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.