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.