My New Best Friend

TL, when he was out running some errands, bought me a new heating coil! This makes me extremely happy, I have to say. (The fact that it cost $1.50 is also nice. Even if I have to buy a new one for every week I have left here, that’s okay.) So, in light of my very, very down mood lately, this is a nice little thing to have come along.

More good news (I’ll take it where I can find it) is that I was able to run about twice as long last night as the night before. So, apparently my body is remembering that it used to be pretty decent at this. I’m hoping that running while blasting “grrr” music into my ears until I’m exhausted will help burn off some of the frustration and (unsettling) aggression that can build up as days here go by.

S and I went with Widget (my new name for the young female architect in our office – Archie was too confusing) to the old part of town, including the old market. First, we went up to Al Qahera, the castle on the hill that I posted pictures of from my first trip. The view down onto the city is amazing. When we were up there, we saw a bunch of people just hanging out and enjoying the view, and groups of men enjoying the favored Yemeni afternoon activity – chewing qat. Qat is perfectly legal, and it’s a plant that people chew. It gives you a buzz of sorts, I’m told – so people are kind of mellow and stoned in the afternoons. You can easily spot the people chewing qat, as they have this Dizzy Gillespie-like bulge in their cheeks. They’re often also sprawled out somewhere, because…well, I guess that’s what you do when you’re stoned. I think they also sell Doritos here, so maybe there’s a connection.

The market is really interesting, though – all kinds of fabrics and accessories and spices and foods you can buy. It’s not like the big, indoor markets that you see in Vietnam, rather these markets are long, winding streets, flanked with shops with turquoise metal doors, flung open to give you a glimpse at whatever they’re selling, whether it’s the riot of color in the fabric shops or the glinting metal of the shops selling water pipes and jambias, the elaborate belts with the large, curved daggers. My favorite part, by far, was when a camel cart came plodding down the street. It’s a little weird, but I love camels – something about the way they walk just makes me laugh. So, I was all kinds of excited to see one. As we were walking and driving through the streets, we were the object of some attention, as you might imagine, and little kids were gathering around, wanting us to take their pictures and laughing hysterically at seeing their own images. This is the oldest part of the city, and you can believe that it’s 1,000 years old in some parts – even though the antiquity is often brought into sharp relief, as the modern world seems to penetrate in one way or another.

We went back up to Al Ashrafia mosque, which is over 600 years old. I’d been past it earlier and taken a few pictures, but this time we got out and were actually allowed inside . We couldn’t go into the sanctuary, but we were allowed to poke our heads in and take a few photos from the doorway. Widget, since she’s Muslim, was allowed inside, and she took some more pictures for us. It was really beautiful with very intricate painting, tile work, and plaster work, There were some tombs inside that we were allowed to go see as well. I’m also fairly certain that it was an opportunity I'm not likely to have again any time soon, so I was very grateful to have it.

So, for every lousy experience I’ve had here, there are a lot of interesting and unique ones, too. I am trying to enjoy everything I can about being here, because if someone asks me what Yemen was like, I don’t want to say “well, I don’t know because I never left my hotel room”. I want to have stories about something other than creepy random phone calls and burned-out heating coils, because I think it would be really sad if that’s all I had to say at the end of 3 ½ months.