Oct 17

Tuesday Oct 17
Today slept until nearly 1pm. Ismail called to see about class at 1:30, but told him I still didn't feel up to it. Took my medications and went down to the kitchen to eat a bowl of cereal. I figured fasting wouldn't do anything to help me get over a cold. After that I grabbed my books and headed up to the mafraj where I was going to attempt to homework, however I still really don't feel up to it due to this cold, so I just sat around and watched TV. Caught some Seinfeld, which is always great, and then some Full House. Then watched the last half of Finding Forrester, which is good because I watched maybe the last 10 minutes last night and didn't have any idea what was going on... It's too bad I didn't catch it all, it seems like a good flick. Then I went out for dinner at Palestine Restaurant. Had the usual half chicken and rice. Although this half chicken was apparently the burnt, or extra crsipy half. Ater that I went to the juice bar for a half strawberry, half orange juice mix... Figured all the extra vitamin C I can get will only help me in ridding this cold. Then I headed back to the house where I talked with Matt for a bit, and then proceeded to type for hours and hours, seemingly.

Oct 16

Monday Oct 16
Slept nearly straight from 8pm to 8am... Woke up briefly and went back to sleep until past noon. I wasn't going to fast when I am sick, so I was drinking all the water I had in sight. I went up stairs to the mafraj to lay around and watch some tv. I brought my Mawaaz ("Man Skirt") to use as a blanket, and just drifted in and out of sleep upstairs. At some point the Italian guy came up and said goodbye, I guess he was flying back to Italy tonight. Seems like he had just arrived. I barely ever saw him, and honestly only got the chance to talk to him on the day he arrived, and the day he left. By the time the fast break came, I was hungry but didn't really feel like eating anything... Ended up going back down to my room for a few hours until about 8pm when I went out for the two falafels at the cheap falafel place... I bundled myself up nicely, since I feel colder than usual. Only ate one and a half of though and threw the other half on the ground (I feel so apprehensive about littering, but you just don't find garbage cans here... And I guess it is adapting to a Yemeni lifestyle). After that I headed off to the internet cafe to email my Mom so she wouldn't think I was dead, or kidnapped. At this point I barely had a voice, it was so hoarse from coughing. So I decided I needed to stop off at the Pharmacy. I just went in and told him I was sick, and give me whatever will help me... He gave me some Neo-Codion syrup a cough suppressant, and some Sedergine fizzy water dissolvable tablets for pain and flu-like symptoms I guess... I have never heard of either of them, but didn't really care as long as it helped. I was feeling pretty miserable at this point, the sickest I have been for a while actually. The medicine cost me 600 riyals ($3). After that I went to that Anti-America Tea Shop around the corner hoping that the warm drink would sooth my throat from all the coughing. Then I visited my friend at the store to pick up some milk for my cereal, so I wouldn't have to leave when I wanted to eat, as well as some orange juice for the vitamin C. Came back took my medicine and then went up to the mafraj to watch some bad English language movies, such as Black Knight with Martin Lawrence, where he gets sent back to medievel times. I did notice the medicine helped with the cough, at the least, althought I still sound like death.

Oct 15

Sunday Oct 15
Woke up feeling not very well at all... My slight cough from yesterday had become a violent cough. And I had thought the cough was maybe just irritation from sitting around too many chain smoking Yemenis in a closed-off mafraj's, but I guess not... I canceled class with Faris and basically just slept. I was sleeping when I was awoke at about 4pm by "RYANNN! RYAAAN! RYAAAN!" from someone shouting really loudly from outside (I live on the third floor) and also pounding on the door knocker... It really threw me off guard, and I scrambled around trying to find my glasses. I recognized that the voice was Ismail's and I was looking at my windows fir him but I couldn't see him. I then scrambled down stairs in my pajamas to open the door, and sure enough it was Ismail. I had turned off my phone earlier, so I wouldn't be awoken. I hadn't predicted someone coming to my house shouting my name. He asked me how I was, and said we could have class at his house tonight at 8pm like last week, since he missed the lesson yesterday. I agreed, if only cause I was still have asleep and we said bye. I turned my phone on at the point, and at around 5:30 Matt called me to let him in the house because he still didn't have a key. Said his first day was alright, mostly just orientation type stuff. We ended up going out to break the fast a little later than usual. Back to the 2nd Floor Shaky place. The three Yemenis sitting at the table next to us kept gesturing for us to come join them to eat, which is also pretty common, but we just thanked them and waited for our normal chicken and rice meal. Well, turns out they just brought us one huge plate of rice, and said there was no chicken now... I also asked for tea, which I never got. So really it was a horribly unsatisfying meal of just a big plate of rice. The three Yemenis told us to go to another restaurant after this one for the chicken, although we didn't end up doing that. When they left they gave us their vegetable dish, bread and other leftovers. We returned back to the house for a bit. Sandra called Matt to invite me along to Al-Shallal tonight for her fairwell meal before she left for Germany tomorrow. They were to meet at 8:45... I said I'd go, although I was also supposed to have class at 8 at Ismail's... But I really wasn't feeling up for going all the way to Ismail's and sitting around while he chain smokes for 3 hours when I am sick with a sore throat and constant cough, so I texted him and told him I still wasn't feeling up for it. Matt headed out for Sandra's goodbye dinner, and I told him to say bye for me, and sorry I couldn't make it. Then I just ended up going to sleep.

Oct 14

Saturday Oct 14
Today was a holiday, the day the British were kicked out of the south, so no class, but I had arranged to have class with Ismail at 1:30 today. I knew he wouldn't exactly be on time, and so I went to the institute at 1:45. Of course no Ismail still. I sat around out in the garden, still have asleep, until nearly 2:15 when the director noticed and asked when I was supposed to have class. He then went off and told Ahmed, the language coordinator, who then called Ismail. I think he was still sleeping. He handed the phone over to me and we talked for a bit. He apologized, but said it wasn't easy for him to get up at this hour... which I knew it wouldn't be, which is why I didn't want to arrange class at such an 'early' time. He said tomorrow, hopefully... So I just returned back to the house to get a few more hours of sleep. I didn't really mind that he didn't make it, I actually minded more that I bothered waking up at all and walking out to the institute. Then at 4 I was awoken by Matt knocking on my door. Apparently, Tariq, Hani's friend from yesterday, had just called and woke him up and insisted that we come meet him at his house at 5pm for Iftar feast again. So basically just woke up and headed out on the road... We weren't exactly sure if we'd be able to find our way back to his house so we left with extra time. We hopped on a bus heading south from the Sa'ila, to go to the Safia district/Taizz road (the only landmarks we could remember from yesterday). We were the only ones on the bus so he essentially made it into a taxi and charged us more than the normal 10 cents each, up to 25 cents each since he drove off his fixed route of the Sa'ila (even though we didn't ask him to) up to Ta'izz street. The Safia district turns out to be pretty large... and We weren't really sure where exactly they lived around Ta'izz street. But we realized they were more south from where we presently were and just started walking. We asked around, but weren't really sure what to ask for, because as it turns out the street we wanted, and thought was Ta'izz Street, was actually Abu Dhabi Street, so it didn't do us much good.... We were just lucky enough to stumble across a hotel we remembered from the night before, if only because of it's name, the "Nice Palace Hotel". We remembered that as we were pulling out from his street. So we found the street that they lived on, and then randomly some guy came up and started shaking our hands and asking us how we're doing, and that Tariq is waiting. We weren't exactly sure who he was, but we later figured out that he was one of Tariq's brothers. We then found Hani's house and his car, and he knew that Tariq lived two buildings up. So we asked some little kids on the street if they knew Tariq, and where he lived (which of course they did, because everyone knows everyone in their neighborhood here in Yemen). Then one of them lead us to the apartment where he lived, and even right up to his door. We knocked and he was blown away that we were literally at his doorstep without knowing where he lived prior to this, or calling him, or anything. He invited us in. he has a nice modest apartment. He is a newly-wed of about 2 months. We sat around for a little bit talking while we waited for his brothers to return from the souq. Apparently they all live in the same apartment. We ended up leaving and meeting up with his two brothers (no rhyming names this time) Waleed, and Hani (or Hani al-Thani "Hani the Second" since we met his friend Hani just yesterday). Then we hailed a taxi from Abu Dhabi street and headed south quite a ways. We drove by what is apparently the presidents fortress... of which all I could see was a huge, huge, huge gated area (there is even a hill/mountain inside it) with barbed-wire across the top... We arrived at the house of one of their friends. They had a nice place, with a large diwan, which was overpowered with incense, along with a entertainment center and TV. We sat around watching the horrible Yemeni station until it was time to break the fast. We were joined by many more of their friends, and I wasn't really quite sure who everyone was, and how they were related/knew one another, with the exception of Tariq and his brothers. The iftar feast was all the normal things... I was really quite stuffed. They even topped it off with dessert, which was like rawani (cake-like) but different, something I hadn't tried before, and much much sweeter. Almost too sweet, as I was only able to eat a little bit of it. This dinner was particularly good though... It was enormous too, with nearly 10 people there. I was also happy because they had Bint as-Sahn (Daughter of the Dish) which is one of my favorite Yemeni dishes, but you don't find it in restaurants, and they only cook it at home every so often because it is very labor intensive. After dinner the whole group of them gathered for prayer in the mafraj, which was a first. I mean I've been at a few Yemeni's houses when they've excused themselves for prayer, but they usually just go into the other room for prayer so I'm not sitting there watching them, but this time they whole group of 10 of them all just prayed in front of us facing toward Mecca (which happened to be facing away from us). After that we all just sat around in the mafraj talking once more... We were joined by more of their friends and or family after not too long. I don't know, both Matt and I felt like our Arabic was failing us that night, so we spent most of the night listening to them, and trying to answer questions when we were prompted. It is strange how your confidence or capabilities in a language shifts from day to day. You'd think it would be a steady climb up, but it goes up and down. Some days I feel I can express myself on almost anything my vocabulary permits, and then other days it feels like I can never find the words. Today was just one of those off days, I guess, for both of us no less. Maybe just due to a late late night, and lack of sleep. Who knows. Everyone is always interested in whether I've obtained scholarships from my school or government to study here, and they are all appalled when I tell them "the bill's on me" because it seems that all study abroads from Arab countries even Yemen, are usually financed by a scholarship. They tell me, no, Arabic is very important in the West now, especially in America, they should have to give a scholarship! I just laugh, and say, yes I wish they had to give me scholarship. Yemen is cheap. But hey, free is cheaper. They were also interested in how Americans felt about Arabs, particularly after September 11th... If there is a lot of hatred towards them as a whole. We hadn't planned on staying so late, especially since tomorrow was Matt's first day at work, and he started at 9:30 (definitely not Ramadan friendly hours), but we didn't realize that we were going all the way to their friend's house, so we were kind of obligated to staying until they wanted to leave, which ended up being at about midnight. We hopped into a bus and drove back into their part of town, where the power was now out. We said bye to his two brothers and Tariq waited with us at the corner for a bus to Tahrir. We thanked him a lot for a great evening, and promised to do it again soon, hopefully. After that we both nearly ran back to the house because we were both in dire need of the bathroom. Then we decided to go out for a cup of tea with milk from the local tea shop. I've only been there once or twice before, this time he asked me where I was from and then infomed me that "Amreeka mish tammam, mish tammam..." (Not good...) After that I came back to the house, but was starting to not feel so great. I had a tremendous headache, and had a slight cough all day. I popped two tylenol PM and soon went to sleep.

Oct 13

Friday Oct 13
Again woke up at just about 4pm... Matt had lost his key a few days ago somehow, and we ran into the accountant who told us of a place where we could get a copy made... We wandered over into the direction he told us, but could find no such shop. As we were walking through Bab Al-Sabah Matt got a call from Hani from yesterday, he told us to meet him in the same place in the souq as yesterday in 10 minutes... Of course right now was the pre-fast breaking rush in the souq and you could barely move at all, let alone get all the way to another souq in 10 minutes, so we ended up being a little late. We met Hani there he took us to his car where we also met one of his brothers his brothers son, and their Dad. The dad was lounged in the back half asleep holding this 6 month old baby, I was crammed up next to him, along with Hani all in the back seat. We slowly drove to another part of the souq so they could pick up some additional food, I think, for our fast breaking meal. After that we took off down the Sa'ila, a little faster now as we were away from the crowds of the souq, and headed south to the Safia district where they lived. Outside their house we met some of their neighbors and friends, one of them Tariq had lived in the UK for 5 years while his Dad was gettings his doctorate, and spoke really good English. We then went into Hani's house and sat in one of the mafraj's while the food was prepared in the other room. We met his other two brothers... Sami, and Rami... Yes, Sami, Hani, Rami... At the proper hour we went into the next room to break the fast with the typical samboosa and dates as appetizers, in addition to some delicious pizza squares too... Then we went back into the mafraj to await the main courses. When you haven't eaten all day: "shwaya, shwaya" (slowly, slowly)... We returned to that other room after about 10 minutes where there was all the typical fast breaking dishes. Shafoot, chicken, rice, salta, etc.... They are all from Taizz in the south, so they speak different from what I am used to hearing in Sana'a (not that I am that used to it, to be honest). And they prepare the same dishes in a slightly different way, I guess. I particularly liked their shafoot... it was a little thicker, and less spicy too. The whole dinner was really good, and it was great speaking with them, because they spoke really naturally and didn't 'fake' their speech for us (which made it really hard too). I also thought since he was studying English at YALI, that he just wanted us to come over to practice his English with, but he spoke English nearly the whole time, since he was with family who didn't speak English. Their old Dad was really hilarious too. He'd always like slap his hand down on one of our legs and tell us to eat, or eat faster, or "you're good!" or other really random things. He spoke really loud, and was really really hard to understand, but was funny. He would literally just grab pieces of potato or chicken (you eat most things with your hands here) and literally hand them over to us and tell us to eat them. Or he had his own chicken prepared differently from the other two, and he'd pull off pieces of it and tell us its better... At one point grabbing the liver from his chicken and handing it to me. It was interesting to say the least. He kept telling me "Bush isn't good... You are good. But Bush isn't good!" After that returned to the other mafraj for some tea and al-Jazeera news watching. After not too long we were joined by a number of their relatives... Uncles, cousins, friends, who knows... Tariq from earlier came over and Matt and I spent a lot of time talking with him. Even though he spoke English very well, he still spoke to us in Arabic, and it was nice because he was also then able to help us out when we didn't know certain words. It was like a free a lesson. I particularly liked this group of people that we were hanging out with and talking to tonight... from government ministries, doctors, engineers, lived in England 5 years, one studied in Russia for 5 years, bank managers, etc. It was a group of pretty educated and cultured people... Quite different from the Bab al-Sabah area where I live, which is basically the ghetto of Sana'a as far as I can tell, and as far as I have heard from the Yemenis. We ended up hanging out with Hani, Rami, Sami and Co. until nearly 11:30 when we elected that it was about time to go... Hani then drove us all the way back to the institute, telling us it was mandatory, though we insisted we'd be fine walking. Irum had called Matt while we were at Hani's house and arranged to meet up with her and the girls after about a half an hour at the internet cafe. Checked my email and did all that for awhile. Matt said he was going to go make a phone call... I stepped outside after a bit and ran into Irum, Yudid and Sandra. Not long after Taha just happened to walk by and then joined up with us as well. We continued to wait around for Matt, but we weren't really sure where he went or what happened to him. Irum tried phoning him a number of times, but to no avail. Eventually we were able to get through to him, he had been at a phone shop calling back to the UK. We then decided to hop on a bus down to Hadda street to go to Funny Bunny (which I later figured out is also Starbunny Coffee, the Starbucks rip off). So the six of us just sat around in the outdoor garden seating area of this upscale cafe/eatery for some drinks. Although I ordered a cappucino, I somehow ended up with a hot chocolate, and someone else ended up with my cappucino, and I was wondering what was up with my drink... So I didn't get to try the Starbucks rip off coffee, but will hopefully again in the future. We stayed there until nearly 3:30am, just talking. It is Sandra's last few das here in Yemen before she returns to Germany for about a month, and then heads off to Azerbaijan for a 2 to 3 year job commitment. And Yudid is also heading back to Germany for a little bit because her Grandma is really sick. So yeah, we just talked for those two to three hours... We weren't really sure if it would be possible to catch a bus out of hadda back up to Maydan Tahrir, and we were all kind of standing around on the street. We flagged down one that was heading north, with enough room for three... We were calling back to the girls and Taha for one more person, but they weren't listening or something, and while we were hesitating for them the bus nearly just left without us, so we just got on. We just wanted to get out of there because it was absolutely freezing at this time of the night... Matt was literally shaking from the cold, especially with the wind whiping past us (the mini van buses drive with the large sliding door proped open) and he kept joking about just paying the guy 1000 riyals to drive us to the door of our house... Then we got to the end of the line, except it was some place that neither of us recognized or had been to before... It was a new transportation hub, right next a really big mosque. We were really confused because we had just assumed we were heading back to Tahrir, but were now in an entirely new place. We debated about taking a taxi, or walking, or another bus, and we had to ask a number of different people, but we eventually found a bus that headed north towards tahrir. It actually drove straight up the Sa'ila so it brought us closer to our house than the buses to Tahrir. When we got back, Matt gave me a handful of dates before the fast began, and I decided to call it an "early" night because I was pretty wiped out from a lack of sleep.

Oct 12

Thursday Oct 12
Let's see first day of the long 3 day weekend... Slept in late of course, until nearly 4pm. Went out to the souq down the Sa'ila with Matt. Ran into this guy named Hani who started talking to us quite a bit. He works in the Ministry of Human Rights here, and is studying English at YALI, so he jumped on the chance when he saw a few foreigners walking through the souq. He was probably especially excited when he found out that we were American and British no less, most of the foreigners seem to be German, or maybe Italian. Anyways he took Matt's cell phone number and promised to call soon... It is funny because Matt usually always goes by Matthew when he introduces himself to Arabs, maybe due to the fact that 'maat' (basically the same) means 'he died' in Arabic. Well, after that we headed out to the friendly folks' restaurant near Bab Al-Sabah for some salta. Of course they just randomly threw in some shafoot in addition to the rest, as has become customary. I know that shafoot is particularly common during Ramadan, but I'm not sure if it comes with everyone's meals, or just gets tacked on to the foreigners dinners... Matt and I wanted to use the internet but we still had to kill about 30 to 45 minutes until the internet cafes reopened at around 7:15pm. Matt worked in the British Foreign Office in Abu Dhabi last summer I think, and had told his contact there he'd be coming to Yemen, she put him in contact with her colleague at the British Embassy here in Sana'a, so Matt met up with him last week. He didn't have anything for him at the British Embassy, but he put Matt in contact with one of his friends at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Matt met up with them and landed a 3 month internship with UNHCR... Very cool. Anyways, he wanted to pick up some nice dressy shoes for his new internship position, so I accompanied him to the shoe store while we killed time. Matt is a really tall guy, and has big feet to match, so he had quite a bit of problems finding shoes in his size. The first place we went to had a pair in his size, but he really didn't like the style. They were really persistent though and literally bagged the shoes and put the bad in his hand, and dropped the price from 3000 riyals to 2000 ($10), he was only finally able to get them to relent when he told them he would go to the bank for more cash and then return. We went to a different shoe place near Maydan Tahrir. He ended up finding a pretty nice pair of dress shoes for 2700 rials ($13.50) and I also just asked them for a nice pair of sandals that would go well with a thobe... They handed me a light brown pair of sandals. "Gental Man" Sandals, no less. I had problems initially because I had no idea what my European shoe size is, I had to get Matt to assist me in that regard. I wasn't really sure about them, because I hadn't shopped around whatsoever for sandals, and probably could get a really cheap pair from the street vendors, but again they had boxed my "Gental Man" Sandals in their "Gentel Man" box, and bagged them up for me. Cost me 1700 riyals ($8.50)... at least I talked them down from 1800. After that we hung around for Ebharnet Internet Cafe to open, but it still hadn't reopened. We noticed a different internet/phone shop across the street that neither of us had used before, so we decided to give it a shot. Pretty good speed, and really cheap. Basically about 1 riyals per minute. or 1/2 cent per minute. They are all really cheap, but you do find some cheaper than others. I finished up after about half an hour, and left Matt there while I went to the juice bar for the usually big strawberry juice drink and some baklawa desserts. The two baklawa desserts were 50 cents, which is a little expensive compared to some places. And the large strawberry juice drink seems to be one of the more expensive regular purchases I make here, at $1.50. After that I returned to the student house and ran into Ed and Matt. We talked for awhile in the stairs near the kitchen... Then I decided to change into my Yemeni clothes to go lounge in the mafraj while doing homework. However right before I made it to the mafraj the power cut out here, quite early in the evening too. Matt was up in the mafraj too at this time, happily enjoying Al-Jazeera when it suddenly cut up. We sat around debating what to do for awhile. I went and got my laptop so we could listen to music while we talked... My laptop battery doesn't last that long, just over an hour or so at the max. So it eventually cut out too before the power came back on. Also I killed the batteries to the flashlight that I brought with me a few weeks ago when I accidently left it on all night, so all we had for light now was my little pocket flashlight and our cell phones. The power returned maybe not more than a half hour after my laptop died, and al-Jazeera popped back on as well. So I ran back down stairs to grab my books and started studying from the newest chapter from my Arabic book. Both Matt and I studied for many many hours upstairs... I actually got a ton of studying in, wrote a lot of sentences, and so forth, until about 3:30am, when I decided to go grab something to eat. Matt said he couldn't be bothered to go out to a restaurant at this hour, and sat upstairs with his bag of dates. I went back to the 2nd Story Shaky Floor Place from the night before... I asked for the same thing, the fasulia which I liked so much... But was then served some sort of gross bean-cake-thing, which I actually do think is fasulia, but both of them were supposedly fasulia. It was basically just beans mashed up into a disc like shape, and you'd scoop it up with bread... it was kind of luke warm, and not really all that appetizing. One of the few Yemeni foods I really didn't like. Didn't end up finishing it all, didn't think I could, and still keep it all down. It only cost something like 75 cents at least. I returned to the mafraj and Ed was also upstairs with Matt, so we sat around talking about traveling in the Middle East and the like for a bit before Ed went off to pray. I continued doing homework while Matt chanel surfed through Arabic Music stations. He soon went off to bed and I sat up stairs for another couple hours before I went back down to my room... I didn't feel all that tired because of waking up at nearly 4pm, so I ended up playing games on my computer until nearly 10am before finally deciding that I need to go to sleep....

Oct 11

Wednesday Oct 11.
So, woke up late once again... Woke up at 2pm... So I missed class with Faris once again. I'm ready for Ramadan to be finished with already so I can get myself on a normal schedule... These sleeping patterns really mess me up. I just kinda started doing homework when I woke up since I didn't have anything else to do. Matt came back at about 5, and said he got a funny call from the director "HELLO, this is Muhammad al-Anisi, I want to invite you over to my house for breakfast" "Breakfast, oh okay, good. Tomorrow then?" "No! Right now!" The meal which you break you the fast with here is like breakfast, since it is basically the first meal of your day. So Matt basically invited me along too, we weren't sure if it was okay, but figured the director wouldn't care that much. So I ran off with him to the institute and we piled six people into a four seat car... I was crammed right up next to the creepy accountant for the ride to the directors house. He has a pretty nice house, two stories with the third being built, or to be built in the future (Yemeni houses are built layer by layer, even years later... In the student house you can visibly tell the initial building which was maybe 2 stories, and then later added on top of). He has a nice gated entrance way to his house, it reminded me more of the nice houses I saw in Dubai than a house here in Sanaa. I also thought it was interesting that carved or molded right into the concrete all over the house in Arabic was "God" "In the Name of God the Beneficent the Merciful" etc. He had some dates and samboosa's (the delicious fried triangles, with cheese this time, which I prefer) outside in his garden so we could all snack on them initially (got to start slow when you haven't eaten anything all day). There was Me, Matt, Hassan (from older guy from Spain), Ed and Ishaq from the student house, the Accountant who also lives in the student house, a two Malaysian students, along with a few relatives of the director. After we ate the appetizers, Matt and I (the only non-Muslims) went inside to sit in one of the diwans while the director lead everyone in prayer towards Mecca out in his garden. We spied out there on them from the diwan. After a bit everyone came into the mafraj to join us and we talked for a little bit before we were ushered into another diwan where there was a huge spread of food laid out. Here when you eat at someones house, you eat on the floor, in one of the mafraj's or diwans, you'll find the low couch like cushions around the room, with a plastic sheet layed on the ground, and then tons of dishes laid upon it. It seems like it is customary in most Arabic cultures to have tons and tons dishes with food, not just one plate and trays to serve yourself from, but tons of small personal sized dishes. There were literally dozens and dozens of plates for the lot of us. The food was really good, all the normal foods you'd find. Shafoot, Salta, rice, vegetables, chicken, etc. It was all really good, and nice to go to the director's house. After dinner we returned to the other mafraj to drink some post-meal tea (which is usually mandatory). And all talked while we waited for a bus to come pick us all up and take us back to the institute. Saw the director's three kids too... All pretty young. The middle child is absolutely insane. And a total brat too... Before dinner the accountant was playing with the youngest kid (8 months) and the middle child just came up and spat on him. Matt and Markus have both had encounters with him at the institute too... Matt has been spit on by this kid about 5 or 6 times at the institute... It's really funny (when it's not you). He has also thrown rocks at him (he's so young, he can barely throw, but still). He has done similar things to Markus too I guess. I am just lucky I think, as I don't see his kids there very often. I guess the director just lets his kids run amok and do whatever the please. But I don't think anyone has mentioned to him that his kid does this, and he never does it in front of his dad. So yeah, we hopped in the bus and it dropped us of back at the institute, I was running late at this point, because we were only getting back to the student house at 7:45, and I normal leave before then in order to get to my class with Ismail at 8. So I ended up being about 15 minutes late, but it was no problem of course, because we don't start until later. Today we had conversation for nearly 2 hours (in Arabic) before we actually started working from the text. Which is good, it is nice to have practice with the teacher in speaking, because they actually correct your mistakes, which people on the street don't do. Stayed at Ismails until nearly 1am. Came back to the house and messed around on my computer until late into the night as has become customary. But tonight before I went to sleep I went out to the Shaky 2nd Floor restaurant, asked them for the usual chicken and rice, but I guess no rice was to be found at this hour. He told me fasulia and chicken, so I said sure. They brought out the half-chicken (like the kind you'd buy already prepared at safeway), along with a metal plate of small meat chunks and onions, etc which you are to scoop up using hunks of bread. It was really good. Then the cashier even sat down with me at my table to talk with me a bit... Even had a glass of tea with dinner. After that I returned for some sleep.

Oct 10

Tuesday October 10. Woke up at the last minute again... Maybe at 12:45. Class with Faris at 1. He was waiting for me when I got there.... Since I wasn't feeling well the day before and then was pretty busy with Markus and the group I didn't get a whole lot done, so we just decided to have a conversation day... We just talked about all sorts of things and he helped me out with new vocabulary. After class I was going to use the internet, but all the veiled women had taken it over. I have been needing to go to the bank because I apparently need to pay 14,000 riyals ($70) to the accountant in order to arrange my residency permit (to stay longer than two months) here in Sana'a. So I hiked out to the Arab Bank on Al-Zubairi... On the way this teenage Somali kid caught eye of this foreigner walking down the street and followed my for literally two blocks asking for money. I kept telling him no, sorry, I'm a student, but he wouldn't leave me alone, crossing the street with me, etc. He was making me mad so I just gave him 50 riyals (25 cents) to go away, and after I gave him that he said "No, 200"... He didn't really seem to speak much Arabic... Maybe just as much as his English, he just walked beside me with his hand out. Well thankfully he didn't follow me all the way to the Arab Bank to see me pull $200 out from the ATM, then I probably wouldn't have had an excuse. Stopped at the money exchange on the way back to get my nearly 40,000 riyals, after which I feel extremely wealthy as I've never held 40,000 anything in my hand before... Headed back to the house, but turns out I had just missed Markus as he left to the airport, so I never got a chance to say a proper goodbye. I thought I would've seen him today, but not at all. He was probably busy with last minute things. That was too bad. Matt told me he was going to meet up with Ishaq and Ed tonight to go to a different Ethiopian restaurant, and I said I'd come along since I didn't get to eat last night. He ran over to the girls house to give Iram Markus' old phone and phone number which she bought off him. I met up with the two of them at the institute and we headed out to catch a bus to Al-Zubairi. Only problem was we were trying to catch a bus during the fast break, so there was only one bus and no people around. And the buses sit and wait until they are full. And this one bus happened to be one of the few big ones that seat 10-12 people. So we waited like 15 minutes, but thankfully he left with it only half full. Matt had been to this restaurant last week with Ishaq and Ed, but got a little lost. It was a small place but nice, it had outdoor seating under a canopy with lawn furniture. They were also with a girl named Irena, originally from Russia, who I had never met before, and apparently used to study at the institute, but now works at some international organization here. It surprised me because Ishaq and Ed seem like such strict Muslims, and I had thought it might be weird for them to bring Iram along, but it was no problem... The food is different, there were two big platters (one between three people) which had huge things of spongy Ethiopian bread across the bottom of the platter, and then they put a whole bunch of different sections of food right on the bread, which acts like a plate nearly. So you break off sections of bread and scoop up different things, like vegetables, meat, cheeses, egg, etc. It was pretty good, quite a few people here say they like Ethiopian food a lot better than Yemeni, but I found the reverse to be true. It was 640 riyals for each of us ($3.20). I guess Ishaq is going to get married here pretty soon to a Yemeni girl. He has a few Yemeni friends with sisters, and he is in the process of picking his wife... He's seen a picture of one of them, but is waiting to see the other. So I guess he will be moving out of the house in December or so to get a house with his wife... He also plans on staying here for 6 or 7 more years... Crazy, yeah. So I walked out to Ismail's house, thankfully I found my way there coming from such a different direction. I was early even so I gave him a call to see if I could come up. Lessons were good... Normal dessert, and tea, and sha'ir (tea-like, but made from barley) and a new drink which is made from some sort of red flower, which ended up being pretty good. Lessons with Ismail are good, I feel like I learn quite a bit with him, and after six months I should be able to develop my knowledge of the "system" with him, and then lots of vocabulary to fit into the system with the other teacher, Faris. Only two weeks until my birthday here in Yemen... I have no idea what that will be like, probably like any other day here in Yemen though.

Oct 9

Monday October 9.
Got up at about 12:40... Threw on my clothes and ran off to class. Class was okay with Faris again. But during class my stomache started acting strange, making weird noises and turning into knots. I made it through class but afterwards I started to feel more queasy... Sat up in the mafraj doing homework in between a few trips to the bathroom. I took some immodium (a necessity here in Yemen) to try and help out, which it started to do eventually. Woke Matt up from his mafraj nap at the proper hour to go get some food, even though I wasn't feeling great, I was still starving because of the fast. We elected to go to our usual cheap falafal hut since we didn't want to fill up as we were all going to be going out after Markus' class at 10 to an Ethiopian restaurant, and bowling afterwards which he wanted to do for his last night here in Yemen. Also, after class I had changed into my full on Yemeni clothes because I decided it would be great fun to go bowling while wearing a thobe and jambiya... The falafal restaurant wasn't quite open yet (they were eating) so we went to a nearby store for some drinks and started talking to a whole bunch of people. They were all really nice and some were particularly amused with my outfit. Whenever I try to order a Mountain Dew (because it has the most caffeine of the sodas) they also have a hard time understanding me when I say it correctly, because the Arabicize it somewhat, but I learned that they just refer to it as "Diw" not quite "dooo"... Anyways back to the falafal stand for two of them for 60 riyals (30 cents) and we walked around and ate them. Returned to the house, and I soon started feeling not so great again after eating. Grr... shouldn't have gone to that hole in the wall kebab stand that morning... Yeah, the immodium had helped earlier but the food made my stomach act up again so I just decided to call Ismail and cancel class today. I didn't want be forced to encounter a Yemeni bathroom, not an experience I would ever look forward to. Nor did I want to have the sudden urge to use the bathroom during my trip to his house. So I just decided it would be better if I laid in bed to let my stomach calm down because I didn't want to miss going out with everyone on Markus' last night here. So yeah I started to feel better gradually after I got it out of my system and Matt and I went and met up with everyone in front of the institute at 10. Let's see, there was Me, Matt, Markus, Sandra and Yudid (the two Germans), there was Matt's friend Iram (who I finally met now) along Markus' Yemeni friend Adel, his teacher Ahmed, and Taha (Sandra's teacher). Everyone was commenting on my Yemeni clothes, of course, and we all went off to find a bus. Ran into the homeless kid who helped me buy all my clothes and he hung around with us while we waited for a bus in the Sa'ila. Ahmed was joking around with the little kid about how I am a tribesman now, but it is necessary that I have a machine gun, and the little kid got all serious about it asking me if I want one, but that they are pretty expensive. It was funny. We piled into two seperate buses from the Sa'ila and headed out to the Ethiopian restaurant, which I think was near Al-Zubairi street, but I kind of got turned around. I had decided not to eat anything, because I didn't want my stomach to act up again so I just talked with everyone and watched them eat. It was good because we spoke a lot of Arabic between the lot of us as the teachers don't really speak much English. We spent nearly two hours there I think, and Markus insisted the meal was on him, which I thought was backwards since its his last day, he should've been on us... I did drink some a few bottles of water there hoping to keep my stomach settled, and also had a cup of Ethiopian coffee, which was my first real coffee since arriving in Yemen. It was really good, but very strong too. Also I found it strange that for dessert they brought out a huge tray of popcorn... Never had that at a restaurant before, and I'm not sure if it is typical Ethiopian or what. I also heard one of the funniest things I've heard since I got here... Matt was talking to Adel about the majnoon (crazy person) who lives on our street (or rather used to, he had disappeared a week ago, but was spotted at the girls house) I wasn't in the conversation at this point, but Matt insisted that Adel tell me what he just told him... He said he knew that majnoon and that he wasn't really majnoon, he is actually a spy for the government's secret police, and that most of the majnoon are just acting! I just started laughing there, picturing the poor majnoon who was always constantly harassed by children, 24 hours a day, getting slapped around, bandages on his head from the children attacking him, walking around playing a guitar with no strings and singing crazily (Matt's sighting), all of it as an act, and he is actually a spy. It was too funny. Immediately when we left the restaurant Matt and I started talking about it... Maybe he speaks 4 or 5 languages, maybe those bandages on his head are actually spy cameras, the dirty clothes and mangy hair fully equipped with various spy gear... I don't know, but I will never look at another majnoon the same way again! As I was leaving the restaurant there were two fully veiled women sitting near the entrance way and they just all the sudden started talking to me because of my clothes... I couldn't understand everything they were saying except "Thanks to God" "good" and the thumbs up... It just really caught me off guard because you just don't talk to any Yemeni women here, and they don't talk to you. With the exception of the (rare) woman who works in a store, or the women who pan handle for money around Tahrir square... Oh and one time when I was walking by a Yemeni woman said hello in English. It was just really strange to talk with some veiled women here, which lead me to believe that they might not have even been Yemeni, but perhaps Ethiopians (it was an Ethiopian restaurant after all) but how would I know with the veils... After the restaurant the two teachers and three girls left the four of us (me, Matt, Markus and Adel) for home, and off to Fun City for bowling we went. By now it was just after midnight, and we had to walk a bit before we could catch a bus down to Hadda street. I saw the Porsche dealership, a really fancy Sony store, another Radio Shack, the Kentucky Fried Chicken... We arrived to where we needed to be and walked out to Fun City, but when we got there it was closed. I guess they close at about 1am or so... It had taken us awhile to get there too. So we were all disappointed, but Matt and I wanted to go to Baskin Robbins because we'd been talking about it for a week or so now, so we drug Adel and Markus along. It was about a block or two (big blocks) north of Fun City. We found Baskin Robbins... turned out to be just a tiny little ice cream shack, I was expecting a normal restaurant or sit down type area, and it didn't really look like they had a lot to offer... Not to mention it was also closed. This was all really surprising since it is Ramadan right now and everything stays open really late. So we went into KFC to see if they had any ice cream or desserts... Which they didn't. But the KFC is really really nice... Nicer than the ones in the US, it is also really huge. And I saw the nicest bathrooms I've seen since arriving to Yemen... Clean, nice, new. There were even urinals, which I haven't seen here, and there was normal sinks, with a soap dispenser and a air hand dryer! It was like a 5 star environment! To think that the average and unexceptional KFC in the US is a really nice fancy treat and atmosphere here is interesting. The prices seemed to be about the same as what it would be in the US (which is really expensive in riyals). There was also "Chicky Fun Land" which I've never seen in the US, and is basically a McPlayland or whatever they are called at McDonalds. There was even a drive through too, with dozens of cars lined up at 1:30 or 2 in the morning. It was quite the experience, even though we didn't get anything there and just stared at the menu, but it felt like I was back in Silverdale or something. After that we started walking back up Hadda Street, I decided to buy a Kit Kat bar, because I hadn't seen Kit Kat before, nor a normal (okay, US-sized) candy bar here... You find Snickers at the little stores, but they are like half-sized... This street vendor had normal ones! They were 100 riyals each (50 cents) so they normal US price as well. It is a nice treat, and the best candy bar I've had in awhile. So we continued walking for a bit before we decided to catch a bus. We had to split up into two's because it can be pretty hard to get four into one of the buses when there is a maximum of six people. After a bit the couple Yemenis across from us started talking to me because of my clothes. "Oh your jambiya is good!" and about ourselves in general... We came to our stop and said goodbye, we were grabbing our change for the bus fare (10 cents each) and then they told the driver they'd pay for us, so he just took off. That is twice now that a Yemeni has paid for my bus fare, and there was that time (at the same kebab stand from this morning actually) that a guy wanted to pay for our breakfast, but we persisted in paying for ourselves that time. The people here can be so generous towards strangers, you wouldn't find that in the US very often at all. We headed back to the house, said goodbye to Adel, and see you to Markus. Then I hit the books again until past daybreak.

Oct 8

Sunday Oct 8
Today, woke up at around 12pm as per usual. Class with Faris was okay again. At the beginning of last week I was pretty near ready to just completely drop class with him, but now I am at least satisfied. One additional problem is that he gives me nearly too many words, and meanings... The synonym of the word we are studying, the opposite, additional meanings for the same word. It is really good for building my vocabulary, but it can be overwhelming at times, honestly. After class I just headed back to the mafraj and joined Markus to do some homework for Ismail's class. We (half) watched some crazy programs on Arabic TV... Like a strange learning English game show, where they'd be giving a sentence, and then have to reconstruct it properly using a different word... Like "I last saw him 2 years ago (since)" and they'd have to say something like "I haven't seen him since 2004" or etc. I think it was a game show... who knows. We were soon joined by Matt for his afternoon nap in the mafraj. Matt and I debated about going to KFC and Baskin Robbins tonight to break the fast, but Markus wanted to go to Al-Shallal (again..) one more time before he left Yemen. It is a nice restaurant, but I've already been there three times before this, and I've only been here a month! Oh well. And we wanted to join Markus on his night before the last night in Yemen for dinner, so we all trekked off to Al-Shallal. So let's see, we ordered three (half) chickens, rice, salad, bread, and drinks... Then we ended up getting one (half) chicken, one rice, and a potato/veggie mix... So we had to order the additional chicken and rice. We decided that when you order here, at least for foreigners, they just kind of zone out and figure you can't speak the language and then just bring you whatever they feel like that is partially related to what you ordered. It is strange. Not the first time they completely change what we've ordered. So now the running joke is to guess what we will actually be given compared to what we wanted. Also we were quite entertained trying to guess what the story was of this group of men sitting in the back of the restaurant... There were maybe 6 of them and they were all wearing nice white thobes, and checkered head scarfs, and etc, and armed to the tooth with huge Ak47s over their shoulders, pistols at their sides, and utility belts which I wouldn't be surprised if they were full of grenades. And when they left, they went one at time, with a few minutes in between each. They were really cracking us up though, we guessed they were the 'hicks' of Yemen, or a group of tribesmen come in for a nice dinner at Al-Shallal, or a group of jihadis just returned from Iraq and just needing a good meal from Al-Shallal... Who knows. They obviously weren't military though, they wear particularly uniforms usually. Even though this is a country of 60 million guns (for only 22 million people) you really don't see the average person carrying an automatic weapon in the street. Occasionally, but pretty rare here in Sanaa, I mean I see them everyday but usually on the shoulder of a soldier or military police. It was just particularly strange to see about six guys ready for war here in Sana'a, let alone in Al-Shallal (which is decently nice). In any case dinner for the three of us (which we didn't finish all the rice or veggies) was about 1400 or 1500 riyals ($7.50). We then headed back to the house, and at a different little corner shop we stopped to get some candy and drinks. Similar thing as before, I asked for a Mountain Dew, we pulls out a Canada Dry cola, I say no, he pulls out other random drinks I've never even seen before, so I just ended up going with the Canada Dry. Also ate a Metro candy bar... Kind of like a Milky Way, not exactly as good, but not horrible either. It is made in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, as with all other forms of candy and drink, it seems, in the Middle East. I had a missed call from Ismail, and I kept trying to call him back but the call just wouldn't go through... Tried about 5 or 6 times. It is because of the different cell phone companies, they have really poor connections between one another. I have Sabafon and (everyone else it seems, after I bought it) has Spacetel. So Matt just let me use his (Spacetel) to call Ismail (Spacetel) which went through on the first try. I talked to his son, which can be hard, but I gathered that I should come at 9pm instad of 8. So I did an extra hour of homework/messing around before I gathered my things together and headed out to Ismail's house. Class was good, we continued working on the text about Health, what is health, etc. We are in the fitness and wellness group of texts, before this sports, soon to come nutrition, etc. Portions of it are really beneficial, although I can't imagine how often I'd use some of the vocabulary, particularly things like javelin and track and field, and etc. After class with Ismail I went out to the juice stand for my normal giant strawberry drink ($1.50), and then not long after I got there Markus and his friend Adel randomly showed up and joined me. We ended up sitting there talking until past two in the morning. Adel used to be a teacher at SIAL so it is good sitting with him as you almost get a partial lesson for free. We learned some strange words that arabic has, such as they have a verb (a single word) which means "to stay up late into the night talking" or "to stay up late in the night walking". Very different... We came back to the house and I stayed up late (thought not talking or walking) as usual trying to do some homework for the next day. Tonight I actually decided to go out and grab a bite to eat before I went to sleep because I was so starving before dinner that I could barely concentrate on the homework that I was attempting to do. At 4 I headed out, ran into Ed (or his Islamic name Mehdi) and Ishaq in the kitchen making some sandwiched before the fast, asked them if anything was still open now and got conflicting answers from the both of them... Turns out some stuff was indeed still open, about half of the normal amount, and not many people out either, but I went to the little kebab restaurant (it defines the expression a hole in the wall) which I went to the first week I was here for breakfast with Matt. Talked with a guy who was eating there also about my studies and Yemen, and he was happy that I was fasting. I got about 7 little balls of kebab and a tomato-y mixture along with a salad, and some bread to scoop it all up with. Ended up costing me 220 riyals (20 for the two pieces of bread) or $1.10. Then went back to my room to sleep...

Photos from Shihara and other things

Shihara and other things

Oct 7, 2006 - 30 Photos

Oct 7

Sat Oct 7. So after my rip van winkle esque sleep, until maybe 11:30... 8pm - 11:30am! I got a call from my first teacher, Faris, didn't really know what he was talking about, I just understood that there wasn't going to be class today, and I'd see him tomorrow... Which was okay because I really didn't accomplish anything this weekend, homework-wise, because of the trip to Shihara. I just sat around at the house all day... Talked to Markus and Matt for a bit. I guess Matt's friend from his school just arrived yesterday, or the day before. Iram, she's a British Muslim of, I think, Pakistani descent. He asked if I met or saw her at the institute today, to which I laughed as I had done absolutely nothing since after dinner last night... He met up with with someone working at the British Embassy to see about an internship last night, and then went over to the Bayt at Talabat (girls house) to talk with Iram until about 3am I guess. Then as he was walking back he was like alright Ryan's still up (you can see our windows/lights from the street), and came up to my room with the lights still on, door open, clothes still on, just passed out on top of the bed. He said he tried to turn off the light for me but couldn't find the switch. It's because (in our house at least) you'll find literally dozens of switches. It is bizarre. Most of them seem to do absolutely nothing. One controls the overhead lights, and a few control the electrical sockets on the wall, but the others I have found no use for. Besides talking with them I just did a bit of homework. For iftar (the fast break meal) we went to the super friendly Salta place in Bab Al-Sabah. Like I said before, it is a whole lot of younger guys that work there, and all of them are from Ta'izz down south. The restaurant was really packed when we first got there, but somehow we always end up the last ones in the restaurant. We all had our own bowls of fahsah (salta with meat) which was strange because normally you just share a communal bowl. They also just randomly brought out some shafoot for us (the spongy ethiopian bread, with a spicy milky sauce over it). The fahsah was okay, except i kept getting little chunks of bone (or something) which was a first. As I said we were the last ones there, and they cleaned the whole restaurant, stacked all the chairs moved the tables, and then sat down on the ground to eat themselves. After we finished eating they then insisted we sit down on the ground and eat with them also... We told them No, no, khalaas (finished) but they kept insisting, so we obliged them and they ran off to get some more spoons so we could more shafoot with them. We each just had a few bites and said that was enough. I think the price was about 1500 riyals between the three of us, and is was funny as we were discussing the price and swapping money in English and one of them told us in Arabic "no, you have to speak arabic! 1500 if you speak Arabic, but 5000 for English!" They are pretty funny, so it is enjoyable to go there... But I miss the old fahsah place I used to go to, I haven't been there since before Ramadan, since the day of the election I think. It's on a side street, so I never make it down there, but I never see it open now. After that I had class at the institute with Ismail. This time I called him before I left the house so that way I wouldn't sit there for 20 to 30 minutes waiting for him. Of course he says he's on the street right now, and should be there in 20 minutes, like usual. I continued playing Spider Solitaire for a bit longer before I went to meet him. Markus also has class at night right now, at 8 o clock even... Ismail and Markus haven't seen each other since their big fight in the garden of the institute... Class was good, we spent a lot of time talking about the trip and learning some new relevant vocabulary. Then during the half time break we went to the corner store, saw Hassan, who I went to the wedding with. I haven't seen him since the beginning of Ramadan, since it isn't open during the day time... Before I'd always go there to grab something to drink or eat. We then sat in the garden, and then Markus and his teacher Ahmed came out too, they both said Assalamu aleikum, and Ismail just drank his Fanta and didn't say anything... It was strange. Anyways, we finished up the second hour of class. Got back to the house and did a lot of homework, waiting for my Mom to call at about 2am my time, for our once a week actual telephone conversation (instead of on the internet) for about a half hour.

Oct 6 Shihara continued

Friday, October 6. So they woke us all up at just about 4am to go join them for breakfast... Again I didn't get much sleep though, because me pillow was rock hard, and the blanket they provided was quite large enough. We had some new food to me, they were these little fried balls of dough, I guess, and this kind of hard flat beard, which you would dip either of into the bowl of honey. It was really good, especially the little balls of dough. Markus says they are something which is typically served at African churches. We also had some tea to go along with it. After that we returned to our room for a good two hour nap, before our scheduled departure time of 7am. So again it was the same thing, except going down, clinging for life to the back of the old Toyota pick up truck. It was amazing that this thing was even able to climb this mountain, and the other kept commenting on how amazing they now believed Toyota's were, and we decided that the next commercial Toyota films should be here in Yemen, for a truly amazing look at its capabilities! Markus decided to sit for the first portion of the trip, like I had made the mistake of doing at the end of the ascent yesterday. After maybe 15 minutes he joined us standing, and we somewhat arranged ourselves so that we all could stand. I forgot to mention that anytime any children saw us yesterday they come running up yelling "Galam, galam, galam, galam!" (Pen, pen pen pen!)... Even if they were 100s of feet away you could here them yelling for pens... It was really strange. Why they want pens so bad, I have no idea. My theory is it has become slang for Hello, hah, although that's most likely not true. We stopped a couple of times for more photo opportunities, and again it took just about an hour to descend from the city to the bottom. But then, at the bottom of the mountain the truck died (this had happened a couple times during on the way up and down, but it always started right back up after a short struggle). This time though, it wasn't doing anything... The driver said he needed some gas, and ran off to a few buildings near by and came back carrying a big container full. They pumped it into the truck and tried to start it again, with no luck... He persisted and after maybe the third or fourth time, it started back up amazingly. And here I was thinking it was doing the same thing my Toyota did just a few nights before I was supposed to leave, and had to get it towed back to a garage, although this time I didn't imagine any tow trucks or workshops nearby whatsoever. And it turns out we were literally just down the road from the hotel, about 1 minute away. We pulled back up, and the soldiers started preping the military vehicle and we met our first driver again. We asked if it was possible to pose for a photo on top their truck, but they said no, I guess you can create some big problems for photographing anything military without permission. Markus was telling us of this time in another city two years ago which he took a photo of a military vehicle and they tried to take his digital camera away from him, he was with his teacher who eventually settled the problem, but only after talking with them for half an hour. We all crowded back into what was now dubbed the Pleasure Cruiser, when compared to the back of that pick up truck. The dirt road trip back from here seemed much more comfortable when compared to climbing that mountain by truck, although it wasn't possible for me to sleep, I still tried. Wrapping my head warp over my eyes because of the sun. But it was hot, bumpy and uncomfortable. After an hour or so we made it back to the paved roads, which now seemed like heaven after everything else, and I was actually able to drift in and out sleep throughout the trip back, surprising when compared with yesterday and how horribly bumpy I initially thought the paved roads were... A woke up here and there, but basically slept the whole way back to Wadi Dhahr, which is where the palace of the former Imam is located. It is one of the other really famous sights of Yemen, it is a palace (Dar al-Hajar) perched atop a strange rock formation. So it is built nicely up into the air. Markus and Sandra had been before, but it was new to me and Matt so we all stopped to go there. The driver parked their and he also headed off to mosque since it was Friday the holy day. We paid our 500 riyals to get in ($2.50), I guess it is about 30 riyals for Yemenis! And sat around inside the palace area, with a whole bunch of strange cats that walked in a herd and kept rubbing up against each other. The were super friendly between each other, but I kept chasing them around to pet them but the wouldn't let me. They were the first thing I started taking pictures of, funnily enough, shows how much I miss having pets around. The place was absolutely dead, we were nearly the only ones there. Last time Markus was here he said it was completely packed, but we there aren't a whole lot of tourists during Ramadan, so we got lucky. They said the same thing in Shihara, normally it is really busy, but we were the only guests there because of Ramadan. We then explored the inside of the palace, which was some of the rooms still the way the Imam left them, but with plexiglas covering the entryways. The palace was built sometime around 1918, I think, and expanded in 1930, then he (or maybe his son) was eventually thrown out in 1962 by a coup, in which the republic was then formed, instead of the religious Imamate. It was pretty fascinating, and suprisingly large, most of the photos just show a shot of the one portion of the palace located highest upon the rock, which really doesn't look that big. You find many nice sitting rooms, even those for different seasons of the year. Also you find pre-historic locations carved into the rock long before the Imam, such as pre-historic burial chambers, and etc. Very interesting. We then drove the 20 minutes or so back to the heart of Sana'a, it isn't very far at all, and apparently you can get there quite easy using public transportation. He dropped us off just outside Maydan Tahrir, and we headed back to the house. This time I was eagerly awaiting the return home. Stopped to by some water jugs at the store nearby the house, and Matt and I both elected to break the drinking fast, because we were both really really thirsty. I chugged about a half a bottle of water back in my room and then just sleeped for 3 hours until it was time to eat. Matt woke me up and we headed to the Salta restaurant that he showed us from a few weeks ago. This time the restaurant was packed, and they were all very happy to see that we had returned. We had chicken and rice, which was delicious as always, and then returned home. I was planning to do some homework, but I was totally exhausted from a lack of sleep and all this travel and just passed out still in my clothes, with the lights on and door open... Slept for over twelve hours!

Oct 5 Shihara

Thursday, October 5. Woke up at 7am... Finished getting my stuff together, and making sure I had everyhing I needed. Then realized I was missing my copy of my passport... Last I had it was to get a copy made to buy a cell phone here. Then I hadn't seen it since... I tore apart my room looking for it... For maybe about twenty minutes... Looked everywhere I could think of and just couldn't find it. I nearly gave up hoping there wouldn't be any problems, and then found it folded up on the ground near my bed.... We had to bang on Matt's door at about 7:30 (he was supposed to be waking me up since I knew I'd stay up late), he had gotten up earlier to get ready and then was just going to rest for 5 minutes (which we know how that always turns out). Turns out he didn't have a copy of his passport either, nor his actual passport (which are always locked up at the institute). So we just hoped for the best. We waited around for a bit for Sandra at Tahrir, and then headed out to Universal Touring Company on the west side of Tahrir. There we found a guy nearly sleeping in a white Landcruiser. Sandra and Matt paid their half of the price and we headed on our way... Got to see some more parts of Sana'a which I hadn't been to, such as the Mercedes dealership up to the north, and then we got to our first military check point just outside of Sana'a. The soldier asked where we were from and the driver just told him Germany. He let us pass, and the driver just laughed and said that Germany was always the easiest and created the least amount of problems, so we just always stuck with that for the remainder of the trip. At least Sandra was German, Markus was Swiss German, and Matt could speak German, but me... Well I have a German last name. We saw lots of different landscapes on our drive through... saw nice farms, little villages, and some areas that looked like they were so alien and inhospitable as to be from the moon or Mars. Our driver dropped us off at the gate of Old Amran at maybe around 9:30 in the morning... We walked through the city but it was basically dead right now because of the Ramadan hours. There were a lot of girls out on the streets at this time though, they were all headed to school. I guess they have school here 6 days a week, although only for 4 hours per day. The architecture here was quite different from that of Sana'a. There were lots of little kids following us around chanting Soora, soora (picture) and we dubbed them the Soora Zombies... Like Night of the Living Dead they would just chase after us chanting this... Out driver had dropped us off at one side, and drove to the other to meet us. We came out the other side of the old city (it wasn't that big, nothing like the old city of San'a of course) and a store keeper started chatting with Markus for quite awhile because he wanted to learn German. Asking if he had any books or anything that taught the language, which he of course didn't. Then we headed out again. I thought I would be able to sleep during our trip, but the roads aren't exactly the smoothest of surfaces. It was quite bumpy, despite being paved, and there were frequently large speedbumps, or sections of road that were just unpaved, and he had to slow down abruptly and cross over the dirt and rock before coming back onto asphault. Strange. I think we crossed two military check points pretty close outside of Sana'a. At the second one, they stopped us for awhile before letting us through, which our driver said was because they were waiting for us to pay them, but since we didn't they just let us go. He had told this group of soldiers that we were Germans again. After driving for quite awhile longer we came to this nice cliff overlooking a valley full of farming. There a whole bunch of children rushed out from I don't really know where (as there was nothing around us, except two small houses and one store). They all started talking to us as we took a break from the road. They were all especially interested if we were fasting. Which me and Matt, and Sandra were, but Markus got up and ate a big breakfast. We headed back out for maybe another hour on the road until we came to another military check point. Our driver hopped out and went to their shack for I didn't know what. And then one of the soldiers just came and hung out at our window. We had no idea what was going on... We thought it was another attempt to get us to pay them, and they weren't going to give us our driver back until we did. We didn't do anything but sit there, and eventually our driver came back and we headed back on the road. We didn't quite understand what the hold up was for, but then a few minutes later a military truck zoomed up behind us with a large machine gun mounted on the back of the truck, and the bed of the truck full of soldiers. It was quite strange. Markus has traveled quite a bit and never had to have a military escort, so he was pretty surprised. We joked around how it feel like we could in Iraq or Afghanistan (probably more like Afghanistan because of the terrain). We had our nice Toyota Landcruiser, which was obviously a car for foreigners (most of the cars here aren't very nice) and the military escort. The driver said it was because the government wasn't very strong up in the North, and if there were any sort of inter-tribal disputes we would have protection. We drove for awhile, through a small city, and then all of a sudden our military escort was gone... Markus and I were really confused, we asked out driver about it, but he said it was okay because there was no problems. We continued on our own for about another twenty minutes and then all of a sudden the military escort zoomed past us and started leading the way. The weather now was a bit hotter than in Sana'a I realized, most likely because we weren't at such a high altitude anymore, and you could see around us now that the landscape had changed quite a bit, there wasn't too much plant life around. It just looked like all the water had been sucked out of the area, and even the rocks and dirt was dry and cracked. It was especially unpleasant as we were fasting, and with a Muslim driver, so it would have been rude to be drinking in front of him. It was also around this area where Markus and I saw about 30-40 vultures perched atop the cliff beside the road, it was really bizarre, and a number of them circling off to the side! I was particularly amazed that Sandra was able to sleep through these bumpy roads, I wish I had been able to, although it was nice to see all the different areas outside of Sana'a. After a bit we stopped atop a hill overlooking the town of Huth. It was a nice view, and this town was more 'desert-y' than I had seen before in Yemen. Our military escort had kept going. Sandra at this point just took over the whole back seat for sleeping, and wouldn't wake up when Markus and I were trying to get back in. We debated about riding in the back but were eventually able to wake her, and Markus gave her his seat so she could sleep against the window instead of bouncing back and forth in the middle. Our military escort was waiting at the bottom of the hill in Huth, and their driver and ours starting talking for awhile, but the only thing I could really understand was "problems for us" (from the military driver and that was it, but I didn't know what the problem was... Hah, the trouble with broken Arabic. Soon after leaving Huth we turned off onto a dirt road, and soon realized why we needed the Landcruiser, we were going up and down all sorts of off road enivronments. Rocky dirt roads, hills, holes, etc. Nobody was sleeping now, the terrain was too bumpy... and I thought the roads weren't that great from before...! Now we kept boucing and slamming into the doors and windows. Pretty bumpy. Like an amusement park ride. We kept passing be a number of small villages, houses and farms... And at first the villagers weren't that friendly. Lots of little kids making strange signs and gestures at us, and chanting at us. We had no idea what they meant... But it was really funny when we crossed this group of children who were chanting and running up towards the car when Markus replicated a sign (cross your middle and run finger, and spread the others out, then rotate your hand back and forth between the palm and back facing the person) we had seen earlier, and they all just literally stopped dead in their tracks. Stopped running towards us, stopped chanting and kind of just stood with their mouths open when we passed... We have no idea what we told them, but it obviously meant something! We continued to get strange gestures and chants directed at us from the women and children (we basically only saw women and children from the point of leaving the cities, making us wonder where all the men were). But after awhile, the children became friendly again and started waving to us. Lots of children and women were out herding goats, and sometimes even a woman would wave (or perhaps she was a teenage girl, hard to tell when they are fully covered) which is pretty unusual and uncommon. Occasional we'd see a truck full of men pass by. Then at one point we noticed the military truck stop abruptly and two or three soldiers jumped out with their Kalashnikov automatic weapons thrown over their soldiers... We were like "uh-oh, there must be trouble ahead" and our driver stopped some distance away from them... And then we saw this white chicken running around a bush and these three soldiers, in full camo clothes and weaponry, chasing it around, falling down, until one finally grabbed ahold of it, and they put it in the cab of the truck. They driver pulled up alongside them, and apparently the chicken was in there before, and had escaped, perhaps they were buying the chicken when they disappeared for about 20 minutes earlier, they also told us it was for dinner that night. We continued along this bumpy dirt road for a total of about an hour until we finally arrived at the hotel lcated at the base of the mountain which Shihara was located atop. They showed us the rooms available there, and let us use the bathroom. They said we could go to the top of the mountain to Shihara, and stay at a hotel there if we wished, but that this one was preferable. Either way we didn't have to decide now, because we would go to Shihara anyways. I broke my fast early when Sandra offered me a cookie from her backpack, as well as some water... I was really starving, despite eating some cereal in the middle of the night last night, I mean normally when I fast I wake up at noon, and then eat at 6. Today I got up at 7am... and it was just after noon now.... I felt bad because right afterwards the guards were asking which of us were fasting and the driver pointed me out along with Matt and Sandra. To which the soldiers were very happy. We then loaded our bags and ourselves into our "Special Local Transport" which was just in the back of an old Toyota pick up truck... And a different driver (a local) as well as two of the guards piled into the cab. Sandra was offered a spot in the cab, but she declined and stayed in the back of the truck with us. We all situated ourselves seated around the back, and took off an an even bumpier and rockier dirt road. We were laughing at out "special local transport" which was costing us $50 between us from the trip total. But we soon realized why this pick up was necessary as opposed to the Landcruiser from earlier as we began ascending steep hills, and large rocks, with bumps and bangs ensuing. With all of us sitting on the bed of the truck it was horrible, because it would throw you around so much, so I decided to try it Yemeni style which is standing up in the bed of the truck, hanging onto the bar near the cab. It seems really dangerous, but you don't drive really fast, and you always see Yemeni's riding in the backs of trucks in this manner. It was much much better, because you could actually control yourself and not get slammed into things, or be bouncing up and down on the hard metal of the truck. The other three joined me in standing, but it was particularly cramped. We would stop at a number of different places with good vantage points in order to take pictures. I wish I could describe better how crazy this road was... It was really unbelievable. We also passed by a number of small villages too. The road was carved along the side of a cliff and was basically one way, but we would occasionally encounter another vehicle on its way down, and have to pull over enough to let them pass by. Occasionally there were sections of a former road made out of large rocks, but was defintely not intended for vehicles because it was probably more bumpy than the other portions. We kept climbing higher and higher and higher, and the views were absolutely amazing. Almost all of the mountains and hills around as had been terraced from the top to the bottom to allow agriculture, and you'd see houses, or other buildings just perched upon these cliffs. It truly felt like a place out of this world. I don't really feel like Sana'a is that strange or foreign of a place (it is a big "modern" city, where you can get almost anything you'd want), but this place was truly different, and I have never seen anything like it. I reminded me of parts of the movie Seven Years in Tibet, so I kept imagining we were headed to some place like that. After one of the rests for photo taking I elected to sit down again at the back, as there wasn't that much room to stand, and it began to make me sick. I was getting slammed up and down and back and forth so much, that it felt like my internal organs were in new places now. I weaseled my way back up to the front and made someone change places with me before I really did get sick. We arrived to the top of the mountain and to Shihara after about an hour total of driving up in the back of the pick up. The driver stopped almost immediately and the two soldiers jumped out to but some local gat grown on the terraced hill sides, while we took a break and talked to the children who were now swarming around the truck. We soon took off and left the soldiers there, and two of the kids ran after the truck and jumped onto the back to hitch a ride. Then the driver stopped the car, turned it off, jumped out and ran around the car, started yelling at the kids picked up a massive rock and threw it the youngest one (it missed him, thankfully!) and was grabbing him yelling! It was crazy, I can't believe he reacted in such a way... Didn't understand what exactly he was saying, except when he called the kid 'Himar ibn Himar!' (Donkey, son of Donkey!), which the donkey is worst, dumbest animal in the Arab world, and is a huge insult to call someone a donkey (like when they call Bush a donkey). Anyways, after that crazy outburst, and scaring us half to death, we continued driving through the city to arrive to one of the hotels (of two total). We checked out the rooms and brought our stuff to settle into one of them on the second floor. We decided that people up here seem more agressive and crazy for some reason, and that maybe being German wasn't so bad after all, and that our group would indeed just be 4 Germans. We were really exhausted from the whole trip, and just lounged around in the one room for awhile. They offered us some food, and tea, but we told them we would wait until after 6 with everyone else. The rooms weren't so bad, it was basically a small room with three mats on the ground. Sandra had once again passed out, and we had to wake her before we headed out to see the main attraction of Shihara, the bridge between two cliffs. Our two bodyguard soldiers accompanied us, along with a group of 4 or 5 kids who acted as tour guides. They walked us through the dirt roads, and to good viewpoints of the cliffs and mountains below. I'm not sure how high the actual altitude of the city is, it might be less than that of Sana'a, since we descended quite a bit before making the trek up the mountain, but it felt much higher simply because of the view from it, and the steep mountains. It felt like you could see to the ends of the earth (is that the Space Needle in the distance?" and in almost a 180 degree direction (there were building and whatnot behind us, but in front was a few thousand feet of cliffs and mountains, and then flat endless plain, which we receded into the horizon. Truly amazing. We continued our little trek towards the bridge, and made it there in maybe 15 minutes or so. The bridge is really impressive, built between two steep cliffs and a far drop. The children told us it was 350 years old, but I believe that was the original bridge, which broke, and was rebuilt maybe 100 years ago, if I'm not mistaken. We took many photos in and on the bridge. There was even a goat herder who herded past us and both Matt and I waited for the "Goat shot" when they'd all be crossing the old bridge. From there we decided to keep walking towards to the other vilage, located across the bridge from Shihara. The kids were pretty talkative and informative along the way. We had left one of the other soldiers across the bridge talking to some people, and I guess he didn't notice us leaving because he came running over finally and yelled at the kids for leaving without him. The military escort was mandatory at all times, although we did have one of the two soldiers with us. We made it to the other village for a good view of Shihara. One of the children explained that there was a Sabafon cell tower in Shihara, thus why I had a full 5 bars of service and the Spacetel folk only had 1... Hah! That's why I pay slightly more for Sabafon. From the other village we decided to keep walking up to the top of the mountain, although I was the only one who voted no on the idea, as I was dead tired (with only two hours of sleep), and starving and hungry. But we continued on, hiking up to the top of this mountain, again I was wearing sandals, but at least there was somewhat of a path here. When we made it to the top it had an amazing 360 degree view around the area. In the way direction it was nearly limitless plain from the area we originally came, and then more mountains to the other side, which surprisingly had more villages perched atop them. There was also this sort of stone rock structure, with low walls, which might have been some sort of observation area, where we all sat and rested for awhile. I asked Matt to take my photo with one of the soldiers, and asked if I could pose with his AK47 in the shot, which he happily allowed. Then everybody started following suit, posing with the AK47 atop the mountain. I guess it is a pretty normal occurence that all the tourists do though, and Ismail even mentioned it to me before we left, which is why I asked. Then we took a bunch of group shots as well, before descendin back towards Shihara. We took another break as we were descending down the man-made terraced mountain side which is used for agriculture (primarily for growing gat, it seems), and waited for a few others to catch up. There the little kid, the son of the owner of the hotel, who acted as the ring leader it seemed, took the opportunity to re-tie my head scarf since it was done improperly, at least according to Shihara standards. In Shihara we all sat around with the children and the guards on a wall of a large water pool. There the women and young girls would go gather water in buckets and carry them back upon their heads. There were a number of these water pools around the city. A few of the people who passed by gave us really suspicious looks, and then the other few were really friend, including a two guys who went down the line to shake everyones hand and welcome them to Shihara, including the two military soldiers. We then returned to the hotel to rest for a bit. I think we got back at around 5:30 or so, and at this time I just fell asleep in the room, as did most everyone else, while we waited for dinner. The family who owns it, and also lives there, woke us at the proper time and we went downstairs for food in the hotel (there are no restaurants in this city, I guess). The food was pretty decent, we had beans, chicken, rice, vegetable mix, bread, tea, and the real treat of the night was the delicious Bint as-Sahn (which I've only had once before at Ismail's house, because it isn't typically served in restaurants). It literally means daughter of the dish, but is a sort of think bread with sweet delicious honey on top (this kind was slightly different than at Ismail's). We sat around talking in the mafraj where we ate, until returning to our room for a bit. Sandra was then offered her own room down the hall, which is good, considering we only had three mats in that room. Then Markus went out with a soldier escort to go buy some water for all of us at the souq, and after that we joined the soldiers, and owner downstairs where we all just talked in Arabic for the rest of the night... Until about midnight. We told them we would take our breakfast at 4am, because Markus and Sandra realized how much more respect you get from the locals when you fast. Both Matt and I have fasted every day, but I have broke it a few times, for water in particular.

Oct 4

Wednesday October 4. I was actually really surprised I was able to wake up at 12. Didn't think I would make it. I actually did a lot of homework last night for this class so I was really prepared. Class with Faris was good again today. He actually allowed me to talk and encouraged me to talk... And I tried to make it more clear what I like and don't like in class, so maybe things will continue to improve. After that I finally updated my blog at the computer lab at school and replied to some emails. Took me quite a long time to upload each entry, and then go back and change the date for each one so it would be accurate. First time I have posted in more than three weeks, so it was a lot of work for those daily entries. I hope to be better about updating it in the coming months. Decided to change into my Yemeni clothes for my class with Ismail. Hung around the house until we could break the fast... I sat with Matt for quite awhile in the kitchen while he ate on his chicken, bread, tomatoes and dates which he bought today. Guess he really had a lot of problems with the travlers checks. He walked around again all day, this time on Hadda Street, and again no bank would exchange them for him. He got pretty angry and walked the whole of Hadda street nearly, and then bought some food. I had some of his dates, which are pretty good actually, and he took a few handfuls in a plastic bag to take with him to accompany me while I ate. Markus had some plans with his Yemeni friend, Adel, and was going to cook him some German pancakes, I guess, so it was just me and Matt. First I went and returned my big empty jug of water to the store (if you don't you end up getting fined, maybe 5 riyals though) bought a soda, as I was really tired, and we went back to the cheap falafel stand. Bought two falafels and 2 sambosas (those little fried and stuffed triangular things) for something around 80 riyals... We walked around and ate this time. I didn't want to sit on the dirty steps with my white thobe on. Matt wanted to grab some juice, so we went to a stand on Bab al-Sabah. Matt asked what kinds of juice they had, and the guy replied Sha'eer, so Matt said he'd take that. I knew what it was, but apparently Matt didn't. After he got it, he realized it was the drink that we had at Ismail's once before (I've had it nearly every night of class at his house now, so I am used to it, but at first it does taste pretty strange). He got a nice big glass of it, and he pretty much hates the stuff, and was saying it was the worst 10 minutes of his life. I thought it was all pretty funny to be honest. He just wanted to dump it on the street to be done with it, but just kept pushing through... Ismail says it is the Yemeni beer because it is made from barley, I guess, and of course without alcohol. But yeah, it does have a pretty strange taste. I guess I have just become used to it after drinking it at Ismail's basically every night of class. After that I insisted we needed to go get some real juice, for one so he could wash the taste of sha'eer out of his mouth, and two because I still had a bit of time to kill before going to Ismail's. We stopped at the juice stand under Ali Abd Al-Mogni Street (the underpass from Bab Al-Sabah to Tahrir Square) and asked the juice stand there if they had strawberry, neither of us had been there yet, but we always walked by it, which they didn't, so we just decided to go to out normal place. I bought a dessert outside the juice shop, and got a big strawberry. One of the guy's who works there is like best friend's with Matt (and he doesn't know why), and he always gives a huge greeting. I always get some reactions from people when I go out dressed in my Yemeni clothes... People like "Yemeni... good!" things like that, it is pretty funny. After that I headed out for Ismail's, but was basically the first person on the bus, so I had to wait around for quite a bit. The bus driver and his sidekick started talking to me about the usual stuff... Where I'm from, etc. They liked my Yemeni clothes and jambiya. Class was good at Ismail's, we just wrapped up with our text about sports, doing the translation into English, and then retranslating it back into Arabic to find out where my gaps and problems are. After that I decided to walk around for a bit before I headed back to the house at around 1 or so. Did some homework for awhile, and then played on the computer... Then packed up some stuff for the trip tomorrow. I was going to get up at 7am, as we were supposed to be leaving from Tahrir at 8am. Didn't end up going to sleep until 5am, but figured it would be okay because I could sleep for some or all of the 4 hour trip to Shihara the next day...

Okay so I finally updated!

So I finally updated with some day-to-day information of my life here in Sana'a. I've been writing every couple days the things I do/see/hear/etc, but just on my laptop in my room. I've just been to lazy/busy to take it to the internet cafe and post it all. There is info from September 12, up until almost now, with the exception of one day (I hadn't written anything all week, and couldn't remember do anything exceptional or note-worthy, so just left it out). So if you are interested in, you can scroll back to the beginning to read the whole thing.

Sorry for any typos, or strange things. I typically type at night, in the dark, and nearly asleep, and haven't bothered to proofread. Besides I'm here in Yemen to be spending as much time with Arabic as I can (maybe I'm forgetting how to write in English).

Ma'a Salama

(I'll try to update more than once every three weeks from now on)

Oct 3

Tuesday, Oct 3. Got up at the last possible minute for class... I just really don't want to get up in the morning now. Ramadan has really messed with my sleeping patterns. Before Ramadan I was on a good schedule, a normal schedule even, of getting up at 7am, and going to sleep by 11pm. Now... Sleeping at maybe 6, 6:30 and waking up at 12:30. Not enough sleep during that time period either, so I've been pretty tired lately. Class with Faris was better today. We just decided to everyday focus on the Al-Kitaab book, which I was hoping to finish the part II, and III before I leave here, but we will see, for one hour a day, and the other hour on Media Arabia, or newspaper Arabic, primarily working from the (old) book Let's Read the Arabic Newspaper, which is actually pretty good, because it comes with translations in the back, and helps build up a basic Media vocabulary, and then after finishing this book, I hope to move on to real recent news articles, and perhaps other materials as well. He always assigns a ton of homework that there's no way I will complete all of it that night (in addition to the homework from my other teacher), but it is better to be overworked than under. After class I tried to wait around to use the internet at the school for free, but it had been taken over by a bunch of veiled women, so I just went down to the school's garden and sat under the terrace talking with Matt. I guess the other night he played soccer with the local kids out on the street by our house until 2am. Said he made more of a connection with a few hours of soccer than 3 weeks of talking to them and trying to get them to like him. I thought that was funny. Also talked to Yudid, and she invited us from the Bayt At-Tulaab (Guy's house) to come over to the Bayt at-Talabaat (girl's house) again to 'celebrate' German reunification day with some good ol' German food. Also talked to Ismail, and requested that we meet at 7:30 instead of 8, and actually start at that time, for only two hours, since we needed to go to the travel company for our weekend trip, and I wanted to have some of that German food. After that I headed back to the house and sat up on the mafraj to do some homework, I had to write a little essay about different types of sports for Ismail. Markus had just headed out to his new teacher Ahmed's house (no more Ismail for him, I guess) to break the fast there, for a huge feast, no doubt. Matt was laying around in the mafraj sleeping, and I woke him up at the time which I look forward to most in the day (6:15), the time when I am able to go to a restaurant and stuff myself. Today we went to the same chicken and rice place in Bab-al-Sabah with the shaky floor that feels like it will collapse. Same thing of course, chicken and rice. It's really good there though and only 500 riyals ($2.50). There was this group of really strange Yemenis that came in after us. They sat up on the second floor also, and one of them wanted something really bad, couldn't tell what, but instead of going and asking for it, or waiting for someone who works to come around he would just yell down "Ya muhassib!! Ya Muhassib!" (Hey, accountant/clerk) and stomp on the floor. Hey couldn't get his attention, so he just kept doing it over and over. Of course, this is the floor that feels like it may collapse, and I thought he might very well bring it down. Matt said "Do you reckon people'd be killed if this floor collapse?" I figured we'd be likely to survive on the second floor, but wasn't sure how the people below would fare... I had to hurry back to the Bayt-At-Tulab to grab my books and whatnot, then run off to Maydan Tahrir to catch a bus to Ismail's area. Well, I didn't have to catch a bus (van), but it is just easier, and usually quicker. Although they all run on the same sort of system, apparently. They sit around in a central location, wait until they've filled every available sit (no matter how long it takes), and then drive off on a set route. When you come to your destination you yell to the driver "Alla Jamb!" (on the side) he pulls over and you give him the 20 riyals (10 cents). I left less than 15 minutes before I was supposed to be at his house, and made it there only a few minutes late. Maybe it isn't the most efficient transportation, but it does seem to work pretty well. So we actually did start class early, since he knew I need to leave at 9:30. Just a quick (mandatory) dessert before we started. The Yemeni desserts are pretty good, but they are different from the normal Arabic sweets (just like all their food is). A good one is rawaani, a sort of soft, light cake, hard to describe, but from Sana'a I'm told. Ismail is obsessed with it, he'll have like three pieces at a time. The lesson today was particularly good, with us discussing types of sports, but beyond what was mentioned in the article, then him testing me orally on vocabulary, and then running through necessary grammar points of the Arabic 'system'. One of the nice things about Arabic is that it is pretty systematic, you can begin to guess at words and meanings with pretty good accuracy because of the system, and even the irregular aspects have their own system... With Ismail we work from his program which he says he has developed over the course of 20+ years through working with the Peace Corps and beyond that. Maybe I mentioned it before, but he had his own institute for Arabic a long time ago.... After north and south Yemen were unified people kept talking about civil war, civil war, so he held back from starting a school for years... Then after three years of unification and no problems he decided to start it. Civil war broke out 4 months later, which would obviously scare off any customers and he ended up losing a lot of money just months after he started. But anyways, his teaching style is really good, and I'm learning quite a lot, and as he says why not work out of his program while I am here, something which I wont find in universities of books in the US... Why not. He is particularly focused on translation and accuracy of meaning between the languages. So we finished up at 9:35 and I power walked (I know where to catch the bus to his house, but not from his house-one a one way street) back to Maydan Tahrir to meet up and go to the travel company. I actually ran right into Markus just as I was coming into Maydan Tahrir. Apparently Matt was occupied trying to open a bank account and couldn't make it, so it was just us right now. We had to prepay 2 days before departure. So we went to Universal Touring Company, negotiated to pay our half of the fee ($57 each), and sat around for quite awhile while he made reservations/registrations on his computer. to pay the $114 (they quoted the price in dollars) between the two of us, it was funny because we used my $100 bill, and 1500 riyals from Markus, then Markus gave me $43 worth of riyals to make up the difference. Apparently we leave at 8am on Thursday. I hope I can wake up. After about a half hour there we were finished and we headed out to the girls' house for German Unification Day. I thought there would be a lot of people there like last time, but it turned out to be just Sandra, Yudid, Taha (their teacher, or teacher of one of them), and me and Markus. They had cooked a ton of food, like last time, except for about half as many people. Matt was supposed to show up, and I called him, but apparently he was having a ton of problems trying to exchange his travelers checks here. Which is what I heard before I left, so I opted not to bother with them. But he went from bank to bank for hours trying to exchange them, and they all told him no. He was trying to open an account with Tadhamon International Islamic Bank so he could have easy access to all his money from a local account. Anyways, we all sat up out on their balcony again, with a sweeping view of the city... There cooked meatballs, vegetables, a sort of sticky-mashed potato ball (unique to Germany I think, because I've never had it before), along with breads and assorted other things. Then we all went down to their mafraj for some tea and desserts. I had a crepe like pancake with nutella on it, which was really good. We just sat around all talking in Arabic (since Taha was there, or else it would have English) for hours, until about 2am. I was really suprised with how much I could understand, and all the various subjects we could talk about. It's nice to know that my Arabic has improved since arriving here. After that they loaded all of us down with leftovers, the pancakes, potatoes and meatballs, and we headed back. I came back to my room and finally organized my binder, by subject matter. I've been so disorganized these first few weeks, and after that did homework until about 6:30 in the morning. It was so bright outside that I took my shawl and tied it around my eyes so I could sleep.