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).