Yesterday I woke up in Yemen

Oh boy!  Studying has taken over my life these past couple of weeks.  We are flying through the textbook, and I’m trying my best to keep up.

Right now I’m hanging out in the mafraj of our college doing some Arabic homework, and decided I needed a break from studying.  This writing project hangs in the back of my head every day I’m not working on a piece.

A Spanish student is explaining a complicated Arabic language concept to his friend in Italian. He asks me a question in English, and I try to respond in Spanish, but I end up saying half in Arabic. The category of “foreign language” in my brain seems to just blend when I try to recall something before Arabic. Je suis طالب جديد و nací en el estado de Illinois.  Sometimes when talking in Arabic, Spanish words flow out of my mouth.  Like it’s somehow better to use a foreign word, so long as I don’t use English.  One American student practices his German with a German, and two others their French with some Italians.  To my one side is a Serbian-born who grew up in Norway.  He knows six languages.  The Arab teenager next to me is little comfort, because I now understand the complexity of the one language he speaks.

The Spaniard across from mespeaks his native Spanish, plus Catalan, English, Italian, French, Portuguese, Arabic, and, “A little German.” He just graduated college. I sit for five minutes trying to get a word and its plural cemented in my brain, take a break, and ask him how he does it. “Do you make flash cards?” Sometimes flashcards help, sometimes he just writes out lists and looks at them a lot; obviously you should use a new word as soon as you learn it, but the most important thing, he tells me, is to have passion for learning the language.

I’m trying to figure out what passion means. If I were passionate about this word, would it come to me easier? Is passion an action? Do the passionate flip flash cards every moment they’re not doing something else?

My motivation, and maybe this is my passion (?), is partially borne of necessity, I think. First is the obvious. If I want to buy the chocolate milk instead of the regular, sure, I can point to it, but it’s much easier when I can speak it. The same goes for my work in the office. I need scissors and I need tape and I need to print something from your color printer, and I want to ask you politely, so I’m going to look up those words, write them down, say them to you, have you fix what I said, and then get my work done. I’ll probably end up doing a lot of pointing and gesturing anyway.

This passion borne of necessity is not just getting stuff done, though. I believe it’s an act of becoming. With my Arabic-speaking friends, I feel like a fraction of a person. All my thoughts, opinions, convictions, ideas, the intangibles that make “me”, are stuck in my head, in another language. Maybe some people like having a cloud of mystery surrounding themselves, but if you know me, you know that I talk, a Lot, so living inside this box of a language barrier is not ideal, not who I am. Thus with every new word I learn, every phrase I own, and I am becoming more “me”.  This desire to become whole is a passion in itself, I think, and I’m trying to figure out the best actions to support it.

I make flashcards, and I make lists.  I take my $.75 dinner in a local restaurant, and practice what I know with the locals.  I study hours a day, writing and re-writing words on the page, hoping the mechanical repetition will trickle up my arm and into my brain.  The vocabulary is extensive, and the concepts do not translate.  I cannot “take a nap” or “have a blast”.  I have to shift my conceptual understanding of the world to fit the language; trying to have the language fit my understanding gets me nowhere.

The Australian next to me in the office listens to Arabic music every day. The word “my love”, as in, “you are my love, my one and only”, drifts from the speakers at a rate of forty per minute. So I have that word down pat. Earlier today he was listening to Osama, for purely educational purposes, of course. One could call my co-worker a passionate learner.  He’s been here for a year and a half, and knows his best plan of attack.

I’ve been thinking that way lately, both because of its difficulty and my pace in the classroom.  From here on out, I am no longer studying Arabic.  I am attacking it.

I pushed the book off my bed.  One hundred and fifty pages of examples of reporters who got it wrong.  They had written about the Iranian Revolution or the Gulf War, and they knew very little about Islam.  Their worst shared offense was writing “Islam” as if it were one static thing.  They had essentialized nearly a billion people that span the globe, mostly in the eight thousand miles from northwest Africa to eastern Indonesia.  They framed Islam as spectre, wrote the script for wars of civilization versus irrational passion.  Consumers buy more papers when sensationalized and simple.  All this didn’t disinterest me.  Only one discolored sliver of Truth reaches our media and political boardrooms.  Did you know that most Muslims are not terrorists?  These were the main points of the book.  Reprinting and criticizing one hundred examples to support these important points allows Harvard PhDs to fill thirty books of his own.  Lots of people buy books bearing the Harvard brand, expecting the best.  Playing the academic game right can make you a rich, respected man.  Next I picked up a novel.

I got sucked in right away.  I underlined dialogue and scribbled in the margins, trying to draw a constellation of character, morality, and society, a picture that would ground the work concrete.  The translator’s preface explained that this work was extraordinary in its pardox.  A terse style and straightforward plot supposedly exemplified the ideals of a radical philosophy.  An ostensibly simple character, a “man without morals,” is defined more by what he doesn’t say or do, and readers who “get” this work are supposed to grapple with his complexity.  Having to read between so many lines means you’re reading even after you reach the back cover, which for me was after sunrise.  Stuck in prison for having shot an Arab on a beach in Algiers, I slunk down stairs to make a pot of tea and bowl of oatmeal.  I wouldn’t be sleeping until 3pm today.  I’ll go to sleep early tonight and reset my schedule for classes and work.  The week-long Islamic holiday is over in a few days.  You can call it an “Islamic” holiday because they all follow the same moon.

I finish the last chapter of my Arabic textbook.  This marks the second book in a row I’ve read twice.  Words come quicker to me now, stay in my brain longer.  When I learn a new one, I close my eyes and imagine a scene.  I write the word over the pictures, and store the card in a deck to play with later. I have different brain compartments for different cards.  This organization helps me keep everything.  This morning I’m working on filling the, “Please fix the holes in my pants so I don’t look poor” slot.  I talk to the tailor in the shower, pointing to my knee and saying “this” when I forget the word for hole. Dressed and going over the lists on my desk, I decide I need lunch before getting anything else accomplished.  I leave my jeans on my chair.

I want to cook lunch at the college so I can check my email, too.  Walking through the produce souq, I find no culinary inspiration.  Most of the vendors are still on holiday visiting family in villages beyond the city.  I wander maybe a kilometer to where I remember eating a really good and cheap dinner.  The high sun is baking me in my pants and sweater, and my sleepy eyes squint to keep it out.  I’m indecisive, so I pass the Palestinian Restaurant, the Dubai Restaurant, the Saudi Restaurant, the Yemeni Restaurant, and a dozen others.  I have nearly looped around the block.  Having seen everything it has to offer, now I will decide.

“Hello friend!  Welcome to Yemen!  What is your name?”  Maybe the tenth time I’ve heard this since I left my house.  I answer him in Arabic.  To my surprise, he hasn’t exhausted his English, and continues.  He is from Aden on the southern coast of Yemen.  I figure his name isn’t worth writing on a mental card, but we continue tit-for-tat, me in Arabic, he in English.  My friend Cristine jokes that lots of sleep debt is like free drugs, and I’ve grown bold this morning, having lost my inhibitions somewhere around sunrise.  My Arabic is pouring out of me.

I’m much taller than he, but I need to stretch my stride to keep up.  He insists we go have tea, but I ask if he knows of a good restaurant instead.  He describes one of his favorites and suggests we take a taxi there.  I ask him to pick one on this street.  We duck into Restaurant Dubai, but it’s crowded so we take a seat at the one next to it.

The waiter pulls back my chair at at a table near the kitchen, but we move to the full pane glass at the front.  My new friend likes to people watch too.  My eyes adjust and my body sinks into the plastic chair.  My new friend leans on his elbows and I do the same, so I can hear him.  He dresses like a Westerner: a nice collared shirt and a pair of khakis.  His face is wide open, his gaze kind and intense.  I’m here in Sana’a to study Arabic language, I reply.  I smile at his compliment on my pronunciation.  He smiles big too.  I appreciate that he’s unaware or unconcerned of his incomplete grin pocked with dark greens, browns, and yellows.  I catch myself staring, so I look at who’s walking by.  His gaze immediately follows mine.  He points to a passenger in a taxi. “Look!”  I too do a double take whenever I see another Westerner in this country.

Our waiter explains what they have today, and before he has finished my friend shoots “You like fish?” across the table.  I slowly repeat the word for fish in Arabic, and say yes, I like fish.  He rattles off an order of fish, vegetables, some dip, and bread, holding his hands up in a circle about the size of our table.  He wants the unleavened pita-like bread, and I am pleased.  It’s my favorite.

A minute later the waiter has laid down the thin plastic tablecloth, our expanse of bread, and the dip that compliments it perfectly.  I remember my etiquette and ask my lunch partner about his family.  They are well.  You always say your family is well. You can discuss problems after the this customary exchange.  Of course he is married, he holds up his hand to showcase his ring.  He’s been blessed with a beautiful son and daughter, both very young.  He has many brothers and sisters.  I explain I do not have a wife, and that most Americans tend to get married later than when Yemenis get married.  I am still a student and do not have a marriage in line for when I graduate.  He wishes my wife to be beautiful, and I chuckle.  This is all very easy, family Arabic being one of my first lessons.

Our fish and and bowl of vegetables arrive.  I try a little piece, it is very good, but fresh from the oven.  It’s steaming mouth gapes at me, it’s eyes charred over.  I eat some more bread and dip and watch as my friend rips out the fish’s spine, his fingers unfazed.  He looks at me and calls over the waiter.  I miss what he says, but quickly a plate and spoon are placed before me.  I laugh and move them to the other table.  I eat like a Yemeni I explain as I dig my nails into the fish’s juicy flank.  I keep my left hand on my lap so I don’t accidentally use it.

I ask my friend where he studied English, but I added too much emphasis to one letter.  He replies that he doesn’t teach English at all.  He just arrived in Sana’a, and hopes to find a good job with his language skills.  I am excited to learn the word for “colonization”.  His grandpa used to work for the British government at their military port in Aden.  I always try to reuse a new word once I hear it, so I mention that the colonization ended in ‘67, and he confirms.  He never studied English in any school, never studied with a textbook.  His grandfather taught his children, and this inheritance was passed down again, a gift from the British occupation.  Filtered through the generations, my friend’s English is choppy, but his vocabulary impressive.  I repeat his English with the correct grammar, and then give it back to him in Arabic.  He offers the words I don’t know, and then repeats in Arabic.  Everything we say takes this round trip.  Words in a secondary language polished by a native, poorly translated but then polished again.  Our tea arrives and I hold up my clear glass.  I explain it’s customary in America when drinking with a new friend to seal the friendship with a toast.  He repeats my “Cheers!”.  Our glasses clink and he offers up no Arabic equivalent.  Our tea is the color of whiskey, but the Yemenis burned down the only brewery in Yemen once the British left.

“Every what?” I ask.  He tries again, this time pointing to the fish.  “Ahh, ‘I eat’,” I respond, expanding the imperative into the present tense.  I haven’t practiced the command form of my verbs very much at all.  I had had my fill.  I tell him so and rub my belly as he digs into the fish’s head.  “Instead of that, use ‘alhumdul’allah’.”  Thanks be to God, the same phrase you use after responding that you are well, or after anything else that is good.  “Alhumdul’allah,” as I throw up my hands and lean back to slap my belly, imitating him.  My friend is quick to point out when my textbook Arabic doesn’t apply in the real world.

We’re looking out the window again.  I’m describing what I see, explaining that I like that most people here don’t speak any English.  He likes the Yemeni lifestyle.  A large long lunch with friends followed by a qat chew, a four hour break in the workday.  He thought he’d get a job right away using his English.  He even looked into becoming a driver, delivering goods or people.  Getting a driver’s license is a privilege.  An expensive two week class is required whether you can drive or not.  Many taxi operators work for years to pay off this barrier to entry, living as indentured servants to the wealthy benefactors who paid their way.  Most the drivers I’ve had are estranged from their village.  I give them specific directions so we don’t get lost.  Most my fare goes to he who bought the car, the remainder to a qat grower or a wife hundreds of miles away.

“We buy qat and you come to my house.  We speak Arabic and drink tea.”  I think of my holy pants on my chair, and decide their whole purpose was to practice Arabic anyway.  Chewing qat would be a commitment, hours at the least.  The sun would go down and dinnertime would arrive.  I’d break my self-imposed schedule.  Dictionaries would remain unused, notebooks neglected, news reports untranslated.  “Insha’allah” and he returns my smile.  God willing, we’d chew qat at his house.

He smacks my back as we exit the restaurant.  “Don’t do that!”  I thought they were arguing over the price of the fish, but this was personal.  They debated me, my very existence in this country.  I heard the cashier’s price clearly five times.  Bored as a silent bystander, I threw down the extra dollar.  I wanted to get to the qat.  “From now on, you must be Yemeni.  You live and study here, for a year insha’allah.  Always refuse tourist price.  You are Yemeni now.  Tell them this!”  I hate bargaining.  The difference is usually mere dimes, and my American conditioning a guilty reminder of the material disparity of our two countries.

We’re to stop at the “best qat souq” on the way to his house.  The first taxi doesn’t know it, so a price negotiation is pointless.  We wave him on and flag down another.  This one’s not sure either, but gives us a price anyway.  I check my pocket and agree.  For that I have enough.  I’m repeating what I’ve said hundreds of times.  I’m a student, studying Arabic, from America, for a year (insha’allah), Yemen is beautiful.  Yes, America is very big, also beautiful, and my parents are American too.  Our driver is dragged into my cause, and he too corrects my pronunciation.  Most Yemenis I’ve met have been equally excited that a foreigner has taken an interest in their culture and their language.  They’re so proud and usually helpful.

This is the first time I’ve noticed a driver without a wad of qat in his mouth.  He explains his family grows it, but none of them chew it.  Makes me think of the straight-edge dealers I’ve seen on tv, never dipping into their stash as they dish it out to those they’ve hooked.

We screetch to a stop and begin backing up.  I only catch a “God willing” and “Thanks be to God” from the front seat.  “You need?” my friend asks as we stop in front of a currency exchange.  “Uh.. yes..”  I don’t remember mentioning needing to exchange money.  I shake it off as I walk up the steps.  I had mentioned having just enough for a cab.  I slip a crisp hundred through the hole and get a fad wad of thousands and five hundreds back.  Too big for my pants, I slip it into the front pocket of my schoolbag and get back in my chariot.

“Good?”  Sure.  I offer up that the dollar is weak now, the Euro strong.  They ask me what I mean.  I explain that in America we talk about our money as if it were a person, strong or weak.  Usually we damn him, jealous that he never calls or writes.  I keep this to myself.  I lack the vocabulary to explain the rat race or the American obsession with money, so we drive on.

The city is a maze.  The population exploded over the last twenty years, twenty thousand to over two million.  The ancient Old City sits in the center, the unplanned sprawl surrounds for miles on every side.  I hear that when it rains the streets become rivers.  My friend turns from the front seat to address me, “Taxis don’t know anything!  I been here three months and know the city better than this man, here five years.”  I wonder how many times I’ve been ridiculed like this. Right under my nose, but hidden behind a language barrier.  I feel like we’re taking three rights to make a left.  Either someone’s lost or I’m still not used to the lack of a grid.

The friends from the front seat have switched gears, now verbally sparring, one on the street and the other still behind the wheel.  This time it’s over about a quarter.  My friend throws my fare onto the passenger seat and grabs me as we turn a cold shoulder.  I shout a “Go with peace!” to my temporary language instructor as he speeds away.  I’m reminded to always refuse the tourist price.

The qat souq is looks like almost every other souq.  The first floor of every building hosts Yemenis selling something or other, the streets are crowded with wooden stands and carts, or just tarps displaying something random on the ground.  A child sells socks, an old man oranges.  But instead of the smooth cobblestones of the Old City souqs, here we walk over trampled dirt, plastic bags, cigarette cartons, and faded packaging that once held something useful.  There is a high concentration of qat dealers.  Contrary to the dusty men selling black bags full of leaves from the stones of the souqs by my house, here the dealers sit in suits on upholstered chairs housed in ground floor stores.  There are at least four men in each booth, the best dressed barking into the type of cell phone that would make you dinner if you needed.  The others hand out neatly arranged bundles of qat tied in colorful ribbons.  Customers caress the leaves, take a taste with their noses, invent a fault and offer a lower price.  “This the best qat souq.  No chemicals.  Very fresh.”  I had found the Whole Foods of qat.

We made a showing of our willingness to shop around.  We ask four dealers in a row to see their qat, ask how much, and quickly move to the next.  We do this again, then stop at the least busy booth.  My friend wants me to get four bundles.  I tell him two should be enough.  “This qat very sweet, very good.  You finish one and want another.”  I tell him we will get three.  The sellers eye me over suspiciously, dollar signs in their eyes.  Tourists don’t often leave the Old City.  Their faces light up and they crack big smiles when I offer peace upon them, a blessed holiday.  They welcome their new friend to Yemen, and I don’t share that I’ve been here a month.

I watch the negotiation for a few minutes.  Heads are shaking, exasperated hands thrown into the air.  “We say in Yemen ’share the love’.  Means ‘we are friends, this is not friend price’.”  There will be a better price if we buy four, so I relent.  I can always bring any extra back and offer it to the guards, my second best informal instructors.  They don’t speak English.  I understand his Arabic, but the dealer repeats for me in English.  “Six thousand.”  I laugh.  I chew qat for the social aspect, for the Arabic practice, and I wasn’t about to pay three times as much for the organic variety.  “No no no no no.”  In the Arabic I’m learning, your repetition indicates your emphasis.  My friend offers four thousand, the dealer won’t have any of it.  Now I’m the object of the debate again.  I’m not a tourist, I am a student.  “Student,” I repeat.  “I study Arabic.”  Now the price is five thousand.

“Talk to him!” my friend encourages.  “This qat four thousand because we buy lots.”  The dealer looks surprised that I know this much, takes off another two hundred.  “Talk more!”  I’m choking.  “I don’t know what to say!”  I hate bargaining.  “Share the love!”  “Uh, um, I bring my friends here.  Uh, we buy much qat.  From you only.  Four thousand.”  I rip the four grand I had handed my friend to bargain with and throw it on the table.  I don’t dear break eye contact, but I smile.  The man in the suit picks up my money, so I grab the qat from the counter.  “Four thousand, five hundred.”  “No!  No no no.  Me and many friends. Much qat.  We come to you.”  I step back form the counter with the bag clutched to my chest.  I think Yemenis must love bargaining.  We’ve been playing this game for ten minutes now.  I’m fed up and aggressive.  I don’t know if it was the words I said or the time I was willing to take to say them, but now everyone is satisfied.  I catch the “Sure, friend,” but that’s about it.  I’ve been bold like a Yemeni, so now he addresses me like one, our interpreter disregarded.  He speaks quickly and I just nod and smile, making sure my grip is harder than his as we shake to seal the deal.

I give a slight jump as his arm comes to rest on my back.  My friend squeezes my shoulder.  “Great!  Always refuse tourist price.  You are Yemeni now!”  I shake my hand and say ‘thanks no’ to every seller we pass on the street.  I don’t need their pens, not interested in a knife.  We swerve left to avoid a woman in our path and almost bump into a pair of men holding hands. There’s a shallow pit to our left, teeming with discarded bags of trash.  Either a house once stood here or one soon will.  I swat flies from my face and my noise recoils at the waste of food, humans, and automobiles.  I ask if there is a bus that will take us where we’re going.  “You don’t want taxi?”  A taxi might only be two bucks, but a bus is ten cents.

A woman steps into my path and holds out her hand.  “Eid,” reminding me that today falls within an Islamic holiday.  I hand her forty riyals, she thanks me and ducks away.  My friend’s hand leaves my shoulder and pats my back.  Apparently I am a very good man and God will reward me.  “Thank you for lunch and for qat.  You good friend of mine.”  Thanks be to God.

The minbus is packed and I am a student from America studying Arabic.  For a year, God willing.  Yemen is very beautiful.  I don’t hear the question but it is explained that we are friends.  We are going to his house to chew qat.  My friend pats my knee and I hover my hand over his shoulder, deciding to give him two hearty football pats before resting my hand.  He hands me some qat, and I agree, it’s very delicious.  The best I’ve had.  My friend points out a little green bug sitting on a leaf before slapping the branch against his knee.  “See? No chemicals!”  I follow his lead and throw my stems onto the floor of the bus.  I say we should buy some Fifa, the Saudi beverage of pure sugar.  You’d never drink it unless you are chewing.  I add that I want some water, too.

Back onto the street, another part of Sana’a I’ve never seen.  From here we need to take a taxi if we’re going to this guy’s house. He lives in a village just out of the city limits.  I take him up on his offer, and we’re to walk from here to his friend’s house instead.  He has a satellite TV.  He teaches Arabic and knows a lot of English, so I look forward to meeting him.  “Are you happy with me as friend?”  What?  Of course, I said, you are my friend.  “That makes me very happy.  Maybe you help me with my rent, God willing.  I have no job and cannot pay rent.”  I stop walking and just stare at him.  “I see you are good person and you think about it.  Come,” he says, and we slip into a shop.  He buys a large Fifa, a small Pepsi, a bottle of water, and a pack of smokes.  I ask for a Fifa and some water, and pull out my money.  My friend pushes my hand to my chest and says, “No, I paid.”  He hands me the Fifa and the water, lights up a smoke and offers me one.  I shake my hand and my head at him.  I buy a pack of smokes of my own.

We turn the corner and a man sounds like he’s talking angrily to no one.  Without breaking stride my friend drops twenty riyal into his upturned hand.  We follow behind a shepherd and his twenty goats, unable to pass them in the narrow alley, but at the fork they head right and we go left.  Finally we reach a colorful door at an undecorated mud brick dwelling.  Barefoot children with blinking plastic guns giggle and ask me for a coin, but my friend shoos them away like dogs.  He sticks his fingers into a crack in the brick, trying to jiggle free the lock on the door.  I stand back, starting to feel like an accomplice to something I don’t understand.  Two men in suits approach with two dozen soccer ball balloons in each hand.  The colors floating overhead cut into the monotony of the alley, the wet mud just a shade darker than the houses.  They say hello to me as their leather shoes crinkle the black plastic bags underfoot.  I’m not the only clown in this circus.

A voice demands who is jiggling her lock.  A few short sentences are exchanged, and we’re walking away without saying goodbye.  He’s not home, so we’re headed to another friend’s house.  A girl slips out from between two buildings, looks at me, and greets us in accented English.  “Yes, my dad is home.  Have a good day.”  We go from whence she came, a passage with walls three stories high.  I need to turn slightly to avoid scraping my shoulders, and bring my bag to my front.  My instincts clench my fists and prepare me to run.  I can’t help imagine someone coming from behind to block me in, leaving with my computer and my money and my health.  And my qat.

A minute later and I’m through the front door of a house indistinguishable from the rest.  Above us is sky, before me a wide washbasin and three garbage cans full of water.  My friend talks to a five year old girl, who relays the message to her mother concealed behind a sheet draped over the doorway into the house.  I can see the mafraj on the first floor, tidy and empty.  The girl returns with a boy who shimmies up the doorjamb to drape another sheet.  “I am close friend, but a still a guest.  They prepare mafraj.”  Hospitality is central to Arab culture.  True or not, I once had this explained to me as a matter of survival.  Wandering through the desert, a caravan would need rejuvenation, so a friendly welcome became the standard.  You give some, you get some.

Free from the constraints of the public, I take off my sweater.  My friend is washing the sweat from his face in the washbasin, letting water run down his back. “So hot today.”  “Eh, so so.”  He repeats this three times until I agree, yes, it’s very hot today.  I decline his offer to wash in the basin, and no, thank you, I do not want to take a shower, yes, I realize it’s very hot.  I withdraw and watch the cat.  The cats at the college are treated as pests, and I wonder how this one gets along with the family.  The curtain is lowered and the boy vanishes behind the other blocking the hall.

Every mafraj I’ve been in has had its cushions on the floor.  They usually follow three of the walls, the armrests movable cubes of sturdy cushions.  The seating of this mafraj was more permanent, it’s cushions a foot thick, lifting you slightly off the ground.  I sit next to my bag on the eastern wall, my friend next to me at the south.  He takes off his socks and puts them in his shoes outside, then washes his feet with a pitcher from one of the water cans.  I revert to my rule of thumb: when confused, imitate.  He walks back in to see me taking off my socks.  He reaches out for them, “Here, I take.”  He has asked me for rent, bought me some drinks, and now he wants to take care of my feet.  “No.”  I would not allow this further ingratiation.  He remains standing, a sheepish grin on his face as I head outside.

I pour a pitcher on my feet and neglect to wash, kicking dry in the direction of the cat.  I enter the mafraj with my eyes on my bag.  My friend is sitting next to it.  It looks untouched.  I sit close to him.  “You want shower?  Very hot.”  I feel the red in my face, but I again decline.  He heads into the bathroom, closes the door, and then comes right back out.  He grabs a pitcher of water and heads back in.  Yemenis don’t use toilet paper, so I guess this house lacks running water.  I grab my bag.

He sits near me for a bit, then jumps up.  He knocks on the wall next to the draped sheet, is granted entrance, and comes back with a wide, thin cushion.  He sits upon it on the ground, like I’m used to.  He pats next to him and I join him.  I immediately stand up, step over him, and grab my bag from the couch.  I wedge it between me and the cushion to my side.  I pretend to rummage through it.  My money is still there.  So I don’t feel so awkward, I pull out my pack and light a smoke.

“Now we chew!”  Most brief encounters I have with natives include some discussion of qat.  Do you like Yemen?  Do you chew qat?  Here are your beans, are you chewing today?  I see you are chewing, friend, you are Yemeni!  I can discuss qat better than the weather.  I mention that Arabic lessons resume after Eid (Al-Fitr), but that spending time with Yemenis is just as helpful.  “No chewing while in school!  Waste many hours.”  I have heard from many students who say chewing helps their studies.  It increases concentration, and when chewing, their hands and mouths are kept busy from other distractions.  “When I chew, everything okay.  I forget problems.  Then, after, I get headache and remember that I have no job, no rent, and two children.”  “So I shouldn’t chew when studying?”  We talk of how qat production is sapping Yemen of its limited water.

“What you think of me as person?”  I remind him we are friends.  This makes him very happy.  Friends help friends.  I hear for the tenth time about his rent.  It is due in three days and he is beside himself.  Four boys join us in the mafraj.  I say hello, they give the cursory response, and our conversation ends there.  They flip on the tv to an American show.  Something about dancers competing to become famous.  They boys are enraptured by the contestants practicing in sports bras and biking shorts.  They mumble during the performance, the dancers scantily clad, their moves intimate and suggestive.

“I hope that you will help me, friend.”  I tell him I want to, but I cannot.  I do not have a lot of money.  I explain that not all Americans are rich.  He agrees, and says that what we think of other cultures is not always true.  “Without rent, I do not know what to do.  I will live on street.”  I explain to him I “studied in college from bank.”  I have student loans.  I do not have money.  I have negative money.  Not all Americans are rich.  I turn back to the tv.  Reading the Arabic subtitles has become more appealing than real-time grammar correction in conversation.  He has turned his body to fully face mine.  He taps my arm, and his gaze cuts into me.  His jaw is going haywire, and bits of qat now smeared across his teeth.  The words used to express “chew qat” in Arabic are literally “store qat”.  You’re supposed to bruise the leaves and then store them in your cheek.  “Maybe you help me.  Whatever you can.  Think about it.”

I’ve been thinking about it for over an hour now.  I point to my watch.  “I have meeting with friends soon.”  “Yes, we go soon.  Wife of this house supposed to meet with my wife, but she waiting for us.  She thinks too that you will help me.”  One of the boys returns with a tray of tea, pours a cup for me, one for my friend, then resumes his ogling of the tv.  I feel like no guest.  I’m a monkey in a cage, surrounded by a troupe trying to get me to dance.  My friend is wide-eyed and rigid, shoveling qat into his mouth.  His exhales sound like gravel as he hacks over-chewed qat back to his teeth. I stare at the tv and pretend to be interested.  He taps my arm.  “I hope you will help me.”  Thirty times now.  I feel like a broken record, but hope that this time he will get it.

“I tell our host I give him some qat.  I want to tell you everything.  I am very honest man.  He host us in mafraj, so we give him qat.”  We’re into the third bundle by now.  The bars of the cage are closing in.  I haven’t even met my host.  “Whatever.”

Our hands are in the qat bag at the same time.  He releases his leaves to hold my hand.  I pull away.  “I do not have money.  I have job, but I work for free.  They give me Arabic lessons.  I owe bank money.  Maybe ask them for more in a few months.  I am poor, too.  I cannot help.”  “Yes, but you have money today.  I had twenty riyal, but man with no money on street ask me for it, and I give it.  Now I have none.  I have none today.  Allah always provides.  Allah is the greatest.  Allah gives me all I need.  I give money away today because Allah give me money tomorrow.  Allah always provides.  You have money today, so you help those in need today.  Allah writes this in book.  He wrote in book that I gave my last riyals to man with nothing, he write in book that you help me with rent.  When you no have money, I give it to you.  I give it to you then but I have none now.  Allah will always provide.  I cannot go to bank.”  “I am sorry, friend.”  His latest entreaty a failure, we turn back to the television.  I ask him the word for “to dance”.  We’re talking like we did at lunch.  I test my grammar formulas.  “Raqasa – he danced; raqs – dancing; raahqis – dancer.”

“Yes, very good.  I hope you will help me.  Have you read the Qur’an?”  I tell him parts of it.  “It not all literal.”  Pretty bold.  The Qur’an is considered to be the direct word of God, and thus untranslatable.  Many students spend years memorizing this book, its Classical Arabic a fry cry from any modern dialect or Modern Standard.  “I do not believe that I go straight to heaven if I kill Christians, like it say.”  Good to know.  Really, really good to know.  “Bad Muslims take Qur’an out of context for evil.”  I tell him that Christians have done the same, that European history is marred with untold horrors committed in the name of religion.  “But it tell us how to live.  Christians give money to church, church helps people.”  I tell him I do not give money to the church, but I give money to the poor, to other organizations that help them.  “Good!  Islam more personal.  We help each other.  I give twenty riyals to man with nothing so someone else give me money for rent.  We help each other, not like Christianity.  Allah provides.  You want to be Muslim of course?”  Now these are toes I do not want to step on.  “Um, I believe in God.”  I’m in quicksand.  Thrashing would just make it worse.

“Of course you do.  Everyone believe in God.  God, Allah, same word.  All same God.  Jews believe in Moses, their prophet.  Christians know Moses, Jesus.  Jesus very good man, good prophet.  But Christians ignore last prophet, Mohammed.  He tell us how to live.  Mohammed last prophet, final word of God, of Allah, all same God, but Muslims follow last prophet.  Why you ignore last prophet?  He tell you how to live so you get into heaven.”  Apparently I withhold rent because I am unenlightened.  This is no longer a friend asking for a favor.  I need to provide rent so I can get into heaven.  I haven’t felt a Muslim care this much about me since I arrived in Yemen.

“I believe God has many faces, many prophets, many ways of sharing his wisdom.  Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Shamans, everyone, they just know a different face of God.  What is important is having faith.  To believe in something bigger than you.  Trust that God provides, to have faith.”  I feel ridiculous.  I’m trying to explain a spirituality above institutions, something I have trouble articulating in English, through a language barrier to a poor man whose only constant his entire life has been his religion.  “You say you trust God, and you say you fasted during Ramadan.  Yes, you did not eat during the days.  You only half fasted.  You did not pray five times a day.”  I mean, it felt like I was fasting, so I always said yes whenever asked.  He does not understand my own conception of faith, of trust in the divine.  To him, faith is a demonstration.  Belief and trust are a given, and faith is praying, going to mosque, living the doctrine.  Professing your belief out loud.  Giving rent money to those in need.

“Islam” translates literally as “submission” or “resignation”.  I just looked up “faith”.  The first points me to “ahkeeda” (عقيدة), from the root meaning “to tie a knot”, and in addition to “faith”, this word means “dogma” and “superstition” too.  The second is “deen” (دين), rooted in “debt”, “obligation”, “liability” and the like.  The last was “thiqah(t)” (ثقة), which means to place one’s confidence in, to trust.  Translation will bring us to a cloudy conception at best, both ways.  So while I couldn’t explain to my friend my conception of the divine, the fact remained that I was being a bad Muslim in my denial.  I continued to insist on my own poverty, the phase of life of the broke student.

The dancers are done for the day, and now we’re watching some sort of Christmas heist movie.  A cheesy actor I recognize is dressed in a Santa suit.  He dodges some bullets as he hot-wires a car despite being handcuffed to the steering wheel.  Fires are set, people get run over, stunned criminals scream as their semi is launched off a cliff.    Santa leans over the cliff to watch the explosion below, lights a cigarette, collapses on his sack.  Scene.  Santa is leaving a brick of money in every mailbox on his street.  Scene.  Eggnog and plastic smiles.  Roll credits.  “You know Santa Clause?”  From this man I’ve learned many new words and customs, had my pronunciation fixed with every sentence.  I try to give him a little slice of Americana, of commercial Christianity.  He just nods and smiles.  No response to anything I say in Arabic or English.  Tv says Christian Santa gives you money.  “I never watch tv.  In America I do not have one.”  I grab more qat instead of slapping my forehead.

“I have to go.  I am meeting with my friends soon.”  I’ve put up with this for three hours now, grounded by the qat and the custom of the chew.  “Yes, we should go.  Host wife wants to see my wife.”  He explains he will go back to Tahrir Square with me.  He’s going to meet with another friend and explain to him his situation.  Has he ever met this “friend” before?  “There I will buy a little more qat.  If I don’t chew after dinner I get bad, bad headache.”  I open the bag containing the last bundle, the one marked for our host.  I untie the ribbon and chew some.  This is my qat.  My friend rifles through our discard pile, breaking off stems or leaves that in the face of scarcity now make the grade.  He gives me every other piece.  I shove his offerings into my mouth but still pick from my bundle.  My cheek hurts and I can’t help but swallow little bits of leaves my clenching jaw has mashed to a pulp.

I split the pile into two baggies, placing one in my bag, and offering him the other.  “Take this.”  “Thank you. No.”  “Chew this after dinner.”  “No, thank you.”  “Take.  The Qat.”  The only true refusal is the third.  “Thank you very much, friend.  You very kind.”  I put on my sweater and sling my bag over my shoulder.  He stands and faces me.  He’s shaking like a leaf, and his eyes are too painful to meet.  “Please friend, I know you have good heart.  I cannot buy formula for my children today.”  I turn away.  I say, “A thousand thanks” to the boys in the mafraj, and they nod.  I mutter thanks to the curtain as I pass it on the way to my shoes, not caring if addressing hidden women was wrong.  The tv is turned off and all is silent.

We’re walking quickly and I’m in front, letting my instincts lead the way.  Incessant pleads follow me only a step behind.  Three days he will be kicked onto the street.  He has no job.  He has two children, a wife.  God writes in his book.  I twist his words: “Yes, Fate has been written.  Have faith.”

We’re out of the labyrinth and a wide, fast street is before us.  I flag down the first dubab I see.  I don’t bother to read where it’s going.  I grab about five dollars worth from the wad in my bag, a crisp thousand riyal bill.  I grab my friend’s shoulders as he walks towards the dubab’s open door.  “Go see your friend.  I go see mine.  Here, for your children.  Your children.”  He looks to his hand and his shoulders fall.  “Thank you, friend, you very good person.  I see you at your school?”  Maybe.  Go with peace.  The dubab lurches forward before I’ve found a seat.  I move to the back directly behind a row of women.  I stare at nothing on my lap.

The knot in my stomach hasn’t loosened.  An image of hungry, helpless children haunts the thought of the dinner I’m about to have with friends.  We’ll talk of the bargains we made today and complain that we can’t have a beer.  I find I can’t pay away my guilt.

“Peace be upon you.”  “And upon you as well!”  The big roads of the city’s outskirts carry us as fast as this dinky bus can go, but to where I do not know.  A few blocks away the minarets and domes of the President’s mosque tower above homes, its attached scaffolds fitting right in with the cinder blocks and rubble that will become new buildings.  The mosque has cost billions of dollars and has been under construction for years.  It’s majesty will stand as a testament to the glory of God and to the religious conviction of Yemen’s first and only president, his name ever emblazoned  in the building’s calligraphy.

I am a student.  Yemen is very beautiful.  I am from America.  I am studying Arabic.  For a year, God willing.  I live in the Old City.  Yes, this qat is good, do you want some?  No, I am not Muslim.  Thank you, I have studied two years now.  The dubab screeches to a halt and I slam into the seat in front of me.  The men are all looking at me, each explaining quickly that I need to move.  They point to the two women standing beside the bus.  I’m in the only open row, and the little girl has already left the front seat.  I scramble out, nearly meeting the ground as I stumble over my own two feet.  I didn’t sleep last night.

I shake the driver’s hand and force a return to his smile.  I notice my cigarette is broken, and I only pray that it hasn’t burned an indecent hole into that woman’s nikab.  I throw the remainder out the window.  “No, my father is American, not a Yemeni married to a German.  Yes, I am German.  No, both of my parents were born in America.  No, I am not half Yemeni.”  I see my pimpled, white face in the rearview mirror, my tired, hazel eyes.  I’m six foot two.  I’m wearing linen pants and a zippered sweater and big leather boots.  My Arabic is broken, but I guess I do have qat in my cheek, and I’m feeling more Yemeni every day.

Walking from Work to Home, 3am

Goodbye to the guards, who lounge on the cushions of our outdoor patio, always one knee bent close to their bodies. Their cheeks swell with the golfball-sized wad of qat they’re inevitably chewing, the tougher stems discarded in a pile in front off them.

Pass through the metal gate, hang a left, wave to the kids my age who run the shop on the corner. They’re dishing out water, smokes, juices, eggs, potatoes, garlic, onions, and snacks, and basic necessities to people of all ages. I will pass dozens more of these shops on my way home. I always patronize the two closest to my doors. I feel like I’m buying goods from my friends. They smile and joke with me, talk slowly and express the same thought in three different ways to help me understand. Intimacy comes quickly here. Strangers greet one another with, “Hello brother!” or “Hello friend!”, and I’ve been offered to dinner a bunch of times just after chatting with someone on the street for ten minutes. It’s warm to feel so welcome despite my Arabic, where I sound like Shakespeare with Alzheimer’s. The formal language I’ve learned in school belongs in the government and in the news, and I lack the vocabulary to fully express most of my thoughts.

On my right is a bakery. Through the exhaust, I smell the pita-like bread that this baker makes, another fresh batch even at 3am. When will he close once Ramadan is over? A few more paces and I’m in front of an eatery, not quite a restaurant, kind of like a sit-down deli. I greet the man at front, who sits on a plastic patio chair behind a display case showcasing sandwiches and falafel and sweets. He’s a host, a cashier, a waiter, and a cook, frying up meaty falafel balls in a wok full of bubbling oil that sits on a camper’s stove on the ground. A narrow hallway with room for ten on picnic tables opens up to a bigger space in the back, where a group of men smoke cigarettes and order more food. The kitchen in the back dishes up fried beans, meats, vinegary bowls of shredded vegetables, eggs, bread, and the like. As his ten year old son or grandson or nephew attends bottomless glasses of tea, delivers more falafel, my host asks me if I want to open a Yemeni style restaurant once I return to America . I tell him sure, I enjoy the food very much. I ordered my two sandwiches “safari”, so he wraps them in foil. A smile of cratered teeth, a pat on my shoulder as I stash my late night-snack into my backpack, pay him about $.50, and head on my way. “Go with peace!”

The very modern government military school is on my right. It’s stone construction looms ominous compared to the gesso and mud-sand buildings most everywhere else. Down the street I see the two guards sitting in front of the large metal gate that breaks the two-story wall surrounding the building. They lean towards one another, arms draped over retracted knees, mouths full of qat, large guns hanging casually from shoulders. A couple minutes later and the Yemen Bank of Reconstruction and Development is to my left. A mound of blankets atop a spread of cardboard lies motionless beside a blue-tiled pillar on the third stair of the marbled entryway, a full prosthetic leg finds rest on the stair directly below. I wonder if he’s a war veteran, deliberately sleeping here every night, refusing to suffer his state-inflicted wounds in places unseen. The irony of this man and the beautifully reconstructed and developed Bank beside a plot of garbage and ruins of an old home still strikes me with each of my commutes.

My road ends and heads left or right, Tahrir Square directly in front of me. I turn left, my path hugging the Bank. I wind through the sidewalk market, making sure to avoid the tarp full of socks, placing a hand on the head of the child selling them as I squeeze through. We smile, and I continue on, passing industrial-sized steel barrels of raisins and other dried fruits I have never tried, carts of cigarettes and candy bars and pens and cheap plastic trinkets that blink and flash like Beijing at midnight. I see crates of sodas and water, wheelbarrows of hot coals under ears of corn, buckets of bread and boxes of spotted oranges. It’s hard to tell who’s in charge of selling, and who’s just there for company, their bags of gat dwindling next to piles of stems.

I reach the subway, and descend it’s thirty stairs. I place some coins, inconsequential to me, on the State-stamped laminated letter that legitimizes the begging of the woman who displays nothing more than her gnarled leg, at the end of which is a foot in no shape to wear a shoe. Her eyes remain fixated on the ground, in the same position I saw them at two earlier today. There are a few other women, their dirty children sleeping across their laps. They noticed my coins, and they outstretch hands, “Friend, friend, friend, please.” The man working beside them greets me the same, holding one of dozens of elixir bottles out to me, this one uncorked, releasing the sweet smell of perfume. In the thirty paces it takes me to read the next set of stairs, I pass a cell phone dealership, a dozen tailors selling suit coats and gowns and glittery prom-like dresses for six year olds, and the same little boy I see every day, sitting on a cardboard box, surrounded by fifty blinking tiaras, always smiling through the smears of dirt.

My subway trip is over as I ascend the stairs, having gone underground to avoid the busy street flanking one side of Tahrir Square. Ahead of me is a long street, a market (souq) of produce down its spine and on either side. You can negotiate your way into a cornucopia of fresh vegetables and fruits, dried goods, or buy smoothies or food and pretty much everything else you can find on any other street. The souqs are thematic, but never specialized enough that you need to head across town for anything. I cut a hard right and have a block to go. All these shops glitter and glow under strong fluorescent lights, their gold jewelry displayed on velvet behind glass. More bread, a few stands grinding fresh salsa, and a spread of cassette tapes, the seller’s favorite warbling from a dingy Casio.

Six guys my age play dominos on a large step in front of shop selling dirty parts for what appears to be refrigerator fans, again their gat beside them, and a pile of empty bottles that once held the sugariest pop I’ve ever had, probably specifically designed to combat the bitter of the leaves chewed every night. Music videos provide the soundtrack from the shop across the street, one tv in a stack of dozens displayed for all who pass.

Another group of kids, these probably four to eight years old, play a few paces down. They wave flames into the air, having set fire to pieces of cardboard pulled from a pile of trash on the corner. Excited and scared as the heat creeps towards his fingers, one throws his into the street, and a taxi’s wheels snuff it out. Another drops his onto the pile of trash, and the plastic begins to melt before one of the older kids pulls it off. I turn the corner into my narrow alleyway, and there are another dozen kids. Some slide down the stone ramp next to our stairs on the squares of their pants or pieces of cardboard, and two others squeal as they point what appear to be plastic AK-47s at my chest. They rush up to me and bounce around, giggling, “Hello! What is your name!” just like they have every other time I pass them. They don’t yet dress in the traditional garb of the adults, but instead wear clothes like the kind my family put on our front stoop for the Salvation Army decades ago.

“Peace be upon you, my friend,” I say as I reach the little shop across my door. “And peace be upon you!” “How are you tonight?” “Great, thanks be to God!, you?” “Well, thanks be to God! I would like three bottles of water, one bottle of juice of orange, and one chocolate wafers, if you please.” “With peace!” “With peace!”

Two children have blocked my door, telling me I cannot pass until I give them some of my chocolate cookies. “Sorry, cookies for friend Jessica! Cookies for friend.” I open my door and hold back the eager six year old, closing the door to my arm and pulling my hand through the crack.

“With peace, friend!” I tell them as the latch clicks, and I’m home at last.

(more pictures forthcoming)

 The last avenue of my commute:

Been absent for a while – just got over a horrible bout of what the director of my school called “Yemen’s warm welcome.”  Should have called it Yemen’s wet welcome…
Here’s to processing food again!

I’m officially too tall for Yemen.

Were the door frames in my five hundred year old house constructed at a time when people were shorter? Or were they intentionally designed as such, demanding an act of deference of those who enter into your space? One inadequate bow and my room punished me. I have since remembered to pay it the proper respect before entering, a kowtow to the history of the space and those who lived here before me. My head hurt for days.

In front of my mirror, I squat to shave. I can stand under the shower, but the ceiling drops elsewhere, for a reasons I can’t imagine. In America I’d go weeks without shaving. Here, I diligently shave. I even change my clothes every day. My face and my clothes would look dirty otherwise, my few hairs resembling scattered specks of dirt, my clothes wearing last night’s dinner. Islam proscribes a role; only the ritualistically cleansed may enter the mosque, and I’m trying to fit in. I wonder if they can tell that I shower (maybe) thrice a week.

The company is cast in limited roles, the characters expected to dress and act alike. Despite its set of dry desert heat under constant sun, the stage of Yemeni public life requires I don the requisite wardrobe, and I almost nail it. My suit jacket leaves wrists exposed, my lanky knees have poked holes in my jeans. My shirts hang to the belt, exposing midriff when I retie a shoe. So maybe here my height isn’t the problem, but that some of these favorites I’ve worn for years and years.

I cut the hair, I covered the tattoo, I removed the piercings. I wear the clothes, and I mimic the postures. Despite my efforts, I can’t help but stick out here, and when walking down the street, quite literally so. I watch the tops of curly-haired heads, some of them wrapped in scarves, swerve through the street.  Half of Yemen is fourteen or younger, so many of those I pass in the streets look up at me from my waist or below. Positioned lower than men, women meander through the rest, with only their fully-cloaked posture allowing me to guess at their age. Some hobble, some seem to glide, their feet unseen.

I might be constitutionally incapable of fitting in, but I do appreciate the view from up here.

———————-

The view from up here, taken from the roof of the markez (center) at sunrise 10/7/07:

(Click to make them bigger.)

Yemen mainly slept today. If the two dozen children playing barefooted soccer in the double arms’ width alley outside my window five stories below until 3am serve as any guide, the Yemenis were probably pretty tuckered out come sun rise. Had I spent the dark hours of the day celebrating with my family or catching up on work, I probably would have slept most the day, too. It’s the holy month of Ramadan for Muslims across the world, and I’d have to agree that spending the day in bed is probably the best way to avoid breaking the total fast that’s required during daylight hours this lunar month.

In trying to maintain my own counter-schedule, earplugs and an eye mask have helped, but we’re up against quite the nocturnal beast. Young men speed through the narrow streets on motorcycles without mufflers, maybe with a destination in mind, but maybe just revving horsepower in late adolescent competition, showing off bikes decked in goat furs and neon glow-in-the-dark accessories. Friends shout hearty hellos down the allies, children shriek, horns honk. A little after three am and lasting until five, over a hundred mosques join in a cacophony of wails, imploring the faithful to go to mosque or just get on their knees and pray. The sun breaks the horizon and an hour or two of near-silence follows, but soon this gives way to goats and cows moaning, struggling against the ropes that shackle them to the beds of Japanese pickups. There are the sirens of garbage collection trucks backing up, its passengers in orange jump suits slamming doors and shattering glass as they collect trash piled on corners. Many sounds I can’t yet identify, some I don’t think I ever will, but all bounce up the walls of the many-storied buildings that make up this part of town to pay a visit to my room. I’ve started to get used to it all, but the energy runs so high that many nights I add melatonin or PM pills to my arsenal of dream-land defense.

I wage this battle against the nightlife of Ramadan Sana’a so I can study and work during the day, where I make sure to eat and drink in places unnoticed. As a non-Muslim, it’s not expected that I fast, but consuming in front of those who abstain holds about the same appeal as eating a medium-rare New York strip steak in front of a vegan. No need to add insult to injury to those who are already hungry, tired, and probably dying for a cigarette, and no need to wear an obvious badge marking me as an “other.” Who knew that a mid-day clandestine omelette could provide such a rush?

I’m lounging on the floor of the administrative office of the new college and established language center where I work and study in the heart of the Old City. I’m joined by four of my co-workers, and together we make up the American cadre of this project of over forty people. Stadium rock from the 1970s plays over the hum of three computers on as many desks, where stacks of papers and casually placed bottles of water and crusty cups from morning coffees leave little room for much else. The telephone provides a siren of warning rather than a ring, and you have to watch your step so as not to trip on the mess of electrical cords and converters. In the patio outside, two of the dozen or so cats that live within the iron walls of our gated complex thrash clawed paws at hissing faces, leaping from table top to windowsill and back to the ground again, their dance ending with a writhing ball of fur almost as quickly as it had begun. As the most recent addition to this Middle Eastern office, I seem to be the only one that notices.

The smell of iftar, the communal meal eaten to break the day’s fast, wafts in from the kitchen across the patio, but the late golden rays of the sun still cast shadows of the trees onto our building’s western wall. When two of the Yemeni workers exchange verbal blows that echo for an entire block and fill the office, David rolls his eyes and chuckles. No clock needed: “It’s almost time for iftar.” The dry desert air hangs heavy with anticipation as we gather our things and meet near the heavy iron door opening to the street.

Ahmed, the manager of our accounting department, has invited the office to have iftar at his home, and we five Americans, the Aussie, and four Yemenis are going to head over. We should have left by now: the sun has begun to kiss the mountaintop and the calls to prayer jump out around us. We need to get to the other side of the city in about ten minutes, but we seem to be running on what friends of mine back at Stanford call Arab time. We’re missing two, and then one decides he needs to use the bathroom, another that he needs to buy water, another needs cigarettes, but at last we’re off.

Sana’a has erupted. Its doors have opened, spewing families into the streets. The few shops that remained open during the day slam their shutters, a few others throw open their own, and carts laden with all sorts of food begin making their rounds. The recently quiet streets have become a honking, congested zoo, so much that even the stray cats and dogs have ducked for cover. A pickup truck with five in the cab and ten in its bed swerves around a taxi with all four doors ajar. A motorcycle holding three squeezes between the two, and an SUV coming the opposite direction has nowhere to go — its horn blares until an avenue opens up.

Except for about a foot and a half outcropping on either side, anything between buildings in this city is either laid in stone or paved in asphalt. The lack of sidewalks isn’t as concerning as the manic aggression of automobiles on these avenues that knew only carts or feet for thousands of years, and in joining the Yemeni rush hour I feel like I’m in the Chicago Marathon but they forgot to close the streets. We make our way with hundreds of others on foot, weaving in and out of cars that will take that inch if you give them half. As we make our way towards the transportation hub at Tahrir Square, the last rays of the sun diffuse into a fading glow, and so we start to hustle. We’ll surely be late, and so we hope dinner is running on Arab time as well, but considering this family hasn’t eaten all day, I highly doubt it.

The loading cul-de-sac at Tahrir is nearly empty. We had hoped to hire a dubab, or minibus, to take all ten of us across the entire city for only about $1, but the driver of the only remaining one is haggling rates with a father on the curb. The mens’ hands shake higher than their voices, and the kids play tag as the toddlers grip the black nikab of their fully concealed mother.

We head across the square to the far bordering street. I’m playing Frogger; I squeeze my arms to my side when cars pass in front and behind, throw them out with an invisible shield when the headlights approach. We all make it to the other side. Bassam has flagged us down two taxis, two boulders in a river of rusted aluminum dinghies that trickle on when they can, are damned when they cannot. I’m still startled with every honk. In America, honks indicate I’ve done something wrong or that I’m in immediate danger. Here they say everything, including, “Hey, pedestrian, there are cars in this city. Move or hop in back.”

In our cab we’re a group of five rumbling bellies: two Americans, an Aussie, a Yemeni coworker, and our driver. “Do either of you know the address?” I ask. Heads shake. “Tahrif al ohnwahn al-Ahmed?” “La ahrifuhu,” “Shit! – follow that taxi!” Wheels screech as we launch after the others, already three cars ahead of us. Splicing into the lane next to us to avoid a stopped bus directly ahead, we join the flow of traffic by cutting off an SUV and nearly rear-ending a dubab. Honks fill my ears and adrenaline my veins, and upon realizing that this car too lacks functional seatbelts, I muster the reassuring thought that nothing in Yemen moves very fast. The first intersection we reach is one of the busiest in the city, so thankfully there are two camo-clad, AK-47 wielding officers in their booths directing traffic.

Out of downtown Yemen, the traffic clears a bit, and we race on. Does our driver know he has mirrors or turn signals? Every time he’s about to switch lanes he just lays on the horn and executes, and somehow we never hit anything. Judging by the missing paint and dents on nearly every vehicle I’ve seen in this country, I know that his luck will not hold out. I wonder how bad of a bumping it would take to get both drivers to stop. Do they call the police and file insurance claims?

In trying to keep the other taxi in sight, our driver veers left of the traffic going our way, and lays on his horn to let the far oncoming cars know that he’s relentless. Usually we end up swerving back into the mass going our direction, sometimes the oncoming car yields and we continue to claim the lane for our vector. Sometimes others join us, lending us legitimacy to drive in what I consider the wrong lane. The only rhyme or reason I can find in the lane markings on the street is that the most aggressive wins. Cars come barreling down side alleys to join the busier street and do all they can to avoid even slowing down, let alone yielding to this concept of “right of way” I must be inventing. My neck jams forward or back as we accommodate those joining our flow, and when a stretch of road opens before us, and I’m pressed against the back of the seat as we take advantage. While my jaw clenches, my housemates next to me seem unfazed, and the two Yemenis in the front practice politics for all the street to hear. They point at the radio broadcasting a talk show I can’t yet understand, letting up here and there to slap each other on the back or knee.

“I find it hilarious how one second they’re screaming, the next they’re laughing,” David offers. Ben adds, “TODAY WAS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY,” before whispering, “hopefully tonight’s dinner will be fun.” I laugh for the first time since getting into the car, and feel the need to provide my own observation. “This place is fucking surreal.” “Yeah, but you’ll get used to it. Sort of.”

Ten minutes later, we’re in one piece and paying the driver about $1.50, a little more than he had asked for. As we step up to the colorful metal door that greets the street, my light head wonders if my appetite was still in the taxi or somewhere near my feet.