Warning Signs

(This is actually from Thursday, I just didn't post in order. For those of you interested in narrative flow. Or something like that.)

You know how I know that I’ve been here too long? Here’s how:

We had a meeting today with some people from the lending agency today. We sat there for the better part of two hours, the guys and TL talking almost the whole time, me piping up when I could manage to get a word in, and people only directing their questions to TL. This wasn’t entirely inappropriate, because he knows more about the history of the project and the tiny details. But even the topics which I’ve been doing the most work on, I barely managed to say anything. I seldom have a problem getting my opinions out, for those of you who don’t know me. Needless to say, this didn’t feel like the best use of my time. So, after everyone left, TL said something about how they might meet up again tonight at the hotel, and I asked if he wanted me to be there. He said something to the effect of I was welcome to be there, but if I didn’t want to go, I didn’t have to. And I said something to the effect of “well, since no one was terribly interested in what I had to say this afternoon, if I’m just going to sit there and be decorative again, I’d prefer to skip it.”

I can’t believe I said that. I really can’t.

TL seemed to take it in stride, though.

I went running the other night, and it was getting really hot and stuffy in the ladies’ gym, so I took off my t-shirt, and kept running in my sports bra and leggings, which I’ve never done before here. There’s nothing scandalous about this particular outfit, but knowing how things are here, I would never dream of going out in public like that, with bare arms and a bare midsection. So the guy who works there decides THAT’S the time he’s going to come in with a towel for me. Great. I was completely startled and almost fell off the stinkin’ treadmill, and unfortunately didn’t have the presence of mind to ask him what the hell he was doing there and tell him to GET OUT. It wouldn’t surprise me, though, if someone was “monitoring” the ladies’ gym, because they’ve never really cared before about whether or not I had a towel. Odd that they would pick that time, ya know what I mean?

Ick.

One of many reasons why I will be glad to get the heck out of here. Good Lord. This is what all that repression leads to, I tell you.

U2 is playing on my computer right now (happy times), and RealPlayer ™ likes to put up little snippets about the artist(s) in question as the music is playing. Apparently, there was a 5^th member of U2 back in the day. He left the band in 1977 to form his own band – The Virgin Prunes.

In the words of the knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: You chose…poorly.

Interesting Day

Today started out like most Fridays do – laundry drip-drying in the bathroom, me stumbling downstairs for some breakfast. TL said that we were going to Mokha this afternoon for a change of scene, which is a small port city about 100 km west of here. To be honest, I wasn’t in the mood for it, because all I can think about right now is how much work I have to get done. So, after working on some chapters this morning, we went down for lunch around 1:30, and took off around 2 pm.

Shortly after we set off, we were stopped at a military checkpoint. Upon telling them that I’m American, we were told to pull over. And we sat there. And sat there. L got out of the car to talk to the soldiers who stopped us, and we were told that the only way we’d be allowed to proceed would be if we had an armed guard riding with us, or an armed escort in a separate car. If we chose this option, however, we would have had to wait for them to find a suitable vehicle. TL wasn’t a big fan of either option, so L went back to talk to them and after about another 15 minutes, we were allowed to go, sans escort. On the drive over, I became extremely tired, and nodded off a little. I woke up as we were driving through this incredibly beautiful canyon - the road was carved into a valley floor with huge, steep rock walls on either side. The rocky hills subsided into a desert with rolling hills, light brown and dusty with little clusters of green – palm trees, bushes, scrub, where plants had obviously found a higher water table.

We came over a crest and there it was – the Red Sea sparkling through the trees. Mokha is a small town. The major port city in the western part of Yemen is Aden, famous for being the port where the U.S.S. Cole was refueling when it was attacked. Mokha is much smaller – barely a blip on the map compared to Aden. It didn’t take long to get to the docks. TL has a special letter from the governor – I think it’s an all-purpose letter that basically tells anyone anywhere that they should cooperate with us. This is useful when we need information from local government offices and the like. You may be wondering why something like that is necessary in the context of a day trip out to the sea – well, it helped us to get to the docks, because they weren’t going to let us until TL whipped out this magic piece of paper. We pulled up to the docks, and I had never seen water that blue in my life. It’s that azure color that you hear about when people describe the Mediterrenean, but only having really seen the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, I’d never seen it with my own eyes. I’m not sure if the pictures really do it justice, but I’ve included a few. It was so clear that, even though it was a harbor, the water was clear enough to see the fish swimming around and nibbling things off the sides of the ships.

By this time, in fact before we even left Taiz, I was realizing that I shouldn’t have had that large bottle of water at lunch. The problem, then, was finding a suitable bathroom for me. Not because I’m a priss, but because I’m a woman and I can’t just walk into any establishment. They found a hotel in town where I was allowed to use the facilities, and it didn’t take too long to find, so that was a very good thing. Afterward, I was standing outside waiting for TL, and I saw some goats, which are all over the rural areas because they’re highly adaptable animals that can give meat and milk and all kinds of useful things. These goats were hungry, as goats often seem to be. The funny thing is, goats are notorious for eating anything and everything. I think they can even manage to glean nutritional value from a tin can. But this particular goat was a little more finicky. He wanted nothing to do with the food on the ground, and instead was reaching for the leaves from the trees, dancing around on his tiptoes, trying desperately to read the lowest branches.

We found a nice beach, and I decided to get my feet wet. The water was warm, and there were tons of pieces of coral and shells – some really beautiful shells, but many of them were inhabited. Clearly, I didn’t take those ones. But I have a lovely collection that I’ll be bringing back home. As I was rinsing the shells out in the tide, I looked over and saw, with a sinking feeling, L attempting to turn the car around, with a spray of sand and mud shooting out from the back wheels. He was stuck. Really stuck. Since sitting around and looking cute would do absolutely nothing useful, TL and I went over and tried to help him dig out the car. So there I was, down on my hands and knees, scooping sand and mud out from behind the back wheels with my bare hands. L then put the car into reverse and tried to roll out as TL and I pushed.

This did absolutely no good. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

This was also about the same time that I wished that the beach we had gone to wasn’t quite so secluded. (The benefits of seclusion? I rolled up my pants a little – scandal! Bare ankles ahoy!!)

TL and L went out to the road, only about 20 meters from where the car was stuck, and tried to flag down a passing car. Fortunately, someone eventually stopped, and the two guys in the truck, and a guy walking down the road, all came to help. Since there were strange men around, I figured it would no longer be appropriate for me to be getting my hands dirty, to so speak, so I stayed back and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. After some yelling, wild gesticulating, and a worrying amount of grunting, the car began to move. It rolled back a couple of meters, but we still weren’t in the clear, so after some more pushing and grunting and general Herculean-type efforts, the car rolled safely back onto more solid ground and L drove back up to the road. I thanked the guys who had helped us, but that garnered the same reaction as my initial greeting – a somewhat puzzled look that indicated something to the effect of “why are you talking to me?” mixed with discomfort. I should probably have had my hair covered since Mokha is a small town, and I only saw a handful of women who were out in public in the first place. Ah well – I was otherwise respectably attired.

We decided that almost being stuck in the middle of nowhere, no matter how beautiful it was, was enough fun for one day, so we headed back to Taiz. Coming back the scenery was just as beautiful, but the setting sun reflected off the rocks cast a pinkish-gold light over everything, making it look warm and rich – not feelings that the desert often connotes. But that’s the thing, this part of Yemen isn’t really a desert in the way the Sahara or the Rub Al-Khali, the desert that takes up most of Saudi Arabia and part of Yemen, are deserts. There’s tons of life – plant life and animals, it just all looks thirsty this time of year. The rainy season should start soon, and while that gives me great fear for our ability to navigate the road up to our hotel, I think it will make a really beautiful difference in the natural environment.

I’m the kind of tired that results from a day spent in a warm car going to and from the shore – there’s something about that kind of day that brings on its own unique feeling of heavy sleepiness. I washed the pants I was wearing which were covered in sand and dried mud, and spent a good 15 minutes scrubbing all of the mud off my feet and hands, with some good success in the end. Now “Shaft” is on TCM in the background, and I’m going to try to write some text comparing our population projections for this phase to the preliminary ones we did in the previous phase.

Who’s working in development, helping out the local government?

Mandy.

You’re damn right.

Okay – that needs a lot of work. Sucka.

In Contrast

Just as everyone at home has been getting tons of snow, it’s been getting warmer here over the past few weeks. It’s not hot – the weather outside is actually fairly mild, but it’s definitely warmer. As I sit here in my stuffy, non-climate controlled office, shedding as many layers as forced modesty will allow, I’m convinced that being here later in the year will be miserably uncomfortable. I really don’t know how it’s possible that all the women here aren’t rail-thin – I would think that they’d spend a good six months out of the year sweating off about 10 pounds a day. I’m so thankful for a couple of paper-thin, long-sleeved cotton shirts I bought before leaving for Pakistan. I never wore them there, but they’re handy to have here!

I went running again last night, and I feel really good this morning. Regular exercise really does make a difference in how I feel and function – but I only realize it when I’ve been slacking for a few days (sometimes weeks…) and start again. I seem to have hit a wall, though. I can do two miles, but at the moment my body is very opposed to the idea of me doing much more than that. I suppose I’ll have to beat it into submission. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

There is, apparently, quite the traffic jam going on outside my office window. Horns honking, people screaming, loud popping noises, all that good stuff. Did you know that Yemen is the most heavily armed country in the world (per capita, that is)? Seriously – four firearms per person here – can’t remember who told me that, but it’s not hard to believe. Charlton Heston would fit in well here. The gunshots are probably from the military installation across the street, however. As long as they’re not from anyone who is interested in taking aim at me, it’s all good.

Time Keeps On Tickin'...

So, a quick glance at my calendar shows me that I will be leaving here in nine days, arriving home in eleven short little days – whee! I realize that this countdown is probably not as exciting for everyone else as it is for me, but I am all over it. I even numbered my calendar for my *next* trip! It’s possible, however remotely, that there may be some changes in the works for that, but all of that is very much on the DL – and it may not even happen. Knowing how things are progressing (got all my editing done between last night and this morning, by the way – I think TL was a little surprised), it wouldn’t surprise me if I had to come back here for a week or two in the early summer to present the final report. I don’t *want* to, but two weeks is do-able (it’s certainly less than the nine weeks I’ve already spent here), and after all this, I guess part of me kind of wants to complete the project. I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it, I suppose.

Right now, I’m just really excited to get off that plane at Dulles and be back on home turf!

I’m actually daydreaming about the cooking I’m going to be doing when I’m home, as I’ve already made a few plans for dinner and I’ve already figured out what I’m making. This is what tends to happen as my departure date draws near – I get ahead of myself. In my head, I’m already lying on my couch under a blanket, reading a book, with my cats curled up next to me. I’m also guessing that Brunette and I will be doing some cooking – at least, I hope we will. Since Former Other Roommate is now in his own place, there’s room in the freezer for more than frozen pizza, Hot Pockets, and bagels. I think that’s something we can all get excited about.

It’s funny, because as much as I have a “let’s go out and explore! Let’s see the world! Let’s do stuff!” side to me, I also have a very wide domestic/homebody streak. The trick is reconciling the two – or at least giving them equal time, I suppose.

I’m so jealous – everyone at home got snow – lots and lots of snow! No such thing for me. I haven’t seen snow since it snowed very briefly in Paris. Before that, the last time I saw snow was last winter! My mom sent me a picture of my parents’ yard. Well, hopefully there will be at least a little snowfall when I’m home. As long as I can get home on time, it’s all good. So any time after February 24^th will be fine.

On and On...

Nothing like a little Tom Jones to keep your day going. She’s a lady. Whoa, whoa, whoa, she’s a lady…three cheers for the open-shirted Welsh wailer, as he’s sometimes called. I’m going to finish my editing tonight, because TL made some snarky comment about my productivity, or recent lack thereof, today. So the best way to silence that is to finish what I’ve got to do.

However, as I’m editing, I’ve also got TCM on in the background (Tom Jones was earlier today), and they are on a roll tonight. First it was Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and now it’s The Wizard of Oz. Two very different, but equally fantastic, movies. I think it may have been years since I last sat down and watched The Wizard of Oz all the way through, but it totally brings back childhood memories. One of the three major networks (I can’t remember which one – I want to say CBS…?) used to show it every year, before the advent of DVDs and VCRs that allowed you to watch whatever movies you wanted, whenever you wanted. I remember being about five or six years old, watching it with my parents and my brother. It was a big treat for me to stay up that late, and I remember feeling so scared during the part where Dorothy is trapped alone in the castle of the Wicked Witch. I also have some vague memory of getting angry with my mom when she told me that everything was going to be okay – something about how she just didn’t understand how scared Dorothy really was. Of course, my mom, being a very compassionate woman, understood completely, but I was unable to see that through the intense grief and distress of a six-year-old who had difficulty with suspension of disbelief.

Given that approximately 24 years have elapsed, I think I’ll be able to make it through that part on my own this time – fortunately. The line “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore” has never resonated quite so much with me, however.

The Munchkins (credited as “The Singer Midgets”, which just sounds so wrong) do freak me out a little, though. How many helium balloons do you think they had to go through to get them all to sound like that? And I don’t know who choreographed The Lollipop Guild, but I’d like an explanation as to what the heck that’s about.

As a wee child, I had my own version of “Follow the Yellow Brick Road”. I would, in the midst of what my parents referred to as my “Troubadour Phase”, unselfconsciously belt out “FOLLERY JELLERY CROW! FOLLERY JELLERY CROW! FOLLERY, FOLLERY, FOLLERY, FOLLERY, FOLLERY, FOLLERY JELLERY CROW!” with great enthusiasm whenever the mood struck me. My repertoire was actually quite a bit more extensive, including such original songs as “My Fox” and “The Delta Song”, but that’s the only one of my song stylings that’s really relevant at the moment.

I know – this is a whole artistic side of me that you never knew existed, right? I get that a lot.

My New Technique

TL and I were sitting at lunch today, and there was a woman sitting at the table in front of us who was turned completely around in her seat to stare at me. So instead of cringing and feeling self-conscious and irritated, I decided to do something different. I gave her an uber-perky smile and waved. She scowled and turned back around. A few minutes later, I noticed her staring at me again, so I flashed said perky smile, waived, and said “hi!” in a loud and chipper voice.

She didn’t look at me a third time.

TL was a little baffled at first, but then I explained the situation and he started laughing. There’s something kind of refreshing about reaching this phase. Can’t guarantee I’ll always be in the mood for it, but it sure felt good.

He and I seem to have a good balance – the days I’m about to lose it, he is calm, cool, and collected. The days he’s about to crack, I can hold down the fort and calm him down. Which is fortunate, because if we ever both lost it, we’d really be in trouble. But so far, we’re holding everything together. Good days and bad days, after all. Even on our less productive days we are, for the most part churning out text and data, putting out fires, and keeping the project running – but we are both badly in need of a break.

However, work awaits. The only way to get a real break is to finish. So that’s what we’re doing. If we didn’t actually care about the quality of what we’re cranking out, I suppose we could finish easily. It’s this darn thing called “ethics” that makes us care, and unfortunately that take a lot more work. Even J's work turned out to be pretty good, so I guess we won't be shooting on him.

In proofreading our housing section, I’m largely skimming, only scanning for grammatical errors. But I came across something that’s just remarkable in terms of providing some contrast. You can rent a nice 3 or 4 bedroom apartment downtown here…for $75 a month. That completely blows my mind – and I’ve been living here for several weeks now – it’s not like I don’t know about relative costs and all of that. But it’s just unbelievable.

Did you know that “education” is one of those words that starts to look wrong if you look at it long enough and are tired enough? Education, educational, educationtastic, etc.

My brain has begun the war of attrition on my intellectual capacity.