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
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
posted by Rich Heffron @ 3/21/2007 05:35:00 AM
6 Comments:
At 10:23 AM,
Jna said…
Hey hun, not gonna lie, I really want you to go to Chicago (okay, I really want ME to go to Chicago). I love Katie and all, but I just had a meeting with my FW coordinator and she was telling me how absolutely beautiful Chicago is. She talked about Water Tower Place, a gorgeous mall in a tall tall building with like 6 stores per floor, as well as the waterfront paths and the old architecture. She said it has the atmosphere of Boston (which has quickly become one of our favorite places), but with the buildings of New York. She said it's also really cool how all the buildings do not block the waterfront at all, and that it is very laid back and there are always people reading on benches and walking around and exercising on the paths. PLUS, it is the number one place for Universal Design!!! Okay, so I guess I am a little biased, but I wanted to get a vote in there for Chicago!
On another note, you updated your blog twice in one week! I was so excited to see it this morning! Make sure you check your mail before leaving for Ethiopia, just in case the package gets there a few days early. Otherwise you will have two waiting for you upon your return!! :) Love you!
Oh yea, PS, Beth asked me if I wanted to go to Baltimore for this summer, and I said I didnt want to travel almost 2 hours. So she has this huge list of Wilmington/Newark that she put together, and she's going to get me a spot definitely from the list. K thats it, love ya!
At 12:09 PM,
Anonymous said…
Hey Heff, I'm still reading the blog. I was home last week, and didnt have the link, but I quickly caught up on your experiences. That previous blog was pretty funny, and I admire your generosity to that kid. He must think you are like Santa Clause or something. Its pretty cool that you are traveling around the area, and I hope you enjoy your experience in Ethiopia...Maybe you can get a few good runs in, that would be a cool experience! Congrats on those acceptances to grad school, I'm sure you'll do fine where ever you choose to go. Until next time...peace out playa
At 10:12 PM,
Anonymous said…
Heya heff,
Good post. It is interesting to see the positives, as well as the negatives of the area and culture from your perspective. I am definitely still reading so you keep on posting. Good luck with the final grad school acceptances. I agree with Mio - I am sure you will have a good experience at any of your top choices.
Also, Jenna is right. The waterfront paths in Chicago are beautiful and great for running... IF YOU LIKE 50 MPH WINDS!! muhahahaha!
You gotta try to meet Haile and the crew in Ethiopia. Check out that stadium they all train at. Too bad Kenny B will probably be taking some downtime after dominating winning his 11th World XC title this weekend. Maybe you can join him for an easy run ha.
Have fun on your trip! Take lots of pictures!
At 8:01 PM,
Anonymous said…
Dear Richard,
It was great to read your blogs. I am glad you like your stay in Yemen, but not well enough to make it your permanent home.
Katie puts her vote on London for grad school. She just returned home after spending a week there to travel and visit friends.
Have fun during your spring break, but be careful.
love, Aunt Kathy
At 8:22 AM,
HotWheels said…
Since we've been speaking so often on the phone, I fell a little behind on reading, but don't stop writing.
I know many of the things you mention are not the best aspects of Sana'a, but it is their culture and therefore all they know. Just continue being the good visitor you are. I'm sure you've made a lasting and positive impression on the little boy you gave the toy to.
Can't wait to hear what life seems like in Ethiopia!
I'm curious; how long can a blog stay online?
Much love! Mom & Sadie
Sadie's a lot like "Steve" today, snoring away at my feet. I'm sure she's dreaming of a long walk with her big bro! xoxoxoxoxox
At 10:09 AM,
Anonymous said…
Hi Rich!
Even though I have been a "silent viewer", I can't be silent anymore!! You are TOO!!! funny!!!!!
I really enjoy reading all your emails, (and they have been funny!!), but this one is the BEST!!!
I'm referring to the one about:
Motorists and cars in Sana'a:
...so the pedestrians are forced to press themselves up against a wall!
...and the other one: The cars going by will still make sure to get in a "couple of honks"!!!!
Thanks for all your time and experiences you spend with us. I still love you here in Salem, Conn.!!!! I miss you and wish you were spending another summer with us!! Take good care!!!
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