Holiday in Ethiopia - Part 1

Hello my loyal readers,

I am happy to report that I have returned from Ethiopia no worse for the wear. Actually, I feel refreshed and ready to dominate my last five weeks of lessons in Sana'a.

As for my trip to Addis, it was amazing. Caution, I don't have any crazy stories about adventures in Africa, because for the most part I just enjoyed the simple things which are denied in daily life in Yemen. Like drinking wine and beer, eating pizza and burgers and looking and talking to women. Little things like this that I hadn't realized how much I missed them until I got to Addis.

I arrived in Addis on Sunday morning, after getting up at 4:30am and heading to the airport for my flight. The night before we had played in a soccer tournament at the British Club in Sana'a, called the Lion and Jambiyya Club, on a lit tennis court. We got second, the damn Italians outclassed us. I didn't get back till late from that, so I only had about 3 hours of sleep before heading to the airport. Anyway, we (Ryan and I) had no problems in our travels and after having a proper cup of coffee at Bole International Airport, took a taxi to the Le Gare Hotel. Luckily, as it would turn out, this hotel was full so we went over to the Baro Hotel, which was described by Lonely Planet as a hot spot for thrifty travelers. Turns out that this decision turned out to be clutch in us having an amazing trip. There were no rooms in the hotel available till 8pm, so we left our bags at the front desk and headed out for a walk around town guided by some friendly locals who wait outside the hotel for visitors. There names were Yonis and Papi, and were both high schoolers who hung out around the hotel and practiced there English with the travelers. They took us to Pizza Corner, just what I wanted!!, where we had a couple beers and a big pizza. Now this doesn't sound exciting, but when you haven't had anything like this for almost two months, it is quite fulfilling. We spent most of the afternoon walking around with them until retiring for a nap on the padded benches on the hotel's "patio". Later in the evening we met a Ethiopian guy (his name eludes me) who was from the Hammer tribe down south and had actually made a documentary about his tribe. He was waiting for his visa from England, where he would be heading to work with National Geographic for 6 months, pretty awesome. He took us out to a restaurant near by where we had burgers and drank local beer (Jambo, St. George, Dashen). From the restaurant we went to a bar called the Blue Nile and listened to a great mix of music (Ethiopian, reggae, and Western) while drink more and more. Plus we laughed about all the prostitutes walking around the place trying to show their stuff, although most of them were quite unattractive. In Addis prostitution is a pretty big business but there will be more on that later. After consuming copious amounts of beer (at least I'm being honest), we headed back to the hotel and hung out with a bunch of the travelers who were sitting on the patio having a good time. At the hotel there was a little kitchen with food and drinks, so most of the travelers spent their nights fraternizing with others on the patio.

Now one of the key aspects of this trip being so great was the people, so now I'll introduce the cast of characters we hung out with and their stories:
1) Ana (31yr) and Jez (34yr)- Ana (English) was a doctor who had been working in Johannesburg as a doctor for 10months and her boyfriend Jez (Canadian, lived in England) was a musician/dj. These two were definitely the life of the party and a lot of fun to hang out with. They had bought an old Mercedes, put an awesome sound system in it and were traveling from JoBurg, South Africa all the way home to England by car. When we met them in Addis, they had just spontaneously got married the day before on a whim by a Christian monk who spoke no English. From Addis they were heading to Djibouti City where they were getting on a cargo ship and sailing to Aden, Yemen (we should see them again in Sana'a). From Aden they are planning to drive up the coast along the Red Sea through the Middle East, into Turkey and then across Europe home. Now if that isn't an inspiring and awesome trip, I don't know what is. When we met them they had been having a great time, with no problems, except for spending an exorbitant amount of money.
2) Tom and Esther- Tom was a English guy who had just finished up a 4 month stint working the NGO "Save the Children" in Kenya. When it was over he headed up towards Ethiopia but couldn't get across the border b/c they didn't grant visas at the border, you have to get them from the embassy. While at the border time he met Jez and Ana, and somehow allowed them to convince him to try and smuggle himself across the border. So, with two sketchy Kenyans he met, at night he ran across the border and actually met up with Jez and Ana in a small border town in Ethiopia successfully. Unfortunately, he still needed to get a visa if he wanted to ever leave Ethiopia, so he went to get one in Addis and was arrested. He was let go but had to report to court where he got a 3,000birr fine and was asked to leave the country in 7 days. Crazy stuff. Along with him was Ester (Dutch), a girl who was teaching in Southern Ethiopia and had randomly run into Ana, Jez and Tom. Her and Tom hit it off and she had been staying at her hotel with him since he had been in Addis.

3) Emily, who was a 26yr old Irish chick. She had taken a year off of work and decided to travel Africa solo. She also started in South Africa. When we met her she had just spent 6 weeks traveling around Uganda. From Ethiopia she was flying to Egypt and then traveling through the north of the Middle East (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria), before heading into Turkey and through Europe back to Ireland.

4) Sara- Same age as Ryan and I, had went to Wesleyan for two years and then decided to take time off. Well, it turned into two years of traveling Asia, the M.E. and Africa. She had learned both Arabic and French along her travels and had been all over, including Yemen where she plans to live at some point. She was wicked into religion/spiritualism and was converting to Islam. She had a very different view pertaining to Islam and the M.E. than would be expected from a Western girl.

5) Tons of other people, but I've identified the main characters in my stay. The cool thing is we now know at least 3 people who are planning on coming to Sana'a at some point in the near future, so I'm looking forward to showing them around.

Thus, this is the reason we were so lucky for picking the Baro Hotel. The hotel was also great b/c it was 10$ a night and provided us with a bed, shower, personal bathroom and the little restaurant. The only sketchy thing about it was that it also served as a bit of a brothel. During our stay there you would constantly see Ethiopian "couples" coming in and out, only staying for an hour or two if you know what I mean. If this wasn't evidence enough of some ficky fick going on, there were about 3 packets of condoms provided in the rooms, hint, hint. So as I slipped into bed each not I tried to think happy thoughts, far away from the reality of what my bed may have been priorly used for, but I'm guessing there was a reason my bed dipped down big time in the middle.

That wraps up my first day in Addis. My trip will have to be done in installments because there is so much to write. For my fellow runners, I did see a billboard with Geb on it while I was driving in and impressed a few people with my knowledge of Ethiopian athletes. Until next time take care all.

Good luck at SCSU today.

Also I will be attending University of Chicago next year. Driscoll and Gwyth, you'll have to Amtrak it down to the city for some runs on the Lakefront.

Rich

Irony!

Alright,

Sorry if I got anyones hopes up but this isn't going to be a long post. I just saw something though that I had to comment on.

Just now as I was walking back from getting my breakfast a UN SUV passed me. Then in the back window what do I see? A nice old picture of Sadaam Hussein baby! How is that for irony, considering the UN put sanctions on his regime for only, hmmm, about 12 years. Good stuff.

Oh also, I heard from all of the American grad schools. I got into GW, but didn't receive any scholarships so it looks like it is still between Chicago and Michigan. Inside sources say Chicago is opening a gap in the polls, but we'll have to see what happens in the next few weeks.

I leave for Ethiopia in two days!! I bought a 1gb memory stick for my camera the other day, so unless I take over 400+ pics, I should be good to go. And yes, I will be keeping my eyes open for Haile, Kenny B, Shihine and the rest of the gang. Considering I've been run 3 times in the past 2 weeks and played football twice, I think I could give them a run for their money.

Things I dislike about Sana'a

So far I have mainly only put good things about Sana'a up on here. Now it is time to write about some of the less attractive things in the city.

1. The Cars/Motorbikes- The aspect of Sana'a I hate the most is the traffic in the city. The streets in the old city and new city are absolutely packed with cars from about 8am-9pm. It makes walking around quite annoying and a bit dangerous. Not to mention that the sidewalks in the city are inadequate to say the least, so a lot of the time you have to walk on the sides of the roads. Plus, as I have mentioned before, one of the national past times of Yemen is honking, even if there is no reason to honk. You could be all the way to the side of the road, the cars will still make sure to get in a couple honks, just in case you try to dash into the middle of the street. The cars annoy me the most in Old Sana'a because the roads were constructed long before the idea of cars was ever thought of, thus they are quite narrow. I have seen multiple cars get stuck because they try to go down roads which are too tight. There are no sidewalks either, so pedestrians are forced to press themselves up against a wall when I large SUV decides to go by. I wish I could just slash all of their tires, or set up large roadblocks, yet knowing the Yemenis this wouldn't even deter them. The motorbikes are even worse than the cars. They go zooming around the old city using absolutely no caution at all. The honk constantly and their little lawnmower engines create quite the racket because the sound bounces of the buildings down the tiny streets. On top of this, the pollution is pretty awful in the city. Coupled with the dust, it creates a nice constant haze/smog during the daytime.

2. Children (some of them)- Now, don't interpret this wrong, it isn't that I don't like children, I just don't like a large percentage of Yemeni children. There is a reason for this. There are some children like Hamzi (mentioned in the last post) and Hisham (a little 5 yr old who wears a suit and is always selling little packs of tissues near the Baab al Yemen). I'd say it is 50/50 with the kids I like/don't like. The reason I don't like a large amount of the children is because they are plain annoying. They love to come right up to me and yell senseless things in my face. It isn't as if I've never seen this kids either, a lot of them I see almost everyday. Yet they still love to yell at me. It is even worse when they say abusive phrases they have learned in English, but they have no clue what they actually mean (this has only happened a handful of times). The worst time of the day for me is around 6pm, because the streets of Old City are literally like one big romper room. I swear, it is the designated hour for all children to hit the streets ages (2-16), without any adult supervision and just run wild. They must all chew qat after school and then they are to burn off their energy before dinner. While 6pm is the worst time, you will see kids out on the streets at all times. Last night as I walked past the Baab around 11pm, there were a load of kids just playing in the square, many of them quite young. I guess I support more child labor, so at least these children don't bother me so much. ***Another thing, unrelated to me being annoyed by children is their obsession with pictures. They constantly ask me to take pictures of them. Probably because they associate foreigners with cameras. One time I decided to take a picture of a couple of my young friends and literally after I had taken one picture, at least 10! (no lie) kids came running up the street from out of no where screaming (SURA, SURA). Crazy!

3. Trash- The trash everywhere in the city is another aspect of Sana'a which bothers me. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that they have full-time street cleaners, whose soul job is to clean up the streets. This is a good thing because it creates more jobs, but the benefit of the street cleaners is canceled out by the fact that most Yemenis totally abuse this service and throw their trash on the street. Literally, it is common for people to just have a drink or eat a candy bar and then just throw the refuse right into the street. Really nice! So all the work that the street cleaners are doing is pretty much for naught. It is like digging a hole on the beach, but whatever you extract is just filled back in with loose sand. The funny thing is that I read in the paper the other day that the streets of Sana'a are much cleaner since the implementation of a more structured sanitation system. The paper little said that the streets of Old Sana'a "sparkle", HAHAHA!, that is the second best joke I've heard since I've been here. I'm not saying that the place is despicable, but it definitely wouldn't be considered in any way clean, even by city standards. On top of this, people love to throw their trash in vacant places. (I'll need to take pictures for evidence). For instance if there is abandoned walled in property, all the people throw their trash over the wall onto the property, like that solves the problem. When you look from a high vantage point, it is quite appalling. At least you can't see these "dumps" from the street. What they need are public trash cans placed intermittently along the street to complement the street cleaners. Yet considering the Yemenis laziness I don't know if it would help much. Yet still, in their defense I guess, the government has money to put up bill boards telling people not to litter, yet they won't invest in placing public trash cans around the city. Go figure!

4. Lack of Manners- While the people are incredibly friendly in Yemen, they have absolutely no manners. There are no such things as lines in Yemen for instance. If you go up to a shop, you just have to throw elbows and yell a lot. Even when I was at the supermarket, people will just cut right in front of you. Or if you are sitting down at most restaurants it is common for the customers to just yell at the "waiters", never including please or thank you. I've gotten quite used to this aspect of society, but at times it still bothers me. For instance when we (Ryan and I) were scheduling our flights, even at Yemenia, which was a formal office, the people will still just walk up when you were sitting at a desk with one of the workers and just start talking over you. It isn't because we are foreigners either, this is just how it is.

5. Variety of Food (Lack there of) - First, let me state that I like the food here. Even though I like the food, after a month and a half, it is growing old fast. These people literally eat about the same 3-4 dishes per meal, everyday. The other day I went out and got pizza for the first time and it was like heaven. So nice to just eat something different. Most of the time the lack of variety doesn't bother me, every once in a while I just have a craving for Western food. Nothing exotic either, just like a basic salad with dressing. The main thing I will miss about the food here is the juice. It is so good and so cheap. Can you imagine getting a freshly blended fruit smoothie in the States for 25-50 cents. Anyway, back to being negative.

6. Animal Cruelty- I have already talked about this, but still I thought I would throw it on my list. I heard the other day (and I wouldn't doubt it), that most of the dogs and cats are actually poisoned in Sana'a so that the population doesn't get to large. That or the people just kill them for fun, because I say ten times the amount of dogs and cats in the villages of Shibaam and Kawkaban that I visited last weekend.

7. Mood- Finally, the last thing that bothers me and most of the other students is the mood changes one experiences while studying in Sana'a. I am usually a pretty easy going, happy person. Here though I notice that my mood changes a lot from day to day. For instance, one day I will be excited about studying Arabic and living in Sana'a and then the next day I just want to head home. It isn't even that I'm homesick, it just seems to be the general consensus among the students that studying in Sana'a is a daily love/hate relationship. If I were just traveling around I don't think I would feel this way, but at times with the amount of Arabic I'm doing and the aspects I've mentioned above, I just get this urge to leave and go home. That usually passes though after a couple of minutes. In the end though, I am quite happy with my experience so far and the positives definitely outweigh the negatives.


*** T - 4 days until I leave for Ethiopia! Looking forward to a little "Spring Break" of my own in Addis Ababa.

Also if you still read this, post a comment b/c it looks like the "viewing" audience has greatly declined over the past few weeks. Partially probably my fault because a lack of fresh/exciting material.

Grad school update- I got rejected by NYU (I didn't want to go to a school whose color is Purple anyways!), so now I am waiting on GW. After that I will have heard from all the U.S. schools. Unless GW hooks me up with a sweet scholarship, it looks like it is going to be a battle between the U of Chicago and the U of Michigan, with U of London being the wild card that could throw a wrench into everything. I really like both Chicago and Michigan, but they are definitely styled differently. I can hear Dris, Gwyth, and my Dad (he wants to go to the football games) chanting Michigan into my ear from the States!


Links to Current Events in Yemen:

I forgot to mention there is a war currently going on in Yemen.

http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1034&p=front&a=1

Food insecurity in Yemen:

http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1034&p=local&a=2

Yemenis Largest Group of Detainees in Guantanamo:

http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1032&p=front&a=1

Link to Addis Ababa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addis_Ababa

New Teacher, Traveling, Graduate School, and Good Ole Fist Fights

Ahlan wa Sahlen,

First off, I am still alive and well. Although I have come down with a bit of a head cold, I think it is from lack of sleep, because there has definitely not been a change in the season. Other than that though I am doing well.

Hmm, well to start off, I began working with a new teacher named Mohssin last week. He is a decent guy, a bit impatient (always jumping in and helping me out when I am reading or trying to say something), plus his hygiene isn't what I would refer to as "good". I'm hoping though that after working with him a bit things will work themselves out and we'll develop a good system for my studies. When I started working with Abdur Rahman (my afternoon teacher), at first I did not like his teaching style but now I think he is great. It is mostly because we worked out a methodical system that we have stuck with for the past month. Plus, we go slowly and he makes me figure things out on my own. He also emphasizes correct pronunciation, which is imperative to learning Arabic, or else no one will understand you. So anyway the past week of classes went alright, my classes with Mohssin were a bit "shaky" but my classes with Abdur Rahman continue to go well.

By the end of the week though I was feeling a bit burnt out from all this Arabic so my buddy Ryan and I decided we would go to the Yemenia Airline offices and try to book a trip to Addis Ababa in Africa for a week or so. Unfortunately, the cheap offer deals for Addis Ababa in March were all booked, so for some unfathomable reason we decided to look for flights to Djibouti City, mainly because Ryan kept saying that Djibouti had nice beaches, booze and French legionnaires. In reality, as I would find out later, Ryan actually knew nothing about Djibouti. We book a flight though to go there on the 19th (luckily we didn't pay). While we were at dinner afterwards, Ryan and I realized that we knew nothing about Djibouti and figured we better do some research. Once we got back we immediately went on the internet and looked up info about Djibouti City and guess what? Yes, you probably guessed it, all the reports from travelers said there is nothing there, it is hot as heck, it's way overpriced and stricken by poverty. So about three hours after reserving flights, we decided to cancel them. We are going back today to try and get a flight to Addis in the next two weeks for a decent price.

Other than this, nothing too exciting happened during the week. On the weekend though, things began to pick up. On Wednesday night, Thomas, Daniel and I went to dinner on Hadda Street, to Al Ahmar, like a Yemeni sit down version of fast food. While eating, this little boy, probably 5-6yrs old, kept smiling and giving us thumbs up. He was sitting out front of the restaurant working. He had a scale and charged like 5-10 rial for people to way themselves. So once we finished dinner we went out there and weighed ourselves. I also bought him a pack of peanuts, because unfortunately, the money the boy (Hamzi was his name) made most likely went straight to his parents. My bet would be on the money actually going to his Father's qat fund. It was quite sad that his parents would send him out on the street at 6 yrs old to work on the street. Yet, despite having his childhood stolen from him, Hamzi sat there, happy as a lark with a big smile on his face. Because of this, Thomas and I had the urge to get him something to reward him. We went next door to a little toy store and bought him a self-propelled bat mobile. The way his eyes lit up when he opened the bag with the car in it was truly priceless. After seeing what was in the bag he quickly wrapped his arms around it in a unbreakable ninja death grip. Unfortunately we didn't have a camera, but before we left we told the security guard outside the restaurant to not let anyone take the car from Hamzi. I would like to think he is currently the coolest kid in his neighborhood with is new bat mobile. We are going to try and go back and see him sometime in the near future.

On Thursday, I did my first traveling outside of Sana'a. Ali, Ryan, Fabien and I, headed out to Shabaam, which is a small village about an hour outside Sana'a. We took a taxi to Shabaam, not the most comfortable ride because they pack you like sardines into the car to make maximum profit. The trip out was beautiful. The landscape outside Sana'a is pretty barren and rocky, yet there were homes and farms scattered along the way. Once we arrived in Shabaam, we immediately started hiking up to Kawkaban (I didn't know but this was the main attraction of the trip). Shabaam is the town at the bottom of the mountain and you hike up to Kawkaban which is at the top. The hike up was not too difficult because there was a man made stone walking path most of the way to the top. There were also street lamps intermitently along the path, which I guess makes sense because it is the only way down/up from Kawkaban if you don't have a car. The view from Kawkaban was spectacular. You could see for miles around. Other than that there was nothing of note in Kawkaban, just very old houses, friendly people, and a cell phone tower which stuck out like a sore thumb. We had lunch at the tourist hotel (the only place to eat in Kawkaban). The food was great. We ate in the mafraj and sat around, chewed qat, and conversed for quite a while once our meal was over. Then in the early afternoon, we set off back down the mountain to Shabaam where we got a crazy taxi ride back to Sana'a. Our driver was a chain smoking, qat chewing phene, who was completely inaudible. His teeth were so bad he had a jar of grinded up qat which he shoveled into his mouth with a spoon. The car was quite a sight too, with a smashed windshield, no handles, and a steering wheel that looked homemade. Despite all of this, he got us back to Sana'a quite quickly.

On Friday, I kept up the traveling theme for the weekend by going to Wadi Dahr with Fabien in the morning. Once again we took a taxi, which was actually more expensive for a shorter trip. The main attraction in Wadi Dhar was Rock Palace, a Yemeni style palace which was built out of this massive rock. It turned out to be quite over populated with tourist (both foreign and Yemeni). It was beautiful, but there wasn't much to actually see other than the palace. Because it was in the wadi (valley) it was quite green, which was a nice change. After taking pictures and walking through the palace our taxi driver drove us up the mountain. From there we had an awesome view and took a bunch of pictures. Then we headed home and were back to school by 1pm (we left at 9:30am). It felt great to just get outside Sana'a this past weekend, because while I don't mind the city, it gets old quite quickly. Hence why I want to also go to Ethiopia, Ibb, Taiz, Aden and the Hiraz mountains in the next month and a half.

In the afternoon I played football at Al-Ahli like usual. Today wasn't much fun because the Yemenis like usual were acting like a bunch of children. There were at least three legitimate fights over the most trifling things ever. Plus there was a Tae Kwon Do tournament in the building next to where we play, so people were constantly walking on the field getting in our way (who knew Tae Kwon Do was big in Yemen). Then to top it all off, we lost our ball when one of the guys got pissed at his teammate and tried to punt the ball at him and missed, and the balled ended up on the roof of one of the houses around the field.

In news unrelated to Yemen, I heard from three graduate schools this week. I was ACCEPTED by the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago (whoohooo), but was REJECTED by Georgetown. I was not offered any scholarships to U of Mich. or U of Chicago. It doesn't matter that much for the University of Michigan because it is rather inexpensive, but stinks for Chicago because the school is about the same cost at QU, plus the living expenses are exorbitant because you are in Chicago. Never the less, I have some decisions to make in the coming weeks. Plus I still haven't heard from NYU or GW. As for Univ of London, that is a complete wild card and I will most likely have to pick a grad school in the U.S. before I even hear from them.


Breaking News: Later in the day after I wrote this post, Ryan and I went to Yemenia and officially booked/paid for flights to Addis Ababa for the 25th March. We are coming back 30th March, so it looks like I will be spending next week (inshaallah) checking out the capital of Ethiopia and hopefully so of the surrounding areas. I am pumped to take a brief break from classes and travel to Africa.

Take care everyone,

Rich

One Month!

Hello all,

I can’t believe another week has already went by. Time is truly starting to fly. So, there isn’t too much exciting to talk about from the week. I pretty much just studied, went to class, and ran a couple of times.

In the beginning of the week, on one of my runs I thought my jeans had been stolen because when I finished they were not where I had left them. But today, after our soccer game as I was leaving my old buddy who works at the football field gave me my jeans. I guess someone picked them up because I had set them under the bush and gave them to one of the old guys who look over the “complex”. Anyway, at first I felt pretty stupid after I had just written on my blog how trustworthy Yemenis are and how they don’t commit crime because they fear God, yada, yada, yada, and then my jeans were stolen. But now it looks like my theory is correct, my jeans weren’t stolen, but to the contrary someone picked them up and turned them (thinking they had be left) in so that they could be returned to their rightful owner.

I also learned about the “tribal system” in Sana’a earlier in the week from my teacher Ameen. He was telling me that there are three jobs which are looked down upon among the “tribesman” (Not literally tribesman, like carrying spears, and such, it is more a way of life which is respectful and based on tradition) of Yemen. These three groups are butchers, barbers and drummers. Supposedly, the people in these fields have “dirty mouths” and do not live respectful lives. Therefore, the other people who are proper tribesman look down on them and their professions. According to my teacher, who I think was embellishing this phenomena a bit, people will not marry others who work in these three jobs. It does not make much sense to me though, because they are still proper Muslims that do not deserve to be categorized as being “crude” just because of their profession. I told my teacher this, but he said that it was true that the people that work in these three fields are “all” the same. Crazy thinking. Yet when I was talking to Crazy Mohamad on Thursday while chewing, he said that what my teacher was talking about isn’t really upheld/believed anymore in Sana’a.

On Wednesday, I had my Level 1 test, which I got a 97 on, how do you like them apples? My teacher said it was the highest score any student of his has ever gotten on this test, so I felt good about myself. That good feeling didn’t last long though because five minutes later I went outside and realized that I still have a long way to go as a tried to listen to decipher a conversation at lunch. By the time my second class was over on Wednesday my mind was completely spent and I was quite thankful it was the weekend.

As for my weekend it went great. On Friday night, a bunch of us went to Fun City, a Western style amusement park on the outskirts of Sana’a where they have a pretty nice bowling alley. We bowled three games, amongst the most Westernized Yemenis I have seen so far during my stay. Then we went over to “Southern Fried Chicken” and I got a DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER AND FRIES. The reason I capitalized this is because while I like the food in Yemen, there is not much variety, the same dishes are served for the three different meals each day and I’m starting to get a bit sick of it. So the good old fashioned American style fast food was much welcomed. From the bowling alley we caught a cab over to the café which shows football in Tahrer and watched the second leg of Real Madrid v. Bayern Munich. The game was exciting, especially considering Bayern scored one of the fastest goals in history, 10s into the first half. I also met a guy from Washington state, who guys to UW and has been studying in Yemen for 6 months. He was quite friendly and I talked with him for a while before the game started. He was totally “Yemenized”, with the mowra (skirt), sandals, shawl, chewing qat and smoking sheesha. He actually leaves in a week though so I probably won’t see him again.

Thursday was good ole Qat chewing day. After lunch, Danny and I got Crazy Mohamad to get qat for us and we started chewing in the dilapidated mafraj around the corner at 3pm. This was by far the best chew yet because I was speaking Arabic for almost four hours straight. While the after effects qat are quite annoying, it is worth the practice you get from the social setting it provides you with. When we finally finished chewing a bit past 8pm we grabbed dinner, than headed to a wedding for a little. It was in this huge tent, and all the men were sitting on cushions along the walls, with the groom at the head in a big throne. Then in front of him, people were dancing in a small circle. We didn’t stay long because after watching for 15min it isn’t that exciting because they just keep dancing and chewing qat mainly. Plus, we didn’t know anyone there. In the end, I was up till about 4:30am because I was wired from the qat, plus I received an e-mail from Georgetown saying that I would hear by the end of the week. So that got my adrenaline pumping when I checked my e-mail at 2:30am.

Finally, as for today, it was football day. I did not wake up until about 12ish and wasn’t at all productive. Oh, our school director also bought us official CALES jerseys; check my pictures out to see them. They are sweet but we are not allowed to keep them (we’ll see about that). As for football it went well, although I was tired from not getting much sleep last night. Our last game we actually played the Al-Ahli club team (one of the best in Yemen) 6 v. 6, except they used four of their players, plus their coach and his son. We played two 20min halves and unfortunately ended up losing 4-2, I did have both of our goals though. Once again we attracted quite a large crowd when we started playing the club team, which was a lot of fun because they were quite loud. We played until 6pm and by that time I was completely knackered. My feet hurt from playing in Frees once again, I was clobbered in the shin, and I was just plain fatigued. All in all though it was another great weekend.

On a final note, I got my first notification from graduate school. I got a letter from the Jackson School at the University of Washington saying I have been placed on the waiting list. I guess this isn’t good, but it isn’t bad either. In reality UW is probably at the end of my list on where I want to go because I’ve never seen it and don’t know too much about it to be honest. As for my list of where I want to go, it currently goes like this: 1. Gtown, 2. U of London, 3. New York University, 4. George Washington, 5. U of Michigan, 6. U of Chicago, 7. U of Washington. I swear UW isn’t on the end of my list because they waitlisted me. It is also going to depend a lot on if I am accepted to any of these schools, will I receive any financial help, in the way of a scholarship/fellowship, financial aid, etc.

Other than that, I am done for now. I need to do a bit of work before I head to bed. I hope everyone is doing great in the states and if you are still reading this after a month I thank you because I know the content is starting to lag a bit.

Rich

NEW PICS!

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=142501996/a=89187610_89187610/t_=89187610

P.S- We got wireless downstairs in our dorm!! Awesome.

And the Beat Goes On....

My third week of lessons are halas (finished). Time seemed to be moving slow the first two weeks of my stay, but now that my schedule has become set, and I am getting into a routine, time is starting to move quicker. The only thing currently slowing time down is my mounting anxiety over when I will start to hear from the graduate programs I applied to. Danny, my friend from Maryland, is also expecting to hear from three medical schools (Duke, Columbia and Penn – smart dude) in the next three weeks, so we are helping each other cope with the anticipation. Hopefully though, we will both be celebrating around the end of March (inshaallah=god willing).

As for what to report from my third week, there is not too much exciting news. As I have mentioned before, my classes are going well, but at times I am a bit overwhelmed by the immense workload. It is paying off though, so it is worth it. Plus, my study skills have already begun to improve as a result of my studies, which is good because I will need to be a more diligent and proactive student in graduate school.

Major news outside my studies is that I have run four times in the past five days. Each morning, around 7:45am I get out of bed and head over to Al-Ahli where we play football (soccer) on the weekends. Al Ahli is like a small sports complex with a volleyball court, basketball court (both used for football), a large football field (the one we played our game on two weeks ago) and another small asphalt soccer court. The centerpiece is the large, fenced in football field, so this past week, I get there early and do about 5mi or 22 laps to be precise. I guesstimate that each lap is probably 375-85 meters. The past week of running went pretty well, so I am planning to try to continue to get in about 4-5 runs a week there. I tried to run there today (weekend) and at 8:15am it was packed with people playing football, which is annoying because people are in my way, plus the fact that everyone stares at me like I have three heads because, 1) I’m a foreigner, and 2) I’m plain old running (not dribbling a ball). Therefore, I will probably get my 4-5 runs in during the school week and then keep playing football once each weekend.

Oh, I also began reading the Quran this week. It was funny because I told one of my teachers, Ameen, and he asked me who gave me the Quran. I told him my Mother and he got all excited. Then he began telling me that maybe my Mom was finding her faith and strength in Islam after coping with the difficulties of her accident (I had told him about my Mom b/c she is planning on visiting in April). I did not have the heart to tell him that he was far off and that while she was interested in the culture and religion of the region, she just gave it to me as a Christmas gift and nothing more. You should have have seen his eyes light up though when I said my Mom had given me my Quran. As for the book itself, it is dry (to be expected) and quite redundant. The main theme I have found in the first hundred pages is that Allah is the knower of all, the most merciful and most beneficent, and that as non-believers we will face the fire when the Day of Judgment arrives. Now this may seem like a gross over-simplification, but honestly, a form of what I just said is written on almost every single page. The most interesting part of reading the Quran for me is the extensive footnotes my version has linking the history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Onto more exciting topics, I chewed qat again today with Danny, and Crazy Mohammad. This time I insisted on chewing outside, so Danny, Mohammad and I sat in the back of a pick up truck on our street and chewed for about three hours. While this might seem like a quite mundane activity, it actually provides Danny and me with a great opportunity to practice our Arabic. Being outside chewing, absolutely everyone comes up to you and asks you questions because you are a foreigner chewing Yemen’s legal numero uno drug of choice. Thus, Danny and I constantly used our Arabic to talk with the interested native city dwellers. Moreover, Mohammad (despite his title) is incredibly helpful. He has a lot of patience with us and teaches us new words and phrases. Overall, I pretty much practiced speaking Arabic for over three hours. This is why I am planning to make my Thursday qat chew a weekly event because it breaks up the monotony of studying and allows me to use everything I have learned during the week in class. As for the “high”, I got the same buzz as last time. The only crappy thing is it is 1:15am right now and I am still wired from chewing qat five hours ago, but the once a week insomnia is a sacrifice I will accept if I get to practice speaking my Arabic for a few hours on Thursdays.

Then today (Friday) we played pick-up football once again. Our team is definitely improving each time we play. I'd say we won the majority of our small sided games today, capping it off in the last game with a 3-0, in which I scored the first two goals (Yes, I am bragging). And you guys don't actually know that we are playing a bunch of 10 year olds! (just kidding, but I figured someone would make some sly comment to that effect after they read this). The most exciting part of our three hours of football though occured off the pitch. We had a Yemeni guy playing goalie for us, but then our goalie from last week showed up, so they started arguing over who should play. All the Yemeni's sided with the guy who had just arrived, so the guy who had been playing with us (and other teams when we were off) started getting quite pissed off. It didn't help that he had about ten guys in his face yelling at him and giving him a hard time, completely exacerbating the situation. I guess the goalie then started to throw small rocks at people, so these older men (people said they were police) came up and started beating him over the head with sticks. Fortunately, Gillam, from our team ran over and grabbed the guy and took him away before he was seriously injured. Pretty crazy stuff. Everything was alright though because he came back about an hour later and there did not seem to be any hard feelings.

God Fearing Society (Theme of the week)

This week’s Yemeni cultural theme of the week pertains to the Sananians devout belief in Islam and the Quran. For a city where only 50% of the men are employed (the women’s work is in the house), and most family’s spend 30-40% of their income on qat (a drug), it is amazing how low the crime rate is in the capital. Personally, I attribute this mainly to the fact that most Sananians follow the teachings of the Prophet to a tee. Almost everyone in the city prays five times a day and they truly take the words of the Prophet Muhammad, written down almost 1500 years before as law. Thus, crime is quite low around the capital. In the market for instance, vendors just put tarps over their stands at the end of the day and no one touches them or steals anything. Can you imagine a vendor in Philadelphia just leaving out his clothes or fruits and vegetables just sitting out only covered by a tarp? So far, during my experience, Sananians have been extremely fair to me considering I am a foreigner with no experience in the Middle East. The only time I’ve seen them truly commit harram (sin) is when they charge us what we like to call the “foreigner tax”, but even this is usually only on more “expensive” products like qat or jambiyyas. Another deterrent is the consequences they would face if they were arrested for a crime like robbery, but I do not know enough about that to comment. I do know though that most Sananians I have met are devout, God-fearing folk, who closely adhere to the literal words of the Quran. On the other hand, following an ancient text so closely is also a reason for many problems in Sana’a and throughout the Islamic world, but now is not the time to open that can of beans!

I also have a funny joke for everyone that I was told the other day. Warning: You may not find it funny (I apologize in advance), but for someone living in the region it is hilarious and I have to share it. If you don’t get it no worries, I’d like to get some comments about the joke and what you think of it (or if you even get it or not).

Q: Why are the streets of Sana’a so safe?

A: Because %50 of the population are NINJAS!

On a more serious note, I will leave you with a quote I recently read in a novel about the history of philosophy. It fits a major problem in Sana’a to a tee.

“A state that does not educate or train women is like a man who only trains his right arm.” - Socrates

Take Care All! Enjoy your weekend, I’ll be thinking of everyone while I’m sitting in class.

- Rich

More Pictures!

New pictures from my buddy Danny. Because it takes a while to load I decided to link to his pics so you guys can see more of Yemen.

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=153835519/a=89187610_39895602/t_=89187610