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.