feels like to have a normal schedule in yemen...

alright well this post is already getting a bit long (for me) with this schedule thing, so i will leave our trip and my new apartment (!!!) until next time. i will say that i moved into my new apartment yesterday, and it is BIG and beautiful and fully furnished!! however, jared also left yesterday, so i am very sad but also excited for him and eager to see how he likes qatar. i also hope to visit him sometime during the coming year inshallah!

hope everyone is doing well, love and miss you!!
xo

Old City, Sana'a!!

Jared somehow managed to capture this little scuffle near Bab al-Yemen (the main gate into the old city) on his iphone, which was was a disagreement over the purchase of the shawl. next we ran into a man who was quite excited to see us and immediately asked if we were fasting (although i didn't realize what he said at the time). the streets are actually even more crowded than this oftentimes, and the Bab is usually almost impossible to get through without some serious shouldering action. if you come visit, mom, i'll only take you here in the mornings!! :)

blog recommendations (and UN-commendations)

1. if you would like to see a more informative and extremely (perhaps ridiculously) productive blog about yemen (and soon qatar as well), please visit jared's blog at alajnabi.blogspot.com. it's actually quite interesting and relieves me of the obligation to make similar posts myself, at least until he leaves for doha. :(

2. do not visit victoria's blog, as it is clearly inferior to my own both in quantity and quality.

i promised aunt susan...

i know you have all been waiting for this moment throughout the past week, and i have finally decided to relieve the suspense :) my first week in sana'a (i've actually been here about 11 days now) has been very very good...i'm not sure if i can say great, as there were of course difficulties here and there, but pretty close. having jared here has helped me to skip over much of the initial culture shock/loneliness that i experienced (albeit briefly) both in beirut and damascus, so i've been free to enjoy my initial explorations and appreciate my first impressions of sana'a. while i have done plenty of traveling in my time, i must say that sana'a is very different from any place i've ever been. even though i of course knew that yemen is a third world country and (as jared, always filled with information and statistics, has told me) the poorest arab nation, i was and am still sometimes shocked by what i see...and i am of course living a relatively high life.

i guess i should start by saying that there are almost no traffic rules, aside from cops who stand in traffic kiosks in the middle of the largest intersections "directing" traffic...there are stop signs and stop lights littered sporadically throughout the city, perhaps for decorative purposes, i'm not sure. motorcycles (most of them taxis) are constantly squeezing through traffic everywhere they can, and often where they cannot. there are small children running everywhere, especially in the old city, most without shoes or much supervision. electricity cuts are the norm, usually for a total of about 8-10 hours a day, and while many places have generators you often have to ask before they are turned on (for instance in my hotel in the mornings and at a fairly nice, pricey restaurant we went to last night). i won't comment on bathrooms, as i have managed thus far to avoid using any restrooms other than those at amideast, my hotel, and jared's apartment...but there is very much a reason for this.

i think the novelty of being here has made these things more exciting for me than anything...basically knowing what to expect at all times living in the states can get a little boring. i don't mean, of course, that i actually become happy or excited when the water stops running in the middle of my shower or the electricity goes out right as everyone is preparing iftar (the meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan), but just life in general is less predictable and extremely new and different. i have thus far managed to avoid actually becoming angry (except for the water cut thing...apparently expecting water at your hotel is a bit too demanding), and hope to continue doing so as much as possible by limiting my expectations to...essentially nothing.

there are of course many many GOOD exciting things about living here as well. the food is often delicious, and always interesting, and CHEAP. when i have to pay more than $2 for a meal, it's pretty pricey. same goes for a taxi ride, maximum $2 to go most of the places that i frequent around Sana'a. i've been starting to think more in riyals of late, and as a consequence 1000 riyals ($5) is starting to seem like a lot of money. the vast majority of the people who i've met, mostly at work or through jared, have been extremely nice and welcoming and i'm really hoping to befriend more yemeni women once i figure out where i'll be living. people watching is extremely interesting here, especially in terms of clothing. most women wear the niqab (which covers all but the eyes) and some even have a veil over the eyes. some older women wear extremely colorful fabrics in place of the normal black niqab...i'm not sure if they come from different backgrounds or if it's just something that older women do sometimes. men will wear anything from typical western clothing (no shorts, of course), to suit jackets paired with shirts and wraps, to man robes (thoubs). they often have some kind of cloth wrapped or perched on their heads (i'm always curious as to how it stays on there) and a dagger (jambiyya) in their belts. these jambiyyas, along with the chewing of qat (you will see the qat cheek beginning around 7-8 and throughout the night during Ramadan), are considered to be the two most important signs of manhood.

well, i'm getting a bit tired of writing so i think that i'll leave my discussions of amideast, my daily routine, etc for next time...and hopefully i will have an apartment by then! be sure to check out my pictures on facebook if you want. while the pictures of Sana'a are still somewhat limited i do have pictures up of Dubai and our trip to the Wadi Dhahr valley outside of Sana'a as well.

cheers!

I'm here!!

So, after traveling for about...let's say 2ish (exhausting) days, I finally arrived in Sana'a yesterday morning!!! My mom dropped me, and my old roommate Victoria (who was visiting from NY before I left), off at the airport in Pittsburgh around 430 am (yuck) on August 31st, and I arrived September 2nd around 10 am Yemeni time...sooo, however long that is. After flying from Pittsburgh to JFK, I had a 12+ hour flight to Dubai, which was of course somewhat unpleasant but relatively comfortable because I was flying Emirates. I slept a bit, watched 4 movies on my personal screen (nice!!), and ate some always delicious airplane meals. I then had a 23 hour layover in Dubai, which I had chosen over a shorter layover because I knew that I would be provided with a hotel room by Emirates and wanted to explore and see Dubai. Despite feelings of extreme laziness and exhaustion, I miraculously overcame my original inclination to spend those 23 hours asleep/ordering room service in my hotel and embarked upon a mini-adventure after napping for a few hours (I had arrived around 8 am Dubai time). I found out that my hotel had a 4-hour tour from 4-8 pm that was only $30, so I decided to do that. It was a pretty interesting tour and basically gave me what I wanted, just to get a glimpse of Dubai and see some of the crazy, ridiculously over-the-top structures/man-made islands/etc. that you always hear about. We saw what is now the tallest building in the world (the Burj Dubai, still under construction), the only man-made island (in the shape of a palm tree) visible from space, a 7 star hotel (Burj al-Arab) in the shape of a sail on a man-made island (partly underwater), air-conditioned bus stops, a man-made indoor ski resort, the man-made creek that runs through Dubai...among other things that I probably can't remember. I left the tour group a bit early to meet up with Samer, a friend of mine and American University of Beirut graduate who I was introduced to by a mutual Georgetown friend while in Beirut last summer. He currently works as a consultant in al-Ain, a city close to Dubai...and thanks to Facebook, I knew he was there! We met at the Dubai Mall, of course the biggest mall in the world, where we wandered around in awe, saw the biggest aquarium I have ever seen--which holds a billion little fishies, different species of shark, manta rays (maybe...or maybe some other kind of enormous ray), and also the biggest fish I have seen in my life--along with a group of scuba divers, saw an amazing fountain show (which I took a video of and will soon upload), and walked past all of the most expensive designer stores you have ever heard of. We did not see the ice rink unfortunately, but of course they have one. And thennnn, last but certainly not least, we ate at Zaatar wa Zeit, an AMAZING Lebanese chain whose food I crave at all times...I think that I rudely interrupted Samer and shrieked with joy when I saw it. Eventually the time came when I was on the verge of falling asleep even when standing up, and I finally decided that it was time to retire to my hotel. However, I only ended up sleeping 4-5 hours because I got home around 11 pm and had to wake up to prepare for my flight to Sana'a at 4 am. That flight was pretty short, only 2 hours, and we arrived in Sana'a yesterday (about an hour late) a little before 10 am Yemeni time. After spending a little too long passing through immigration, Jared met me at the airport exit, and I was infinitely overjoyed and relieved when I saw him and immediately relinquished all responsibility for what I had to do/where I had to go. The AMIDEAST driver took us to my hotel in the new city, where we were greeted by no towels, no toilet paper, and a TV that didn't work...hooray. But I do have a relatively large suite, which is nice, with 3 beds and a living room area, and we had the towel and toilet paper issues resolved fairly quickly. Unfortunately, I had begun to feel sick sometime between my short night of sleep at the airport hotel in Dubai and my flight to Sana'a, and by the time I arrived I was feeling pretty achey and nauseous...remarkable that I was already sick before I arrived in Yemen, but 2 days of traveling will do that to you. After a long nap at my hotel, we proceeded to Jared's house (which he is currently sharing with one other guy) in the old city of Sana'a (which is what it sounds like, the oldest part of Sana'a, with some buildings up to 400 years old...thanks Wikipedia). I will write more about the old city later on and post photos of course, but it is a very overwhelming and beautiful place, with crowded markets, narrow winding roads, and very unique architecture. I spent most of the afternoon napping as well, and we were fortunate enough to have limited electricity cuts throughout the afternoon/evening and to have the water delivery truck return to pump water into the house's tanks around 11 pm (after it had tried to do so earlier and then given up and left once the power went out)...yay water!!! Jared had been without for 3 days or so prior to my arrival, so it was quite a relief. In the evening, I met Jared's friend Muhammad, who enjoys helping and hanging out with foreigners in Sana'a in his spare time (he was the one who facilitated the water delivery, and will most likely help me to obtain a cell phone card today and to find an apartment in the coming week). This morning, I woke up feeling significantly better and with quite an appetite, although still slightly weak, and am hoping that by tomorrow I will be all better. :)

Sorry for the giant one-paragraph post that is perhaps not terribly well-organized, but I am still feeling a bit disheveled and strange. I miss everyone, and I will continue to keep you updated in the next couple of days as I explore Sana'a for the first time and undoubtedly encounter unexpected difficulties and surprises, before starting work on Saturday.

Cheers!

Welcome to ma blog!

Hello and welcome to all you millions out there who will be avidly following my extraordinary blog!! :) I am (at present) very optimistic about the potential of this blog and it's abundance of profound and detailed observations...feelings strangely similar to those I've always experienced at the beginning of each new school year. Perhaps some connection there...but ANYWAY. This blog will be my attempt to help you learn a little about Yemen and my experiences there, avoid having to write endless individual emails to everyone that I know and love (which doesn't mean I love you less!), maintain a resource for myself five years down the road when I have forgotten that I even went to Yemen (as you may know, my memory is severely limited and similar to that of a fish)...aaaand last but not least, hopefully to provide you with a bit of entertainment in the process. ;)

So, why am I going to al Yemen? I will be working as a paid intern for AMIDEAST, an American non-profit that works throughout the Middle East to promote cooperation and positive exchange between the US and the Middle East. I think that I will be called an "Educational Advisor," but the job description that I received was quite lengthy and all-encompassing so I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing...probably just whatever needs done (yes, this blog is yinzer-friendly). While Yemen wouldn't necessarily have been my first choice, I am most definitely fulfilling my primary post-graduation goal: to go to the Middle East for free. After looking around quite a bit for jobs in the Middle East after graduation (without success), and spending a few months working in a rather unpleasant (eh, perhaps a mild understatement) work environment here in Pittsburgh, I found out about this opportunity through my wonderful habib, Jared, who is currently doing a 3 month internship at the AMIDEAST office in Sana'a. I will be leaving on Monday, August 31st and will arrive in Sana'a on September 2nd, after a 23 hour layover in DUBAI!!!! Very excited for that as well. I won't be expected at the AMIDEAST office until September 5th, so I'll have a few days to look around and chilllll. I will be put up at a hotel for up to (but hopefully less than) a month until I decide where I want to live and find an apartment.

Woooo, well this is getting long and I am getting lazy, but inshallah I will post again soon...perhaps recounting the recently resolved passport fiasco that almost gave me a nervous breakdown.

Hope you are all well, and Ramadan kareem!!