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