Feuds

I love the girls I live with. I will say that right off because it’s true, and they are great and not just at cooking. They have taken me under their motherly wings and cooked for me and showed me how to clean properly in their special Yemeni way. Then, of course, they do not allow me to do any of the cleaning until I snatch the mop away from them and do it myself. They have been really kind to me. But I have discovered that 10 girls living together in very close quarters in Yemen are like 10 girls living together in very close quarters anywhere else. They fight about stupid petty things and then gossip about each other and build alliances with certain people and cut certain other people out. The difference is that Yemeni girls go one step further and refuse to eat with or in the presence of those people that they have declared to be the Enemy. It’s something about eating being a sign of friendship, and heaven forbid they give even the appearance of friendship with the Enemy. But since it’s Ramadan here and everyone is eating at the same time, that is very awkward. My first night here I unwittingly promised to eat with two different groups, thinking that we would all eat together. That was not the case. I soon found out that I had been co-opted into one group so that it became almost impossible for me to eat with the other group. Fortunately, I am the foreigner so apparently everyone on both sides of the feud can still like me and hang out with me. I am holding on to that as I delicately (and so far unsuccessfully) try to play peacemaker.

Meanwhile, I have developed my own personal feud -- with the swarms of flies that infest this whole area. Apparently, God has not seen fit to call off the plague of flies in Yemen yet. And I have discovered that I am not skilled with the fly swatter at all. It seems that it takes a very patient person to really master the art of fly swatting. I am not patient, and I usually end up screaming curses at the flying pestilence and swatting around wildly while they continue to buzz over my head, taunting me. So then I just give up and call Layaal who calmly destroys them all in under five minutes. She is one of those exceptionally gifted people. Also a great cook. And very skilled in the art of feuding. An amazing woman.

Note from the Ghost-Blog-Uploader: Amanda embedded photos in the Word document she sent me, and I tried to upload them on here, but I couldn't get the document to open on my mac, so I had to use Josh's PC, which I don't really know how to use, and it is a long and not very fun story. So no pictures. I'm sorry. Until Amanda sees fit to attach them to her email like a normal person would instead of putting them in a Word document. msf