Sept 30

Sept 30 Saturday. The next day, I was quite thankful when I recieved a text message from Faris that morning saying "Hello Rain sorry cant come tody. I am sick" so I just slept as long as I could... Woke up started doing some studying and homework for my class with Ismael in the evening. At 6:15, me, Matt, and Markus (now feeling fine again) went to a little restaurant in Bab-Al-Sabah that Matt had been to before and who were really nice, I guess. We were the only people there besides a lone soldier or police officer, which was kind of strange consider it is Ramadan. We had to wait a long time to get our food, but we were finally served up some salta, along with some strange concoction called Fatih, I think, which consisted of basically everything they had, bread, beans, whatever, into this steaming mix of food. If was similar to salta, but full of stuff, and really thick... They said it was exclusive to this restaurant, I'm not sure how true that is, but I didn't find it to be very good. Really the first Yemeni food that I've tried and didn't really want to it. It was just two much of a strange mix of things. Along with some shafout, which seems to be especially common during Ramadan. The whole staff then sat down and ate right along with us, the three of them. They were all young guys, about our age, and it was good practice speaking in Arabic. Of course I said the strange Fatih mix was "Tammam" (okay/good) when they asked me about it. I guess they were able to sit down and eat along with us from the giant bowl since they didn't exactly have a lot of customers at the moment. We hung around and talked to them for awhile longer, then I had to go get ready for my evening class. The whole thing cost the three of us only 400 riyals, or 2 dollars. Which is again really really cheap, and when I later told my teacher the price he told me it wasn't possible in Yemen. I guess it was so cheap because they ate with us, perhaps. After that I headed out to the school to meet Ismail there, the first time we have had class at the institute instead of his house since Ramadan started. Of course Ismail was about 20-30 minutes, as per his usual style, and we wrapped up with the previous text. Since Ramadan started Markus has had some problems with Ismail, because he essentially got squeezed out of Ismail teaching him. It's really Ismail's fault because during Ramadan he can't make it to work before maybe 3pm, and he was supposed to be meeting Markus at 12... However he has other students to meet too, in the afternoon and just me in the evening. So since Ismail is somehow physically incapable of coming to work by 12 or even 1 or 2, Markus essentially got dropped from Ismail's schedule... He was very upset about this because he's been with Ismail for 2 months now, and has about 2-3 weeks left here and wants to finish his program with him. Ismail has 4 students now (in order of seniority, or time with him) Daniel, Markus, Me, a new Korean girl... So by some luck me, Daniel and the Korean girl still get classes, and Markus doesn't. He had to arrange for a new teacher, and I feel really bad for him. Anyways, I told Markus I was meeting Ismail at the institute tonight, so he decided to show up when my lesson ended to see if he could squeeze in a lesson (the institute owes him hours anyways), but Ismail was already late to meet a friend for Ramadan... Markus got pretty angry because Ismail never had any time for him this past week and kept promising him that they'd meet. They were arguing in Arabic, and then Markus said something about him not being a good Muslim, or he had to miss lessons because of Islam or something along those lines which really offended Ismail who now started yelling, leading to the crazy groundskeeper coming out of his shack to see what the commotion was, and then Markus storming off and slamming the gate. Drama. But I feel really bad for Markus, he should finish the program with him. Especially considering that I go over there nightly and sit around from 8pm-12. In any case I went back to mafraj at the house. Matt came up and played his PSP games, I did homework. Later after Matt went to sleep a new Italian student came up. His name is Daniel also I think, and he's about mid-20s. I think he's just studying Arabic part-time/for interest. He's been to Yemen 2 years ago with YLC but just for a month, and studies Arabic part time at the University of Trieste. So he's just returned for another 20 days only, because that's only the time he could afford to take off on holiday. He seemed pretty clueless about Ramadan though, he asked if the school served breakfast (YLC did and does), and asked where I eat at in the mornings... Well, of course nothing is open for breakfast now during Ramadan, which I told him. "Oh, so just coffee then, I guess" Nope, won't find any coffee either now... not until about 3 or 4 pm do the shops start opening to sell food for breaking the fast. I think he'll be here during Ramadan only, not sure though. I continued doing homework up in the mafraj until the nightly power outage, after which I had to guide myself back down stairs with my handy pocket flash light (a must when living in Yemen). I continued doing some homework by flash light until the power came back on after an hour and a half or so. Another late night for me, couldn't sleep.

Sept 29

Sept 29. Friday... Yawm al-Jumaa. I slept until probably about 2pm... Really late, but it was nice to get a lot of sleep... After that, I basically just messed around on my computer... Playing some games, typing in Notepad about what I've been up to lately. That passed a couple of hours, after which I did some homework in my room and also talked with Markus and Matt for a bit. Turns out Markus wasn't feeling too well today, possibly from the big feast we had yesterday, I don't know. Although I felt fine. So he was just taking it easy in his room, and didn't really want to go out to eat or anything. By 6:15 when it was time to break the fast, Matt and I went out to this little falafel place he found near Bab-al-Sabah, on the Sa'ila (the water way). Turned out to be really really good. Most of the sandwiches served here aren't like the traditional Arabic food that people are accustomed too, like falafel on a pita-style bread, no here if you get a traditional falafel or shawarma, it is served on a mini-Baguette type thing, however this falafel restaurant serves it on a pita-style bread, complete with lettuce, tomatoes, sauces, and spices. All for only 30 riyals a piece, 15 cents. Even a good deal by Yemeni standards I think. Granted they are small so you have to get two, but they are pretty good, and you can't beat the price. After that we were supposed to head out to the supermarket to pick up some juice or soda or something for the German Girls' "party" tonight. We made it to Huda Supermarket on Al-Zubairi street at about 7:30pm but it was still closed. Then we ran into Yudid, one of the German girls, and her friend, who's name escapes me, from Ireland, studying at CALES. They still had to go buy more food for their dinner party tonight, so we said we'd see them at 9. Walked all the way back to the house, and just bought about 8 small cans of soda from the local stores, we were only expecting about 8 people. So we headed back and hung out at the house until just about 8... Then we headed out for the Bayt at-Talabat (the girls house) but had no idea where it was, just somewhere amongst the Old City, across the Sa'ila, so we had to have Yudid come meet us at the Institute. We technically live in the Old City at our house, but it is among the newer part, on the west side of the Sa'ila, across the east side is where you find the real Old City, with tiny streets and cramped buildings. We made it to the girls house to whichven the entrance is strange, you have to duck through the doorway and step down, then climb up some small stairways, sometimes having to duck from the ceiling, and minding your step because each one seems to be at a different height, and not always level. Most of the doorways in the house you have to duck under or through, and even the main floor of the common room between the kitchen and bedrooms was terribly uneven. Almost wave-like. Very funny. We climbed to the very top floor to a balcony. They had a large table up there and lots of chairs (like lawn furniture, but outdoor seating is nice!) along with an amazing view across the city. Maybe even better than the guy's house, expecially from the balcony, but we have a great 180 degree view from our mafraj, and are basically the highest building in the area. Sandra was already in the kitchen at this time, and Yudid left me and Matt (Markus, being sick, stayed home) in charge of the BBQ, and she headed back to the kitchen to help Sandra with the cooking. Then Matt decided that since I am American I obviously know more about it and stuck me in charge... The BBQ was a tiny thing on the floor, but it was okay, however the problem was with the coals... They went and bought coals today, however what they ended up with was basically a bag of burnt, charred sticks... Nothing like any coal I have ever used before. Without lighter fluid, without real charcoal, just some charred sticks, newspaper and matches. I honestly didn't think it would actually light, and even if it did, that it would be hot enough to cook anything on. Needless to say it took a long time and some trial and error to actually get it hot and burning, but after about a half hour it was going decently. At about that time a whole large group of people arrived up to the balcony, let's see, there was Christoph from Germany, studying at CALES 3 months, and working at the German Embassy part time, there was Luca, from Italy also at CALES for three months, along with his wife, the Irish girl who also works at a hospital here, there was here colleague from work, Muhammad, a doctor originally from Palestine, and his sister, didn't catch her name, along with her Iraqi friend, she has lived in Yemen for 10 years, and there was also Michael from Switzerland, who was older, studying at CALES also, but speaks Arabic very well as he lived in Israel/Palestine for three years. So all-in-all there was 10 of us out on this little balcony. We all talked for quite a long time, which was really nice to meet and hang out with some other Westerners once-and-awhile. We just talked about Sana'a, what we are studying, about the difference between the schools, etc. All the while I continued nursing the BBQ, having to blow on it constantly to keep it hot and get it hotter. Eventually food started coming, starting first with appetizers of all sorts, lots of various types of salads and vegetables, at this time I threw the potatoes on the BBQ (hot enough after about an hour of work), it was really quite delicious. Then we had lots of shrimp, really good French bread, the potatoes, along with the chicken which we heated up on the BBQ. There was a lot of food, it's hard to remember everything they had, but they threw a great feast. After everyone was finished we all grabbed dishes to take down to the kitchen, and then we all sat up in the mafraj. Their mafraj was okay, maybe not even technically a mafraj (I think it has to be on the top floor), but the seating area isn't as nice as ours, although they do have some cool posters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh hanging up. I obtained some posters of him awhile ago just before the election, but I still have yet to hang it in my room, or up in our mafraj, in the future, hopefully. So in the mafraj, we all just continued talking, and they had tea available and sweets too, but I just had some cookies. After about an hour or so in the mafraj the whole group of us took off to leave Yudid and Sandra with their huge mess and tons of leftover shrimp. I'm not sure how much they spent on everything, but they were very generous to host all of us like that. It made Matt and I feel dumb for bringing only 8 small cans of soda, there wasn't enough to go around, and it had to be divided amongst paper cups. I was also amazed at how much stuff they cooked, considering I haven't cooked a single thing here (unless cereal counts!), and they said they'd be throwing another get together again on October 3rd to celebrate German-something or other day, complete with German food I guess. I'll look forward to it if it actually happens. After that I returned to start doing my homework for the following day. I couldn't sleep though and stayed up really late, even for Ramadan standards, then the sun started coming up and made it even harder to sleep.

Sept 28

Sept 28 Thursday. The next day I was awoken at noon by Markus who wanted to see if I was going to come along on this village trip he was going on today. I agreed since it would be nice to get out of Sana'a for a little bit and see something new. Matt opted to stay home because he wanted to do homework. So I joined Markus to meet up with his friend Adel (who use to be a teacher at SIAL) in Tahrir Square, as well as the German girl, Sandra. We took one of the buses to the very end of Hadda street in the south. And then started our trek on foot up through this town, and then into the mountains... I had no idea there would hiking involved and had just worn my normal sandals, which definitely wasn't the best choice of shoes for navigating up all these dirt and rock paths, and climbing over things, and avoiding prickly bushes and the like. There were a ton of cactuses around too... We weren't really sure how to get where we wanted to go, so we kept following this trail up the hill. Along the first path there were these two twin puppies just sitting there, and they turned out to be really friendly and started following me up the path. I stopped to pet them for a minute and then continued on the way. The kept following for awhile but their little legs couldn't keep up with us and they fell behind. Later we encountered a teenage boy up on the mountain trail along with his donkey, so we asked for directions to a village, and he showed us the way. Markus was joking around with Adel about the donkey and the guy offered to let him ride it... He tried for a bit, having to duck under cactuses and so forth, but quickly fell off. Then the guy hopped on his donkey and just took off up the steep rocky path with no problems. It was pretty funny, and the donkey is surprisingly fast. He had to stop and wait for us to catch up, and then encountered a friend from the village, and offered the donkey to Markus for a second try. This time he was able to successful ride the donkey up to the gate of the village. I would've tried to ride it, but I knew that I would have fallen right on my head or something, especially on that path we were on! We walked through the village and found a really nice view (by now we were nearing the top of this mountain) down onto Sana'a and the surrounding area. You could see how truly large the city of Sana'a is, at the points where I thought it stopped it actually kept sprawling. Also remember that the city of Sana'a itself is already at an elevation of 7,000 feet! We sat for awhile at the top, and then decided to continue on our quest of finding the city of Bayt Bous which was supposed to be even nicer.... We continued walking along a mountain road, however this time it was at least flat, and not just up hill. After walking for another 30 to 45 minutes we came across another village. It was really nice, there was a little waterfall there and river going through it, possibly from a spring. Lots of little stone houses, and stone streets, it reminded me of an old Italian village, if not for all the garbage and litter everywhere. It seems to be Yemeni Culture to throw your garbage where ever, whenever. In Sana'a it is dirty too, but you always see street cleaner people going around sweeping up everyone's trash. But this is doesn't appear to happen out in the smaller villages. Again we got directions from a group of people toward Bayt Bous and continued on our way. We encountered a mother dog and about 5 puppies on the way. Two of them come up to us, and Markus threw them one of his cactus fruits to see if they would eat it, and surprisingly one of them did. We continued down the street, and then ran across a bus dropping off some people, and asked if we could get a ride to the old village of Bayt Bous. We drove through new Bayt Bous, which is now a part of Sana'a, and started driving very slowly back up the mountain... I didn't think the van would make it. We kept having to stop and ask people on the street which street lead to Old Bayt Bous. We eventually found our way there and he took us to the end of the road literally. The trip cost us 200 riyals each, or about $1 as it was pretty long, and they usually run along pre-set routes. There was a little lake or body of water right below us, and little kids were jumping in and swimming, and yelling up to us on the cliff "Sadeeq! Soora!" (Friend! Picture!) wanting us to snap photos of them swimming, however I didn't bring my camera with me because I just thought we would be going to some little town on the outskirts of Sana'a, nothing special. But I did regret not bringing it! The city of Bayt Bous is perched up on an opposing cliff, and is now an old nearly abandoned city, however there were a few Yemenis around, herding goats and sheep. Walking around with kalashnikov rifles, and gathering things from the nearby area. We walked into the old city, which is almost like the Roman Forum, full of ruins, however many of the buidlings are still standing. We could venture into old houses, which were like mini-skyscrapers just like Sana'a, with many floors, built out of mud bricks, rocks, and logs. From the tops of the houses there were amazing views of Sana'a and far drop from the cliff below. It must have been a pretty safe and secure city perched high up, and easily defendable from all sides. We just explored the old abandoned houses and streets for awhile. It was really impressive. The stairwells and doorways were very small, you'd have to crouch in order to pass through the doorways and continue up the stairways. Some of them now had holes in the floors and ceilings that had crumbled and fell. But you could still discern where the kitchens were, and so forth. We saw a wheel in the entryway of one of the houses and I guessed it could have probably been the first wheel ever invented... hah. After that we began our trek down from Bayt Bous, and encountered a Yemeni who began talking to us, whether we were fasting etc, and then invited us to his house for the fast breaking meal. We politely declined and said we would just go to the gillave and eat. He pointed us in the direction of the best path down the hill, and we continued on until we reached this large body of water between two hills and held there by a giant dam made of rocks. We sat on top of this dam for a bit talking to Yemenis and enjoying the peace and quiet of the area and the beautiful scenery with the lake and surrounding hills and mountains. Then as we made our way down from the dam to the road below, we ran into the same guy who again invited us to his house for food, he really insisted that we come, so we figured why not, and joined him on the walk back to his house. Although there was a van stuck in the rocky dirt road, so we stopped to try and help him push it out, along with a bunch of other Yemenis. But it wouldn't budge, and it was a one lane road to leave this area, blocking in other cars. But there was a big truck and they chained them together to pull it out of the rocks just as we were leaving. I also saw a really strange bug, it looked like a praying mantis, or stick bug, just hanging out in the rocks. Anyways, we walked out to this guys house, which was just at the edge of the new Bayt Bous (located below the cliffs of the old city). I wasn't sure what to expect going to the house of a villager in terms of what his house was like or what we would be eating. But he had a huge sitting room, probably 3 times bigger than any (of the two) I've seen before. And we sat around talking waiting until the proper time. Tons and tons of food was brought out... We started with dates, of course, and some vegetables with dip, there was a delicious soup, Salta of course, Yemeni-style Pizza, bread, rice, meat, spaghetti (just the pasta, not the sauce), fresh mango juice, fanta soda, complete with a jello like dessert and tea. Another huge feast. We ate with him, a few of his relatives and his three sons. The food was very good, and he was very nice, to just invite in some random foreigners to join him. Oh and when we got there Sandra was asked if she wanted to join his wife, so she went off to the women's party for the time. After dinner we continued to sit around and talk for awhile, until about 7:30 and then his relative even drove the fours of us out of the city of Bayt Bous to the bus stop back into Sana'a. We made it back near Tahrir Square and then the four of us decided to stop at that juice shop and Sandra bought us all a drink. We sat around talking again for another hour or so, about all sorts of strange things... about Frog Juice that they drink in China, and more. Then we finally made it back to the Bayt at-Tulab and said bye to Adel and Sandra. I bought a Mountain Dew for the caffeine, because I was feeling pretty tired from that long hike and lack of sleep. Saw Matt again, I almost didn't recognize him because he got his haircut today but ended up nearly getting it shaved. I also got two calls that evening from who I can only guess was Ahmed... After that Matt and I headed out to the internet cafe to email and Skype my Mom, however I got a bad mic and I couldn't talk. It always works best when I bring my own microphone. After that I went on my own to the juice stand once again and got a large strawberry drink this time, as well as trying one of their fruit salads for the first time, which was really good, but was much much bigger than I expected, and I wasn't able to finish it. When I was walking back at about 2am, the power was once again out in the Old City so I had to walk back in the dark, luckily I have my little pocket keychain flashlight, which comes in handy often here. Got back and played my favorite game of Spider Solitaire for awhile before finally going to sleep.

Sept 27

Sept 27 Wednesday, woke up early in order to finish up the homework I wasn't able to last night from the power outage. Got the majority of my sentences written before class with Faris. Right now, I'm really not that pleased with my class with Faris. Basically it consists of me listing off new words from whatever we are reading, and him asking me which words I don't know, and explaining them in Arabic. However it still isn't 100% clear so I still have to look the words p in a dictionary after class before I can write sentences. So basically I can do the exact same thing on my own, without him. I'm thinking about switching teachers, or seeing if we can work something better out. I'm not sure yet. After class I went back to the house to do my work for Ismail before dinner, and did some other reading up on the mafraj. Today in class Matt asked about traditional Ramadan foods and what we should order, since I was told that you never eat fish during Ramadan it is very strange. So he had a whole list of foods to try and we went to the Palestine Restaurant near Tahrir, he listed off a few of the things, which they had, and they brought out more things in addition to it. We had a ton of food to eat. There was Shafout, which is a sort of wet spicy bread (which sounds really gross, but is pretty good), along Fatih Tamar (maybe) which is this cake like food made from dates, but it isn't sweet like a dessert, along with lamb, rice, bread, and more, complete with dessert too. I was really stuffed after this meal, and we couldn't even finish everything they had given us, it only ended up being $5 per person, which is really expensive here but we had a ton of food. After that we thought about tea, but decided it just wasn't possible after that meal and headed back to the house. Again I went off to Ismail's, they offered me desserts again, but I said it wasn't possible after that meal, but they still brought them... I only ate one though, there was no way I was going to eat two. Then a friend of Ismail's came over from another school CALES, who is also a teacher, and they were talking about CALES and SIAL. I guess 6 teachers have left SIAL recently for CALES because they are unhappy with the administration there. I haven't run into any problems, but it is a 'family' business and he doesn't exactly employ the best people for the job, just his cousins or other relatives. The teachers are good though, it's just the rest of the staff that's a little 'slow'. We got into out normal delayed start after his friendleft and after he prayed and watched a little TV. Lessons were good. I headed off, and once again, Ahmed was waiting for me in Tahrir square. He is beginning to drive me crazy. I was pretty tired too because I didn't sleep as long as normal, so I only talked to him briefly, told him I was tired, but I needed to use an internet cafe first. Then he insisted he knew a faster and better internet cafe, so I went along with him and he used a computer too. I tried to call my mom using Skype there but it was so loud from the street outside that I could hardly hear, and I think it was cutting out a little bit too for my Mom. So I just signed out and went back to the normal cafe. Of course he came along with me, but didn't use the computer, he just sat in a chair nearby and waited while I Skyped my Mom for about 20 minutes. Very strange. So I left and then headed back home, finally saying goodbye to Ahmed, and him basically planning to have us see each other again on Friday, so I just agreed. Despite being so tired, I wasn't really able to sleep very well, and ended up just staying up really late playing Spider Solitaire on my laptop.

Sept 26

Sept 26 Tuesday, today was actually a holiday, September 26th, the day of the Revolution of the Republic, when they overthrew the Imam. So there was no class officially today, and the institute was closed, but Ismail and I agreed to meet anyways at his house in the evening. I slept in later than normal, and just did homework all afternoon up in the mafraj along with Matt and Markus and waited until 6pm for food. I guess we left early for food, because the streets seemed to be deserted and not much was open. Markus didn't really feel like going to a restaurant, so we looked for the little sandwich carts they usually have on street corners, but none could be food. He elected to go back to the house and wait for awhile, for the crowds to die down and more stuff to open since he wasn't exactly starving (he eats at the house in the day), but me and Matt just wanted to eat anything, so we hopped into the nearest restaurant on Bab al-Sabah street and again ate chicken and rice, the same meal from yesterday. It was even better actually. We sat up on the second floor, and it was really rickety, actually felt like it could just fall down... Matt was shaking his leg at one point and the whole second floor shook. People were looking over at him like he was going to bring the whole place down, it was pretty funny. Then we went drink some tea, and Matt was trying to kill some time so he could go to the internet cafe, so we then went to the juice stand and picked up some desserts just outside to go along with fresh juice drinks. Back to Ismail's for the normal routine of eating desserts, watching tv, him praying, and us beginning over an hour late. Today we even had an additional dessert along with the (very different) baklava and cake like food, there was a really delicious custard with fruit mixed in, and nuts on top. I ended up staying even later than normal, until about 1am, because we got to talking about politics and whatnot (in English though, by the end), and I took off. Sure enough as I passed through Tahrir square Ahmed was waiting for me again... We grabbed some tea, and sat around and talked for awhile again. He is particularly interested in how he can work in the US, and how much money you can make there. As is true with a number of people when they find out that I am American, "How can I work in the US?" I guess he moved from his city Ibb about two months ago to Sana'a for a job, and really doesn't know anyone here, except another friend from Ibb. He makes about $5 a day here for 6 hours work, I think, or about $100 per month. So when he found out that minimum wage in Washington is $7 something an hour, and you could make $50 day he was very impressed. All the Yemenis know that you make a lot more money in the US, but they don't seem to realize that everything costs much more too... $1.50 for a haircut here, $15 in the US. 10 or 20 cents for coffee/tea, $3 for a mocha. $5 for multi-course meal/feast and probably at least $20 for the equivalent in the US. We talked until about 3am this time, and I finally headed back to the house, however the power was out in the Old City like usual, so I walked back in the dark. I wanted to finish up some homework but the power was out so I just went to sleep.

Sept 25

Sept 25 Monday, same old same old in the beginning. Class from 1 to 3, sitting around doing homework afterwards waiting to be able to go out and get something to eat... Finally the time came and we went to a fairly large restaurant over by the bus station up to Hasaba. Had some typical chicken and rice, which was really tasty. We were joined at out table by another guy, he looked like a foreigner, but we didn't really talk. Then outside the restaurant we got to talking (in Arabic) that he was a Russian who was studying Arabic in the east in Hadramout. And funnily I asked him if he knew Hassan's brother, and sure enough he did. He was in Yemen for another week or so before he returned to Moscow. That's one thing about being a foreigner in such a strange place like Yemen, you get to meet all sorts of random people from all over the world, for whatever reason. In a place like Florence, Italy, you'd probably never really talk to other foreigners or tourists just because there are so many its not a big deal at all seeing them around. Then we headed to a different tea place near our usual one, but the tea just wasn't as good, more bitter. We talked to some guy briefly who welcomed us to Yemen. And then this woman fully covered started talking to us, but we didn't know what she was saying, we started walking down the street, and then all the sudden she started running after us saying "come on, come on" in English, and then she just went on her way... I have no idea what it was all about, but I think she was the first crazy woman we've encountered. I grabbed my stuff from the house and headed out to meet up with Ismail, but as I tried to cross Tahrir Square everything was blocked off. They had the square surrounded by military and weren't letting people past. Then I was spotted by my 'friend' Ahmed from the other day, who seems to now think that we are 'brothers' and he lead me to another way to go, but it was still blocked by guards, he talked to them for a minute, and they asked to see my passport, which I of course don't have because the school has taken it. Ahmed did most of the talking, and then they guard started walking me through, leaving Ahmed behind. The square was basically empty, but they sat up some sort of VIP seating area in front of a stage, and then the guard offered me a seat there to watch whatever it was (I had no idea what this was all for at the time) but I said no that I had to go to my teachers house, and I needed to just walk to the old Jewish Quarter, he understood and let me go through. Finally made it to Ismail's about 15 minutes late because of the events in Tahrir, but it wasn't a big deal because we of course didn't start until after 9pm. Everything was as usual, with desserts, tea, water and his son bringing us everything. I stayed until about midnight again and then luckily for me I ran into Ahmed on my way back... He had also called me about 6 times during my lesson, thanks to Markus giving him my phone number. He thought I went to the ceremony because he told the guard I wanted to see it, thus why he was offering me a seat for the event. I guess it was just some boring speeches by ministers anyways, so nothing really worth watching. So of course I am obligating to sit and talk to my 'friend' for awhile. Matt passed by, and got caught by Ahmed for awhile too, but was lucky enough to get away with a good excuse. Then we went to the tea place to grab a cup of tea and we talked for quite awhile. I mean he isn't that bad too talk to, he speaks all in Arabic and I can understand him pretty well. He is just a little weird. I ended up talking to him until about 2am, when I was able to escape to get some juice and food before I returned to the house to do homework until about 4am.

Sept 24

Sept 24 Sunday The next day I slept in quite long until about noon, and then went off to my class with Faris at 1pm. After that, well there's not a whole lot to do during the daytime now because of Ramadan. Normally at this time I might go to the internet cafe, to get something to eat, or whatever, but it's not really possible now. So I just go back to house to study or watch TV or something during the day time. Hung around until about 6pm, and then me, Matt and Markus went to Al-Naseem restaurant that I had been to before with the Brits, in order to break the fast, it is located about 20 minutes away walking by Bab al-Yemen. The restaurants are always packed now right at 6:15 or so and Al-Naseem was no exception, the (fairly) large restaurant was full so they had set up a tarp on the ground in the street in front of it for more people to sit... Even the tarp was full but some Yemenis noticed and gestured for us to come sit by them. I ordered some of their good fish, as did Matt, but Markus was still boycotting things that come from the sea because of his trip to Socotra where he ate fish and only fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for five days. Then we decided to grab some tea and go sit on top of Bab Al-Yemen, but the top of the gate was closed, apparently due to Ramadan hours, so we sat on near the gate, drank or tea and ate some sweets from a nearby cart. There was a 'majnoon' (crazy) that kept coming up and talking to us, then we saw more, we decided that there must be a majnoon convention in the Old City tonight. There are quite a few crazy people around. They are harmless really. There is one who lives on our street, and he is constantly surrounded by packs of children who are always harassing him, and bothering him. There are always about 5-10 children around him at any given time, I have come to the conclusion that it is because of this that he became crazy... But the children always point him out to me when I walk by and say 'majnoon' and then he yells out "heeelllllooo" to me in English, and says some unintellgible things. We returned back to the house, and I got my stuff ready for class and headed out to Ismail's house. At first when I got there he said we'd watch about 10 minutes of Arabic news... but instead he turned on some English movie on MBC4 and started watching that... Then about 25 minutes later he went to go pray, then dessert was brought out. We finally began the lesson over an hour late. So even though I go to his house for lessons, it is still as though he comes late, because we don't begin until much later. I ended up staying until about midnight that night, and he did have an actual lesson for about 2 and 1/2 to 3 hours. I got back to the house and stayed up pretty late that night doing homework, so it was pretty productive.

Sept 23

Sept 23 Saturday. I woke up at 8am the next day (Ramadan now) and the streets were dead. Quiet. Very strange, especially right outside my window! I walked out to the school but sure enough the gates were locked as I had figured. So I went back to the house and slept until 11. Went back to the school and ran into my first teacher, luckily he was free so we had class right then. The hours of lessons were supposed to change, I knew this before, but we hadn't arranged particular times for class. We tentatively agreed on 1-3pm for tomorrow, after I arranged something with my other teacher. I met Markus in the garden who also has class with Ismail (the other teacher) and who had called and waited for him for a few hours now... I hung around too because I needed to arrange my time with him. He finally showed up at maybe 3 or so... Then said we'd be having class from 8-10pm during Ramadan... So late. During Ramadan Muslims are supposed to fast from food, drink, etc during the daylight hours, or from about maybe 5am to 6pm. But most Muslims here "cheat" out of the majority of the fasting by completely altering their hours. The whole life and hours of the city changes during Ramadan. Most Muslims here wake up at about noon, fast until a little after 6pm, and then stay up until 5am or so, eating again just before they go to sleep. Thus the need to change the hours of class. The hours of all the businesses change here during Ramadan, since it is a majority Muslim country, but fasting for a Muslim in the US would be totally different, and more difficult, I would imagine. So I had decided to observe the fast during Ramadan myself, at least for most days, partially due to the fact that no restaurants or shops are open for the majority of the day. So by 6pm I was really starving... Matt (who was also fasting) and Markus (who did eat breakfast) and I hopped on one of the larger buses, so we had to wait about 10 minutes because they don't leave until they fill every seat, so they just idle there and yell the destination out the window at people walking by, it is an interesting system. So we went to a nicer restaurant in the north that I went to with Markus on my first day in Sana'a, called Al-Shallal (the Waterfall)... The place was completely packed though and were turned away from the upstairs level, and the main level. We tried the side entrance and were at first turned away along with some other Yemenis, but we were then invited back in and took the elevator up to the sixth floor, which we didn't even know existed. It was a little nicer than the rest of the restaurant with nice tableclothes and place settings, and menus even (most restaurants don't seem to have menus, you just tell them what you want, or you know what they offer). It was also a little more expensive than the main levels, but still reasonably priced. There also weren't very many people at all on the 6th floor, it was mostly empty. They brought some dates, which is the traditional food they break the fast with. I ordered the Broast, which is basically fried chicken along with french fries. I tried some of the the ketchup for my fries, and it was probably one of the grossest things I've tasted... Where's the Heinz? The food is really good at Al-Shallal, and even better when you are starving. Afterwards I grabbed some Baklava and another little dessert from the stand outside. I like the baklava here in Yemen, better than the Lebanese-style, but the best I've ever had is still from that Iranian restaurant in Seattle. After that we just walked back to the house, both Markus and I were feeling a little upset in the stomache, maybe from the sweets we both ate, or maybe from not eating all day and then eating a bunch. We headed back to the mafraj for a bit before I had my night class with Ismail. After how late he was today to meet Markus and how late he typically is, I decided I would go a half hour late... I called first because I still didn't think he'd be there and to my surprise he was there waiting for a half hour he said... So I rushed over there and we commenced class. At this time just sort of reviewing grammatical issues, and discussion. Then my Mom called, as we had planned, but I hadn't exactly planned on being in class at that time, so we agreed to talk later. Ismail and I planned on meeting for tomorrow at his house from now on, and he would throw in a bit of free additional time as well. I headed back to my room and hung around for a bit, waiting for my mom to call me back. Except that when she did the connection was really bad for some reason between us, and so we just decided to try again tomorrow. It was sort of breaking up and acting strange, possibly from one of our cellular connections. I tried to stay up later in order to do some homework and get myself into Ramadan time, but ended up going to sleep early still (by Ramadan standards).

Sept 22

Sept 22 Friday, I was able to sleep in relatively late. Got up and ate some of my Corn Flakes again, but after that it was a big homework day for me though. The most I've actually sat down and done since I got here. I worked for hours out of the Al-Kitaab books and from other assignments which my teachers gave me. I worked basically all day in my room, and then Matt and I planned on grabbing a bite to eat at 5:30, so we headed out to the Old Town to the same open-air restaurant we had gone to last week for the tasty ganem. We found it pretty easily. This guy kept trying to sell me a jambiya, the traditional dagger, while we ate. For only about $5, I would've bought it, but I don't really know anything about buying a 'good' one, and I figure I have 6 months here to figure it out... The food was good just like last time. Although we didn't have a lively conversation with any Yemeni's like last time, which was a lot of fun. On the way back from the Old City to the student housing we did get a bit lost, I got all turned around and wasn't sure where a familiar street was, so we had to ask a number of people to get going in the right direction. Matt had decided that he was going to go to the internet cafe tonight to Skype some people instead of the bowling alley, but I was trying to make it to Tahrir Square on time, but getting lost delayed me. I made it there about 10-15 minutes late and saw neither Markus, nor Ben. I waited around there for another 10-15 minutes and then walked around for a little bit. I saw where one of the other schools is, Yemen Language Center, and headed back to Tahrir. This little kid started talking to me, he actually spoke Standard Arabic somehow, so I was able to understand him. Some other guy started talking to me also and then just gave me a handful of mini-bananas, it was strange, I ate two of them and gave him the rest back. Then in the middle of Tahrir Square a festival was starting in celebration of the elections, I was told, with all sorts of traditional Yemeni dances from all different cities and regions of Yemen. I began talking with many people around me, people really become interested when they see a foreigner speaking Arabic. I made a few friends that night, I suppose. After the dances I said bye to most of them, and then hung out with a 20 year old named Ahmed, from the south for a while longer. He gave me is phone number and told me to call him and whatnot, although I wasn't planning on it... Also the Islamic holy month of Ramadan was confirmed to start tomorrow (it depends on the sighting of the moon, since Islamic months are based on a Lunar calendar, not on the Sun/Solar). And on my way back the markets became really busy with people even though it was after midnight, due to Ramadan.

Sept 21

Sept 21 Thursday, first day of the weekend, but I arranged with Ismail to have class again at 10 that morning. I woke up at about ten and started to scramble so I wouldn't be late, but then remembered that I was meeting Ismail who would definitely be late. So I ate my breakfast and drank some juice and got to the institute at 10:30. The crazy old groundskeeper had to let me in, since the gate to the institute was locked. The institute is walled off, inside there is a nice small garden, and the building itself, with seating areas around the garden for study or whatever. Then there is an outdoor 'kitchen' with a roof, and a bathroom, as well as a small shack built up against the wall in the garden. It is really small, but I guess that this groundskeeper lives there in that little shack. I'm not sure what his story is, he seems a little crazy. Maybe a relative of the director. He waters the plants in the garden and locks up the place as well as feeds a number of cats who are always in the garden. I can't really understand him when he speaks... Anyways, I sat in the garden and then Ismail called at 10:30 and said he's on his way and would be there in about 20 minutes. So of course he arrived at 11. We had class until 1 though, and it's nice to have class six days a week, it keeps me very busy. After that I rushed off to Bab Al-Yemen which was the one spot where Hassan and I could find to be mutually known, he called me again and said him and his brother were running about 20 minutes late, so I wandered up into Souq al-Milh to buy something to drink. It was funny this little kid just took it upon himself to get me my drink. He took my 40 riyals and went from store to store to buy find it. I was a little mixed up on direction so I asked him where Bab al-Yemen was and he walked me to it and said bye. Talked with someone selling stuff on the street for a little bit and then saw Hassan and his brother walking through the gate. It was really strange to see a familiar face from UW all the way on the other side of the world. Very strange! He stood around chatting for awhile and then Hassan realized he had forgot some clothes in the taxi they took which he had just purchased. We went over to the place where the taxi dropped them off and they were optimistic that he would return, and sure enough about 10 minutes later the taxi driver pulls up hanging the bag of clothes out the window for him. He said that once they had left a camera in a taxi here and the came right back and returned it also. After that we debated about where to go to eat, whether to go 'authentic Yemeni' or to a nicer sit down restaurant. We opted for a nicer sit down restaurant on Hadda Street, and took a taxi down there. They knew a nice Lebanese restaurant and treated me to a great meal. Turns out that Hassan was just here for three months but his brother would be staying in Hadramaut in the east for another year, so he gave me his contact info in case I ever traveled over to that part of Yemen, then I'd have someone to show me around and everything. They dropped me off back at Tahrir Square and set off to try and sort out the situation with his missed plane ticket. It was good to see a familiar face here in Yemen though. Headed back to the house for a little and at 7 I went to the internet cafe to call my Dad for his birthday, he wasn't home then so I left a message. Haven't been able to talk to him since I arrived, communicated via email and whatnot, but it is difficult to coordinate times. Then at 8 I met up with Markus and Matt in Tahrir Square near this strange changing color light column (I has told it might be intended to be a palm tree) and we were soon joined by Ben, an Aussie who is working at Yemen Language Center in exchange for Arabic lessons and other perks and I had been reading his blog back in Seattle, and Frank, a Brit also from Cambridge in the year below Matt who had been here for about 2 weeks. We had planned on meeting up and heading out to dinner together, so we walked out to the northern part of Hadda Street to a restaurant that had been recommended to Ben by others. It was a pretty good restaurant... My fish was great, and the juice drinks are always amazing here. I thought the menu was really funny though because it had English translations of things such as "Pipsi Can" "Frying Meat" "Wet Bread" also "Wet Brea" and other strange things... But the food was good. It was fun meeting up with some other Western students, since there are so few at my school, SIAL. After that we parted ways and planned to meet up the next night for some bowling and pool at Fun City.

Sept 20

Sept 20. Then the next day, Wednesday, was the election day here in Yemen, so there was to be no classes (three day weekend), and most businesses were supposed to be closed, I thought. We were also told that we should stay in during the elections because they weren't really sure what would happen, and tensions were high between the two groups, I guess. That was okay though, I figured I would get to sleep in, relax and do some homework. Though I was awoken that morning by tons and tons of noise coming from outside. Apparently there was a polling station right near the student housing, or there were just large groups of people congregating outside my window for no reason... But yeah, lots of annoying noise awoke me, and I even put earplugs in the night before because I figured it would be louder than usual. So I went up to the top floor of the house, about the 6th floor or so, to the mafraj to escape the street level noise and drown it out with the TV while I did some homework (or half did homework, half watched TV). This lasted until maybe 2:30 when Matt and I decided we wanted to go out and get some lunch. We went to the usual place, a fahsah (salta, a stew like mixture, but with meat) restaurant down the street near Bab Al-Sabah. We were running a little late for Fahsah or Salta, those restaurants are usually only open for lunch, I think. And they were closing up the place when we got there, so we were going to go somewhere else but they insisted we come in. The group of them, (the family I would assume) were eating out of a big bowl of fahsah and let us join in. It is basically a spicy meat stew that they make here, which you tear off small chunks of bread to scoop it up with. We ate with 2 or 3 other people while the others were cleaning everything. It was very good, and then they didn't even charge us anything, gave it to us for free... very nice. I've been there a number of times now, and it usually costs around 500 riyals, or $2.50 for 2 people, which seems somewhat pricy for Yemen. Matt headed out to the internet cafe despite the advice of his British Embassy to stay in the house the day of the election... I just returned to the house to study a little bit, and wait for my mom to try and call my cell phone at 4. She had just bought a calling card off of eBay the night before for about $0.19 per minute to call Yemen, which is pretty expensive, but it is free on my end (about $1 per minute to call from my cell phone). And it is good if she needs to get ahold of me, or so that I can talk from the student housing instead of always at the internet cafe. It worked well, no problems with it. Like I was in Seattle or something except that it was 4pm my time and 6am her's. We talked for maybe a half hour. After that Matt and I were talking with Ishaq in the kitchen who has been here for 7 months now, he is a Muslim convert from California. And he will be staying here for another 5 months. At least he knows the city and where things are. As we were talking with him Markus returned from Suqotra with lots of stories... Again saying it is an amazingly beautiful place, totally different from Yemen. But that they have absolutely nothing there, he said there are only two buildings with electricity, and all he ate for every meal was fish. He slept in a tent on the beach a few nights and in a tent in the mountains, and one night in the hotel (one of the few places with power). He absolutely loved it, but was a bit angry because he was supposed to go with the other group of Brits, but somehow or for some reason they changed their flight dates, so he was there on his own, which ended up costing him quite a bit more. He also really didn't like his tour guide that he was hooked up with (the son of the hotel owner) who would eat his food, drink his water and was constantly late... by hours. Same problems the other group had I guess. So if I ever make it down to Suqotra, I know to watch out for this guy. Funny enough at about midnight that night I got a call from Hassan, an American from my university... Last spring I took an Arabic Grammar course that was put on by the Muslim Student Association on campus, just to assist my grasp of the grammar, and Hassan who is a UW student was the one teaching the class since he had student in Yemen before and was pretty proficient. So last spring we were talking about Yemen and whatnot, but I hadn't seen him since the class ended. I emailed him right before I left for Yemen and he said he was in Yemen right now along with his brother and had been for three months, he would be staying in Sanaa for a few days before heading back to the States. We had emailed back and forth, and tried to arrange something but it didn't materialize. I finally got him my correct phone number (finally knew what it was) and he was able to call me... Anyways he apparently missed his flight, as he was supposed to leave today, and would be here in Sana'a for another couple days, so we agreed to meet up tomorrow after my class.

Sept 19

Sept 19 Tuesday was again classes as usual, nothing extraordinary. I found a little kitten one the street near the student housing amongst some kids. Petted it for awhile and told the children that I wanted the kitten and they picked it up and gave it to me. It was really friendly. First friendly cat I've encountered here in Yemen. All of the cats and dogs I've seen are really wild and just roam the streets scavenging for food. I wanted to take the kitten but I didn't have anything for it, and wouldn't have been able to make it to the supermarket to buy the litter and food for awhile. Haven't seen the kitten since then. Returned to the student housing in the evening and went up to the mafraj to hang out with Bayan and Matt. We watched this really strange reality TV show that I have never heard of before called "Starting Over", we couldn't tell if it was supposed to be a joke, but I don't think so. We all had a good laugh from it, it is 3 years old I guess and just airing now on Arabic TV. We get a lot of old shows, Dharma and Greg, Frasier (I can feel like I am back in Seattle), Friends, Seinfield, etc. Then for dinner we all met up at the institute... Me, Matthew, and Byan to meet up with Sandra and Yudid (both from Germany) and her teacher Taha all went out to a Syrian Restuarant on Al-Zubairi street named Al-Sham. We decided to go for the "Touristic Menu" which included soup, appetizer sampler, main course, tea and water, and dessert for about $5. The food was really good, good lentil soup, good shwarma although I was expecting s shwarma sandwich like I would eat in Seattle, but it was a plate of food. The appetizers were good. We were joined for almost the entire meal by the owner of the restaurant, a Syrian gentleman who has lived in Sana'a for 30 years now. He spoke English really well, along with French as he worked in Paris for a number of years. Then I guess he worked for a dutch company installing radio equipment for the airport in Sana'a and never left. He has never returned to Syria either for he says his government will graciously host him in a "5-Star cell for the rest of his life". He told lots of really corny jokes in English throughout the night... Then left us alone for the main course to go host other guests. It was a nice large restaurant with fish tanks full of goldfish, and a little fountain, as well as canopy like structures above as if you were outside. Then later he returned for the dessert and tea time and the conversation got a little more heated when him and one of the German girls and Bayan started to discuss politics and religion, particularly Islam. He was very hilarious still though because he wouldn't let anyone talk, he would always put up his hand and say "Excuse me, excuse me, let me talk!" and then continue... We stayed there quite late and then headed back. I split off to the internet cafe to use Skype, but then returned to the mafraj at the student house to hang out with Byan more on his last night, as well as Matthew.

Sept 17

Sept 17 The next day, Sunday, not a whole lot happened, classes as usual. Met an older Spanish gentleman studying Arabic at the institute. He is a Muslim and on a year long sabbatical. He has traveled to practically every Arabic country it seems like. He is on crutches and so he lives in the institute instead of the student housing. I was supposed to meet Ismail at 10:30 I guess, but he didn't show up until about 11:30, I guess because transportation was all messed up because of a huge pre-election rally they were holding for Ali Abdullah Saleh which had over a million people I guess. It was the last of the big public displays by either candidate before the election. So I was pretty starving by this point and went with him to a nearby restaurant for some pretty delicious sandwiches. One was a 'cheese' sandwich, which sounds strange but was pretty good. After class I went back to the house to take a nap for a few hours, then Matthew woke me up knocking on my door. We decided to go out to Huda supermarket to get provisions. I bought some peanut butter, jelly, Doritos, milk, Corn Flakes, and orange juice so I'd have at least a few things around the house. Then we grabbed some Yemeni "shwarmas" which is meat inside a little mini-baguette type bread. Not exactly the same thing. After we dropped off groceries we were invited to join the other foreigners for Izzy and Ivan's last night in Yemen at the juice bar at 8. So I first went to the internet cafe to respond to some emails, and then just broke down and went to cell phone store to buy whatever the cheapest one was. Got a used one for about $50 again, more expensive than the new one I could've got, but I just wanted to get one. All in all to register with the company Sabafon and buy the card it was about $70. Then I joined everybody a little late because the process of buying it took longer than expected. Had a really really excellent fresh strawberry juice drink for $1.50 for a large, and just talked to everybody again. After that we returned to the house and up to the mafraj, the Brits seemed to be quite amused by Oprah and Dr. Phil and other American shows of this nature on satellite. The next day was class as usual, and more of the same... Walking around and exploring on my own, doing some homework. On my way back I stopped at a little store near the house to purchase some water and the store keeper and I talkedfor a long time, about Yemen, about the upcoming elections, about all sorts of things. He was very pro-Ali Abdullah Saleh, and even gave me a few stickers which I guess I ended up forgetting there because I haven't seen them since. He was really nice though, 20 years old or so. So I always go to his store now when I need something. We also watched videos of the pre-election rallies of Bin Shamlan and Ali Abdullah Saleh... Saleh's rally was enormous, there was supposed to be over a million there and it sure looked like it. People do seem to genuinely like him, from the majority of people I talk to here.

Photos

Yemen

Sep 16, 2006 - 4 Photos

Sept 16

Sept 16 The next day, Saturday, Matthew and I went to breakfast near Bab al-Yemen for some kebabs (seems like a strange breakfast to me) and I had classes of course. When I met Ismail at 1:30 for our normal class time he told me he had been waiting at the Institute for 2 hours... I guess since Marcus is gone he assumed I would intuitively realize that my class time had been bumped up two hours for this week. Oh well. I still really wanted to buy a cell phone, the guy told me he would help me and took me to the shop initially, but I hadn't seen him since. I knew the general area of the store we went to so I just started walking. First I went to make a copy of a copy of my passport which is necessary in order to purchase a phone. I remembered the Huda Supermarket which we drove by on the way to the phone stores, so I was on the right path. So I just kept walking down Az-Zubairy street hoping I would run into a lot of phone places... I found a couple stores, but after the Supermarket nothing looked familiar, so we must have turned off somewhere. I went to those couple of stores in order to ask what the cheapest used phone is and got some pretty high prices, higher than the price of that new phone we found earlier... So I just told them I didn't have my passport with me so I couldn't buy it now. Later I turned off on another main road, not even sure what it was, and kept walking. It was a really busy shopping street, lots and lots of clothes and other goods. I saw the most women at once in the this area that I have seen since arriving. It was almost a sea of black. Found some more internet cafes off of this street, as well as some video game 'cafes' and stores selling DVDs and games. I was now walking around in completely new areas, in the dark now, and not sure of whether I was headed the right way. Then this guy, Muhammad, who was walking the same direction started talking to me, and was headed for the main square so I was able to practice my Arabic with him while walking. I complained that I didn't know where to buy a cheap cell phone and he gave me his number (not that I could call) and his help tomorrow, although I didn't take him up on it. I finally returned to the house in order to start doing my homework and was then invited to join the other two Brits who live at the house, Byan and Evan, for dinner. They have been here for about 6 or 7 weeks, but left on vacation the day before I arrived. So Matthew and I joined them, along with their friend Izzy, who lives in the Bayt al-Talabat (The female student house). And headed out to one of their favorite restaurants. The whole lot of them, all four of the Brits, actually go to the same school in the UK. The three came together and Matthew is in the year ahead of them. But we went to this nice fish restaurant (An-Naseem) near Bab al-Yemen. It is basically a whole fish that they serve to you, along with bread, and beans and other things. It was quite good actually. At dinner we were also joined by a German girl named Yudid who has been here for the same amount of time as the 3 Brits, but is staying for 6 months. Whereas Izzy and Ivan left in two days, and Byan two days after them. So they whole lot of them had many good tips for me and Matthew, and many good stories. I thought a hilarious one was that they said a lot of the Suqotrans (the distant island the went to for a week) are totally convinced that America is going to invade the island (I have no idea why!) When they were with their driver he saw a large cargo ship off the coast sailing by, and claimed it was an American navy vessel for the impending invasion, despite the fact that it is visibly a standard cargo ship. And then when they were at the airport they ran into an airport employing who claimed that two Yemenia Airlines planes were American war planes and said "Zis is zee start of ze war" apparently because he didn't know about their scheduled arrival. Or maybe the American military did commandeer two civilian Yemenia jets for their invasion of Suqotra. After that we returned to the house with Byan and Ivan and they had tons more stories and tips for us. Recommending restaurants, travel guides, places to go, things to do, where to shop. Apparently it is possible to buy a custom fitted suit here for $30. At this time there was the second power outage, so we sat around in the mafraj with my flashlight lamp. Stayed up fairly late talking to them before finally heading to sleep.

Sept 15

Sept 15 Let's see, the day after the wedding, Friday, I went around with Matthew for a little bit, he needed to pick up some things because he didn't bring a whole lot. However, this was my first Friday in Yemen and I forgot that a lot of places are closed around noon because of Friday Prayer, but I helped him find what I could. We returned to the house so he could start his placement test for SIAL, while I went up to the mafraj up stairs and watched a couple of English movies on TV while I did some homework. Later in the evening we decided to go walk around and explore the Old City. We walked all around it and actually didn't get too lost. It is just a maze and labyrinth of small streets and lots of shops. Very nice though. I do enjoy the heart of the Old City near Souq al-Milh (The Salt Market, although they have so much more than that) because it is much more quiet and peaceful than near where I live, towards the main square. So after a little bit of exploring around and looking for a place where Matthew could buy a towel (we couldn't find one all day) we kind of worked up an appetite and went to this "nice" open air style restaurant in the heart of the Old City. We ate something called ganem, which was this almost sort of salsa concoction without being very spicy along with bread and kebab, if I remember right. During dinner we sat next to two Yemenis who wanted to talk to us foreigners. They were really suprised that I was American and wanted to talk to me about what Americans thought about the Middle East, and etc, etc. It was really good practice, but really difficult too. We sat down on some steps in the Old City then this guy passing asked if we knew "Tim, he has lived he for 20 years"... Referring to the author Tim Mackintosh Smith whose book I was reading in Seattle. He said he lived right around where we were. And it seems like everyone knows him or know about him. My teacher, Ismail, worked with him a number of years ago. Then we headed back to the house.

Sept 14

September 14 Thursday. I got up really early to go out to an internet cafe, but it seems most of them don't open until later but I found one and was able to use Skype okay to call my mom. Then I ate some more "cake" for breakfast, more like a plain muffin actually. The day before I was charged 125 riyals I think, which I thought was expensive for Yemen, maybe .60 cents. And then yesterday I was only charged 25 riyals, or maybe 12 cents. I'm pretty sure it was the same guy too... Then I went off to my lesson at 9:30 but Isma'il didn't show up then (he has a reputation for being the best teacher, but also always being late) so after about a half hour I started walking back to the student housing when I ran into a new student named Matthew from the UK who just arrived today. He was with Abdul Karim getting a tour of the school, etc, but since it is the weekend most people weren't around at the school, ie the director. So I was just hanging out on the street watching packs of wild cats and talking to the children. Then I ran into Matthew again after he finished at the institute, so we talked for awhile. He has studied Arabic for two years at Oxford, I think, and is planning to stay here for 10 to 12 months. Then all of a sudden Isma'il came walking down the street, we weren't even at the school... He apologized for being late, the water at his house wasn't working so he had to wait for it to be repaire, I guess. So we had our lesson for an hour, and Isma'il invited me, Matthew, and Marcus to lunch at his house. We took a tiny, cramped, and very hot bus out to his house in the old Jewish quarter. We had a really delicious salad to start with, and then bint as-sahn, which is this sort of sweet bread-like concoction, it was very good. Along with rice, salta, some beef and potatoes. We ate with his two sons. So we sat around in his mafraj for an hour or so until his friend came and me and Matthew went along with them to another house where they were having a gat chew. They were a bunch of teachers and government officials, so it was a little easier talking to them and understanding their Arabic since they are more educated in standard Arabic. After about a half an hour there me and Matthew headed back to the student housing and I got ready to go to the wedding. Went and met Hassan at his store, he was all dressed up in the long white thobe, and jambiya (the dagger), and suit jacket. And he introduced me to a lot of his friends, and relatives before going to the actual wedding. The actual wedding consists of really loud music, lots of traditional dancing with the dagger. They had fireworks, and some foam they were spraying on everyone. And the groom was really dressed up. It is strange though because they push me right up to the front with the groom to have my picture taken with him and I don't even know him nor did I talk to him. I did have my first encounter with someone who really didn't like Americans, or at least American politics. I couldn't understand exactly what he was saying but knew it wasn't positive towards Americans. His friend or relative that was with him kept telling me to ignore him "he's not educated!" And then when he started listing off things "Afghanistan.... Iraq..." his friend just took him away. And that was that. This wedding took place all outside on the street, and then everyone goes to this large tent they set up, which is made to be a big mafraj, sitting room, where people can continue chewing their gat. The power cut out briefly so we all sat in the dark for awhile. Then as we were leaving the wedding we ran into one of Hassan's friends who is studying at a university, and studies English at an institute. He was very good with English, and his Arabic was very intelligible to me. So we sat on this overpass walkway talking mostly in Arabic for a long time. This stranger that neither of them knew even stopped for awhile to talk and listen when he noticed this foreigner speaking Arabic. Except he was really difficult to understand so, Hassan's friend Abdulla, would have to slow it down and make it more understandable for me. The other guy wanted to know all about elections in America, how they are different from Yemen, what do we think about the elections in Yemen, etc. They also both were emphasizing how killing is not Islamic, and that Osama is not a real Muslim. Anyways, I plan to meet up with Abdulla again, I think he can help me a lot with my Arabic since he can speak the spoken and standard Arabic and help me understand both...

Sept 13

Sept 13 Wednesday Today... Got up really early at 6:30 because I wanted to try the Skype-to-phone thing again, maybe when it is less busy in the morning. But the 'good/fast' internet cafe wasn't open... The first class was good, we reviewed from yesterday and covered some more news headlines. After class I went to the store near the school to buy some water and talked to the teenage kid who works there a little bit. His names Hassan and he's really nice, when I thought I didn't have the right amount for the water he said "no problem, pay me tomorrow" then a guy, Abdul Lilah, who lives near the store was walking by and started talking to me in English. He almost didn't believe me when I told him I was from America... That seems to be somewhat common, most people are just surprised that an American would come here, I guess. He asked me how I liked Yemen, and I told him it is nice but that I don't know where anything is, and then he offered to take me to buy a cell phone after my next class. I went back to the student house and went up to the mafraj, the sitting room at the top of most of the houses here, and watched some Arabic news while I did my homework. Went to my next class which consists of half an hour of conversation and then analyzing a text for meaning and grammar. He is a pretty good teacher from what I've seen so far. He seems to know what he is doing at least. Then he offered to have class with me (also Marcus too, but individually) tomorrow, even though it is the weekend here. Maybe the institute pays him more, but I don't think I will pay anything additional. Means more homework of course. After class I returned to that store to meet Abdul Lilah, but Hassan said he wasn't there right now. So instead I hung out at the store for a little over an hour talking with Hassan about Yemen, the elections, soccer, and whatever. Even he says that Isma'il is the best teacher at the institute, and I guess Isma'il is the father of one of Hassan's friends. They know everyone in their neighborhood. Who they are, where the work, lots of things. Then Abdul Lilah showed up and he drove me out to get a cell phone in the electronics area. He was with his uncle and cousin and they were on there way to a wedding. We found a cheap phone a Nokia for about $50, but I had to have a copy of my passport to activate it, which I didn't know. But he said he would take me to the store again tomorrow, and then we would go to the wedding of one of his best friends. Hassan invited me to the same wedding earlier when I was with him. At least with one class tomorrow, and a wedding to go to in the evening I won't be too bored on the first day of the weekend.

Sept 12

Sept 12 I had my first day of classes today (Tuesday). I got up bright and early at around 7am, which is really really early for me. It is really cool because my room faces east so I got to see the sun rise over the large mountain to the east. And my room has the famous stained glass windows at the top which project all sorts of colors onto the walls of my room when the sun shines through them. I still don't really know where to go to eat breakfast or what to eat, and yesterday I just went straight to my first class at 8am. My first class is 2 hours long with a guy named Faris. He is a good teacher from what I can tell so far. He speaks almost entirely in Arabic, he went to Al-Azhar university in Egypt, which is one of the best universities in the Arab world. He is originally from Ta'izz, a small city south of Sana'a, so he speaks a different dialect than that of Sana'a, but he speaks in Standard Arabic basically all the time. It looks like we will divide the two hours between my book from the University of Washington "Al-Kitaab fii Taallum al-Arabiya" for the first hour, and then reading from daily news articles and media. He focused on journalism and media at Al-Azhar, so it is right up his alley. I get out at 10am, and have a three and a half hour break between classes, so I went an internet cafe and was able to call my Mom with Skype, although it was 12:30am in Bremerton... Whoops. But it worked okay for Skype-to-Skype. I returned to the school and chatted with Marcus and my other teacher Isma'il and found out where I could get I haircut... So I headed out for the main square Tahrir and found a barber shop. With my basic vocabulary and hand gestures I was able to tell him what I wanted. He was a funny guy, he was singing the whole time, and many people seem to just hang out at the barber shop and they were talking to me, asking where I'm from, how much a haircut is in the US, do I like Yemen, etc, etc. The haircut turned out pretty good, especially given the language barrier, and it only cost $1.50! So cheap. So I returned to the school for my next class, but I made the teacher Isma'il take me to a restaurant so I could get some food. I still feel ackward going to a restaurant alone. He took me to a small place near Bab Al-Sabah (Gate of the Morning?) and I ate something like the famous Salta dish, except with meat added. It was pretty good, you dip chunks of bread into the stew like concoction. Then we returned to the school to have the second hour of class, which was basically a introduction of what my expectation are, what his methods are, etc. Then I basically wandered around on my own, to a tea shop, to the new part of the city. Tried to call my with skype-to-phone but it didn't work very well... It kept cutting out and breaking up. Well, I tried to find another way to call, using a normal telephone, but I guess it is about $1 per minute to call the US. Very expensive. And then the power cut out for the first time for me. I guess this is a somewhat normal occurance. So I decided to go to sleep early.

First Post

Asalaamu aleykum! I have arrived to Yemen in one piece!
Things began very smoothly, my mom drove me to the airport at 3:30am on the 6th. The flights went fine, and everything went as planed. I arrived in London not too long after. I had about 16 hours in London, and since I bought two seperate tickets it was necessary that I pay to have my luggage held while I left the airport. It was about $12 per bag. Then I found my way to the "tube" or the subway system and made my way to the Baker Street area without any problems. It cost me $8 one way from Heathrow. London is a very expensive city. I was able to meet up with my relatives outside of Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum as planned at 10:30am. We did the wax museum which was fun... Got my picture taken with Tony Blair, George Bush, the Beatles, etc. Then we hoped on a double decker bus to drive through the city and see some of the sights on the way to the Eye of London. The huge ferris wheel on the Thames River. It had really great views from there. Then we hoped on the bus again to see the sights and head towards a place where we caught a cruise down the Thames, which was also very cool. The weather was great in London, by the way. And then we caught a taxi to the famous Harrod's department store where they bought me a few gifts to take with me to Yemen (some English biscuits and a keychain). Then I eventually headed back to the airport to await my Dubai departure. I really liked London a lot. It is a beautiful city. Reminded me of Paris. But in English. And really really expensive for everything.
No problems with my flight to Dubai, I fly Emirates airlines, which was really nice, I thought. Good food and service. I slept basically the whole way through the flight to London and also the flight to Dubai. Only waking when the brought around the food. In Dubai I was able to meet up with my friend Abdulla at the airport at our agreed upon time. He brought his friend Muhammad who served as driver and tour guide for the day. He had a really nice car too... We drove around watching the movie Crash on DVD while seeing the sights. Interesting. We picked up some breakfast from a Lebanese restaurant, but many things were closed that day because it was Friday (the holy day like Sunday). And they don't really like to be outside of some place that is air conditioned for very long at all... Nor did I. The heat and humidity is incredible in Dubai. As soon as I stepped outside the airport it hit me like a ton of bricks. Thankfully everywhere is air conditioned, they are even planning on making air conditioned bus stops. We saw all the big sights, the "old" souq (old for Dubai) and all the new projects they are building. The man made Palm Islands in the desert. Saw the beaches, the seven star Burj al-Arab. Then we went to a few different malls. Mercato, a really extravagant and beautiful Italian themed mall. Then to Ibn Battuta Mall (he was the Muslim Marco Polo but traveled much further) which was also highly decorated with different areas of the world (ie one portion is China, Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, etc). This mall was even complete with three Starbucks, so it was truly like I never left home. Then we went back to Abdulla's house and watched some TV and they went to the neighborhood mosque for Friday prayer. Then two more of Abdulla's friends came over and we had a really big meal, too much really! Then all of us hit the road again so they could show me around. It is a really amazing city. Very different. So modern, and so mixed. There are many Europeans, Hindis, Muslims, etc. You see a European guy wearing a Speedo on the beach one second, and then another a women fully covered in black except her eyes and carrying a Coach, or Fendi purse. Very strange.
Anyways, I was supposed to fly out n the 9th at 7am, but someone in my super tired, jet lagged state I misread the time and thought it was actually 9am departure. So I woke up at 6:30 to catch my flight and soon realized that I was totally wrong and couldn't make my flight... It ended up being okay... I had a $150 charge to reschedule my flight. But the first available was September 11th. So I had to stay in Dubai for two more nights. Thankfully Abdulla was gracious enough to let me sleep at his house for that time. We didn't do a whole lot those next two days, went to the mall, say an American movie at the cinema, went to an internet cafe, watched TV, played Playstation 2. Really it felt like I was still in the US (until I stepped outside, of course). All in all it is a very safe place, you can use English any where, in fact even the Arabs need to know English in order to do anything.
So thankfully I made the flight this morning. Abdulla's driver took me to the airport, and he came with also. The flight was pretty late taking off, at least an hour. It was a very crowded flight too. This flight was a little scary at times... Fine until we came close to Sana'a and all of sudden there was quite a bit of shaking and turbulence. And we as came down to land (we were almost touching the ground!) the pilot abruptly pulled up and back into the air to circle back around again a few times before making another landing... Apparently there was another plane going to land. I don't know it was very strange and I've never experienced that before. Then comes customs... I thought that since I had obtained a scanned copy of the visa that I didn't have to wait in the Visa line, so I just went directly to customs... They are extremely slow and after about 30 minutes they told me I had to go to the Visa line, where I waited for another half an hour to obtain the original copy of the visa and then returned to customs... They were chatting me up in Arabic, happy that I was coming to study the language. By this time I was literally the last person out of customs on that flight. Then I found Osman from my school, he had a sign that said "SIAL" so it was easy. The airport is extremely small, so everything is easy to find and get around with. Osman was pretty friendly and we took a short drive to the school. There I met the director and talked with him for awhile so he could get to know me (speaking all in Arabic, of course) and what I am looking for in terms of my studies since it is one-on-one. Then I was to take an Arabic placement test so they could get an idea of my level. It took quite awhile actually, and there were some things that I wasn't familiar with. While I was taking my test a guy came and introduced himself, a fellow student here name Marcus from Switzerland, and he offered to show me around after he got out of his class and I finished my test. He took me to the Student Housing and I was able to pick out my room. The place is pretty nice, I have a wardrobe, a small desk, and bed... Bathroom down the hall with western style toilets which is a good thing. There are only 5 people living here right now I guess. Another American who I haven't met, Marcus, and two Brits. Very small, many of the students elect to stay in hotels or their own apartments since it is so cheap. This seems fine though, it is only around the corner from the school.
After I dropped off my stuff he showed me around the new part of town a little bit, exchanged some money then we took a bus out to one of the nicer restaurants. Got some pretty good kebabs, with rice and Arabic bread. All in all it was about $3.50 for both of us, and he insisted that he pay since it was my first day in town. During our ride on the "bus" (actually a small van that they fill with people) to the restaurant we were talking with a Yemeni university student who studies English, and practiced our Arabic, then at the end he insisted that he pay for our fare which was very nice of him. In US dollars it is about 10 cents each. We headed back towards the school, and he took me to his favorite tea house. A tiny hole in the wall, but with pretty good tea. Everyone is pretty friendly, expecially the children. I can't walk from the student house to the school without at least half a dozen or more "Hello!" "How are you?" "Asalaamu Aleikum!" And most Yemenis don't even really notice us walking down the streets, I thought maybe because I am a foreigner I would attract a lot of stares and strange looks, but not at all. Doesn't seem like the even notice, unless they want to sell me something.
After that I had to return to the school to meet with the director again and discuss money and class schedule. He was running late though so I talked to one of the teachers here, Ismail, who is supposedly the best one here, and who will be teaching me for two hours per day. He talked to me all in Arabic again, and said I was advanced and "why did you come to study Arabic? You are done, very good!" Of course it's not true, but hey, it's nice. Eventually meet with the director after I explored on my own for a little bit. I guess I will be meeting with Faris from 8am to 10am, and Ismail from 1:30 to 3:30. At least for now. Then I went out exploring on my own again, trying to get my bearings, find an internet cafe, etc. Sana'a is a really, really busy, lively and active city. Very noisy too. There are people everywhere. They drive really crazy, basically wherever they feel like and they honk the horn for anything... To give a warning to pedestrians, to say hello, to get other cars to move, whatever. So there is constant noise from cars, children, people. I didn't want to venture too far though and end up lost on my first, and as I was headed back to a main square I heard someone yelling my name, Marcus who was hanging out with a Yemeni friend of his in the square. So I joined them for a little bit. And since it was my first day in Yemen his friend insisted that I go see Bab al-Yemen one of the main gates to the Old City of Sana'a. We got there and it is pretty impressive, again it was a very active area. Then we were invited in to a shop to see a camel turning a wheel to make oil... The first time I have seen a camel, I think, at least not in a zoo. He was busy eating though, and wasn't working then. I thought it was like a tourist trap and they would invite us in to look at it and then ask us for money when we left, but surprisingly no, and then the boy took us to a place where we could climb on top of Bab al-Yemen to sit and hang out. Again, no charge, just being hospitable. Neither Marcus nor the native Yemen had ever been up there, so it was a first for them too. Marcus has been here for three weeks now, and had studied here two years ago also. We just hung out on top of Bab al-Yemen for awhile, watching the people and talking in Arabic.
Then they wanted to go to a cafe in Old Sana'a... Old Sana'a is a 500 year old maze of small streets and alleys and many things for sale, again very busy and alive. Well, even with out native Yemeni leading the way we didn't find a cafe, and ended up lost and went in a complete circle accidently which lead back to Bab al-Yemen. It is that confusing there! He lead us back to the student housing which is just between the Old City and the new. Marcus had homework to do, and I really, really needed to take a shower. Our bathroom is okay. It is a hand held shower head, just like I had in Italy. The water runs really hot though... we don't have very strong cold water.
Yeah, so I am typing all of this from my laptop in my room and will be able to save it and send it at an internet cafe tomorrow...