Weekend and Ish

The weekend: This past holiday (as they call it in Yemen), turned out to be enjoyable. On Thursday morning, I had a lesson with my teacher Adel. To mix it up we read from the Quran. In the end, I didn’t get to read much because my teacher kept getting so excited that he'd explain everything in English to me. So I only got to read for 45 min of the two hour class. He also said a few outrageous things during the class worth mentioning. First, he said there is a Sheik in Yemen, named Sheik Zaydani, who, according to him, has found cures for both AIDS and Diabetes! Adel said that this was common knowledge and many doctors have come to Yemen to discuss his findings. Some of them have even converted to Islam while here. I have a feeling this story would receive more press if it were true. Another good one was about how he saw a satellite picture of the Earth on TV and the whole thing was dark except for Mecca and Medina. He stated that this is because the Quran says these are the cities of light. Hence, they were the only lit parts on the satellite picture. Finally, we read about the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus in the Quran.  In the verse, she eats dates before giving birth to Jesus (Isa in Arabic). Adel then went on to tell me doctors have recommended that women should eat dates a couple days before they give birth to help induce labor. Needless to say, I think Adel needs to stop believing everything he sees on the internet and TV. It is good to be devout, but he throws out some truly amazing stories/theories sometimes. In his defense, outside these outrageous moments, he is a great teacher. 

Anyway, enough about Adel. After lunch, Danny and I went with Abdul Baree, a friend of ours who lives near school. He is a taxi driver, hence he owns a car, so we went with him to the mountain over looking Wadi Dahr and chewed qat in the afternoon. It was a great experience, because the view of the Wadi (valley) was amazing from the mountain, and we just sat there, enjoyed the view and talked. It was also great practice, and even Danny and I rarely talked in English to each other. We also got a lot of attention like usual from the other people there (it is a popular overlook), who were amused by the foreigners chewing qat and speaking Arabic. I also got my picture taken with a hawk on my shoulder, awesome!

On Friday, it was soccer day like usual. Danny, Ben, Timbo and I went over to Al-Ahli to play. We got asked to play by the minister again on the big field. Except this time, our team consisted of us, and the Yemeni guys from the street we usually play with, versus the Minister’s sons team. His son’s team had an average age of about 12 yrs old, needless to say, we finally won a game on the big field. The final score was 12-2, and we gave those young bucks a good schlaking, and felt quite good about ourselves. It got quite ridiculous when it was about 7-1 and they put in a kid that was about 9 yrs old and 3 ft tall into goal. At that point it was obvious they were conceding the victory. Plus all the Yemenis on our team just sat up front and tried to score the whole time after we had the lead, so Danny, Tim and I were left to defend (Ben was up front cherry picking with the Yemenis). One kid even got thrown off by the minister after I juked him about three times and he tried to take me out with a sweeping leg kick, which I dodged (like Chuck Norris aka. Mr. Driscoll), and pushed him to the side. We ended up playing for almost two hours on the big field, so I was wiped out by the end. I forgot how good of a workout playing soccer can provide if you keep moving the whole time. I watched a Champions League game the other day, and they tracked how far the players had covered, and some of them had “run” 12k-13k, pretty impressive.

After the game, Danny and I had dinner with Ryan, who had a crazy story from his excursion to the Saudi border with Jez and Anna. After he had left them, he went into this little town for fish, and was detained by men he at first thought were police. It turned out that after driving him around for two hours in their SUV, he decided they weren’t actually police/army, so when they stopped in a small town, he jetted across the street from his “capturers” into a hospital and luckily they didn’t follow him in. There is a chance he was literally being kidnapped, scary stuff. Then he hitched a ride down to Manaka, where he decided to go for a hike in the surrounding, by himself, not a smart idea Ryan. When the fog rolled in from the Red Sea, he got lost, and wasn’t able to find a road till that evening. At which point he was lucky enough to hitch another ride with some guys that he swears were transporting illegal drugs into Sana’a. He showed my text messages he sent during his “travels” and it seems like he is telling the truth for the most part. Crazy stuff, I’m happy I didn’t tag along with him.

As for this week, it has been the same old. Just pounding Arabic like a champ, biding my time till I leave in almost two weeks! I can’t believe I’ve been here for two and a half months. Although, time has not flown by here because all of the studying has made time creep along during the week. My sidekick, Danny actually leaves in two days, which is a bummer because he is definitely my closest friend here. We hang out most days, and to be honest he has really helped me with my studies by giving me ideas from his more extensive experience studying the language. The only bad thing is that his anticipation of leaving has rubbed off on me some, so lately I’ve been really antsy to head back to the States. In reality though, I have two weeks and only 42 hours of Arabic left, so before I know it I’ll be on my home (inshallah).

A couple random things, I got my lined up the other day at the Barbershop (shout out to Mio), it was amazing what this Yemeni man could do with scissors and a straight blade. He was a mix of Issac, Cedric the Entertainer, and Ice Cube put together into one super barber. So I will be looking good when I come home.

Also, I finally took my first ride on a motorbike in Sana’a. My friend Gillam, actually bought a motorbike a while ago, so when we went to lunch today I rode on the back. To be honest, I was quite nervous. With the way people drive around here, I never really got comfortable sitting on the back of the bike thinking about skidding out when some crazy Yemeni rammed into us or something. Luckily, I made it safely to lunch. I don’t think I’ll be taking any more motorbike rides though before I leave. I wouldn’t mind if I was driving, but being the passenger is a bit nerve racking.

In response to Todd, the temperature here is similar to San Diego, it pretty much stays the same year round. 75-80 deg and sunny during the days and 50-55 deg in the evening. There is no humidity, which is very nice, but they do have rainy seasons, where it rains almost everyday. Personally, I have really enjoyed the weather, especially considering I got to skip out on the brutal winter in the Northeast. Plus, Todd, you would love the place because the ancient architecture is amazing.

That is it for now. Try to stay out of the rain folks, it looks like the weather is nasty in the Northeast. My heart goes out to all the people who ran the Boston Marathon. That did not look like much fun.

Rich