may

so may was a pretty good month. still sick of being stared at and generally hate walking around, but otherwise, i like yemen. i was actually talking to my yemeni coworker today about this, and saying that perhaps i should wear the niqab, but she said it won't make a difference. i thought she meant because people will still know i'm a foreigner, but she said no, just because i'm a woman. i don't mind walking around in the old city as much, or with my friends, but i think the solution is for me to make enough money to take taxis all the time...if i want to stay here. taking taxis is usually alright, and you almost always have the pleasure of listening to akon.

i've been mostly hanging out with foreigners this month, with some mohammed al-khouja here and there. oliver has been gone (in britain and ny, coming back in 4 days!!!), so i've mostly been with his old housemates, amina (italian), stephan (norweigan), and brian (american/fake irish). we've been on a few trips, first to manakha (without stephan, and before the kidnappings), then to kamaran. i have already been to manakha, in the haraz mountains southwest of sanaa, but last time i was sick from eating sushi in kamaran the day before. we went on long walks/sort-of-hikes on thursday and friday, and it was very beautiful (will inshallah post pictures to facebook). on thursday, brian and i drank tea with an old couple in a tiny village on the mountainside between manakha and hajjarah, who lived in an adorable house and offered us some freshly picked qat from their field. after meeting amina, we continued on to the village of hajjarah, where we were invited to a wedding and were offered more food than i've ever seen before...meat, shafoot, bint assakhin, spongey bread (forget what they call it here), vegetables, chicken, mushakal, bananas, etc etc etc. then we walked around the mountains for 3-4 hours. we unfortunately decided to stay in the hotel on the right (of the two main ones), when the one on the left is nicer and the staff are much cooler/less annoying, but ohhhh well. the food was good and we got to make fun of a group of american mountain bikers playing guitar and singing "sweet home alabama" sitting in their room all night...cringy. on friday, we actually did a bit of real hiking (to cahill), followed by some not-so-real hiking along a path up the mountain. we also visited hotayb, an ismaili village that seems extremely out-of-place, modern, and clean among the old mountain villages that surround it. the people there also seem out-of-place, sulaimani bohras (a sect of ismailis) with clean white robes and mutadayyin beards. many are pilgrims visiting from india or pakistan. we ended up coming back to sanaa with a rich family we met outside hotayb...flagged them down, they took us to see their village, bought us qat, took us to our hotel to get our stuff, payed off our peugeot driver who claimed that we had to go back with him and had agreed ("inshallah" is not agreeing) and refused to take our money for this, and drove us all the way back to sanaa listening to the genius of the backstreet boys and akon. good times. brian and i also managed to chew qat a total of 5 days that week...a few times in sanaa, in the peugeot there (obvi), both thursday and friday while walking/hiking (always offered to us), and of course on the trip back.

the following weekend, we went to kamaran island. stephan came along this time, along with jessica (who works with me), her boyfriend, and their friends (mostly yemeni, one american who has been living here for a while)...9 of us altogether. the ride there in the peugeot was quite cozy, with me, amina, and brian in the far back, and stephan basically half-way out the window with 3 others in the middle row. we arrived in hodeidah, a port city south of kamaran and in my opinion the lattakia (a**hole) of yemen, in the afternoon on thursday. hodeidah is probably the most humid place i've ever been, my redface was out of control, and even amina (who does not sweat) was sweating. we ate at a restaurant near the fish market, which was quite delicious and i ate both fish and shrimp (i don't like fish). then, we took a very cooozzzy van to salif, the port city close to kamaran, and a boat to kamaran. being hot and sweaty is probably one of my least favorite things in life, and i was in grumpy bitch-mode by the time we arrived. we walked left after arriving on kamaran toward the cheaper "hotel" (a guy with 4 huts), past the huts, and to a beach where brian and amina stayed last time they were here. we argued a bit with the police (i think) who told us that we had to stay in the hotel, but in the end we just ate lunch at the hotel the next day and paid the guy a bit for letting us hang out and nap under his shelter. we spent the next few days doing as little as possible, most of the time either napping or in the water. the water was like a warm bathtub, but it was still refreshing and nice. thursday night, we (mostly just stephan, brian, and i) drank an entire bottle of sweet port wine (an after-dinner drink not meant to be consumed in such quantities), followed by a bottle of red wine, went swimming, saw some amazing fluorescent plankton, and were bitten excessively by little water creatures. friday, we were going to visit a mountain called jabal buraa, a wildlife preserve with baboons, waterfalls, and i'm not sure what else, but we found out that it was a few hours from salif and we were all quite exhausted from the trip the day before and just wanted to enjoy the beach/not sweating. i woke up, went for a little swim, and made my way over to the hut guy's shelter. stephan was already napping, maybe around 9:30 am. even amina (who is a ball of energy) napped for a bit, and i believe brian (who never sleeps) napped a total of perhaps 5-6 hours, a few of those with his right leg and the right side of his face in the sun. very good day. we ate lunch with the hut guy, fresh fish, rice, and vegetable sauce. that night was fairly uneventful, aside from amina randomly going for swims followed by intense sprints on the beach, while the rest of us lounged on the beach. we returned on saturday, a holiday (unification day!), and made the genius decision to negotiate with the driver who picked us up at salif port to take us back to hodeidah. he picked us up in a big, air-conditioned van and we convinced him to drive us back to sanaa for about $10 each (with his lunch and qat thrown in)...not much more than we would have paid for the trip back to hodeidah with him and then the sweaty, crowded, stinky peugeot. we ate at the hodeidah fish market again (picked out our fish, crabs, and shrimp this time...the first time we had arrived too late), bought some decent qat, and made our leisurely way back to sanaa. we stopped to try some camel milk from a camel-herder along the way (for some reason we bought 3-4 bottles), which was quite good but of course warm because it was straight from the camel. watched them squeeze it into the bottle...delish.

this past weekend, we stayed here to relax and chill out. it did not turn out so chill, with a little too much russian club, drinking, and qat, but it was nice to stay in sanaa. on friday, i went to the sheraton for the first time, had a few beers, swam in the pool, and relaxed in the sun...ala hisaab the UN.

well i am at work and have just wasted an hour blogging (from amideast's perspective), so i will write about my thoughts on the future next time.

love,
addie