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