It's The Little Things

The digestive pyrotechnics seem to have calmed considerably, so I’m extremely grateful for that. I’m still not quite sure what it was that pushed me over the edge, but I’m trying to be cautious from now on. (Another helpful thing about not being vegetarian anymore – as long as it’s cooked enough, meat is usually safe, so I’m going to try to stick to chicken and thick-skinned fruit as my dietary staples since I’m no longer in the land of bird flu.) I did, however, notice at lunch that the chicken wasn’t cooked all the way through, despite being charred on the outside. Apparently, it’s frozen solid when they chuck it on the grill. So, maybe I had salmonella poisoning – known to fancy types as salmonellosis? Who knows? I’ll just try not to think about it too much. On a side note, according to WebMD.com, one way to prevent the spread of salmonella bacteria is to wash your hands after coming into contact with animal feces. Who WOULDN’T do that anyway??? Do people really have to be told that? It’s like those stupid product warnings, like not dipping your hair dryer in a bathtub full of water while it’s on. You know the warning is there because some brainiac has tried it.

So, the day before yesterday, as yesterday was spent in considerable discomfort, I got part of a tour of the city – the eastern half, and the western half was today. The guy who was driving us around in his 4-wheel drive (and wow, did we need it sometimes) was very nice and knowledgeable, one of our local counterparts here in the planning department. I had tons of questions for him, and the very nice young female architect who is kind of serving as my interpreter for the time being, was extremely helpful as well. Planning Dude (PD – heh, that’s almost like P Diddy. But not. Not even a little bit. Aw heck, I’m going to call him Diddy.) told TL that he liked that I asked so many questions; most Americans he’s worked with in the past have come in and said “well, here’s what you have to do”, without actually looking at the local context. To me, that seems irretrievably stupid but I know that planning has been done that way in the past, which is why you could fill a good sized football stadium with plans that have been carefully written, commented on, revised, approved, and thrown on a shelf to gather dust without a backward glance. While that kind of plan may, technically, fulfill the requirements of the contract, that’s not what I want to do, because I’m not one for intentionally turning out useless crap. (Call me crazy.)

You’re crazy!!

Anyway, I thought I’d share some pictures from Yemen, after discovering that the problem was not that Blogger sucked, but that the pictures were huge and took a long time to upload. So, for your viewing pleasure, here are some pictures of Yemeni goodness. And that picture I was trying to post from the other day is up – it’s pretty cool, if you feel like scrolling down.

Anyway, Diddy is very nice, but he has one, slightly terrifying habit. When he’s talking, he likes to look at you. This, in and of itself, is not terrifying. It’s the part where he does it while driving, with me sitting behind him that gives me pause. And by “gives me pause”, I mean “scares the living crap out of me” (no jokes about my recent illness, please…). However, we had a lovely tour out and about, viewing all kinds of parts of the city.

Here’s what most of the development in Taiz looks like , largely due to the mountainous terrain, which is easy to spot in this picture as well. The hotel in which we’re currently staying (long story short – we got kicked out of the first one for a few days because some official folks are coming into town. The old hotel will still be practically empty, but perhaps they didn’t want our plebian selves to tread across the path of said dignitaries) is perched way the heck up on Sabir Mountain, the mountain from which I took the picture of Al Qahira where I was looking *down*. And we’re higher up here than I was taking that picture. Yeeshk!

While touring around the old city the other day, we stumbled upon this lovely old mosque. I’m sure it’s one of those things that people get used to seeing after a while, but I still think they’re beautiful. Apparently, there are two main styles of mosques, Egyptian and Iraqi – the number of spires (I can’t remember the proper name for them right now) is the defining characteristic. This one is Egyptian, if I am remembering correctly. Of course, I could be mistaken, so if anyone knows better, please correct me!

Here’s another view from another peak – still not nearly the highest, but pretty darn high. As with Taipei, it would appear that there’s an issue of trapped air pollution because of the mountains surrounding the city center, as evidenced by the haze you can see obscuring the mountains in the background. I try not to about how I’m inhaling that, and lots more, every day that I’m here. But it’s another thing I’d like to try to do something about, in some small way, with this plan. We’ll see what opportunities exist – because this can’t be good for anyone.

The architect, who I’ll call Archie for the time being, is very indulgent of all of my questions, because I have asked her questions about all kinds of things as we’re driving around that are totally unrelated to the project, as well as relevant questions. But it’s interesting to learn about things like why some women are more covered up than others, why the men wear those huge daggers around their waists, if zakat (a Muslim charity program) is strong in Yemen, and just general cultural things. If I’m going to be here, I don’t wish to leave as ignorant of Yemen as I was when I arrived, because that would be a wasted opportunity. I don’t think I’ll be trying any Yemeni coffee (which they’re known for) while I’m here, sadly, so I want to see what else I can try. But Archie is a very nice girl, so I hope she sticks around.

Here is another view of the city from Sabir Mountain – this picture is also taken from what is, I would guess, a hundred meters or more below where our hotel is. Again – yeeshk!

To give you an idea of the extent of terracing that you see throughout the country, this is a shot I took on my way here from Sana’a. It’s still more impressive in person (or, maybe if I’d even just asked the driver to stop so I could take a good picture). But it shows you the raw engineering capabilities to be found here. Making stable terraces up a mountainside isn’t for amateurs, kids. So, you know, don’t ask me to do it or anything. I’m maintaining my amateur status so I can compete in the Olympics.

I am completely delighted to report that it’s a little after 9 pm and I’m actually *tired*. I may try to go to sleep soon, and here’s hoping I can sleep straight through until morning. Ah…