Security is a big deal in Kharaz reportedly. I am constantly warned of danger and chastised for leaving the compound alone. The biggest worry is that I will be kidnapped by local Yemenis who will use me as a bargaining chip in their feud with the government. In other places in the past this has proved effective, but until recently it was not a threat that local Yemeni tribes were using against the NGOs in this area. For example, once a car with two foreigners in it was hijacked, but the foreigners were allowed to go free, walking the rest of the way to the camp. Since that time, it has been mandatory for all NGO cars going to and from Kharaz to be escorted by Yemeni soldiers/policemen in their armed cars. This is inconvenient for all people who like to follow a schedule and minimize pointless waiting time. Yemeni policemen are not overly concerned with promptness.
In my four short months in Yemen, we’ve already been evacuated from the camp two times due to threats from local villagers. The first time, an angry villager, expecting to be paid for work he never did, roused a bunch of his tribesmen and started stalking the camp with their rusty weaponry, looking for NGO cars to hijack and yelling that he would kick out all of the NGOs. We were gone for a month. Last week we were evacuated suddenly after a fax (no, not a carrier pigeon, but a fax) was sent to the UNHCR office in Aden warning of an impending attack on the NGO compound. This time we were gone for a day. That is life here in Kharaz…frustrating when there is work to be done in the camp and we can’t get to it, but exciting because you never know where you’re going to end up.
A couple of weeks ago, on the weekend, I dutifully checked with the guards about leaving the compound. I don’t often do this, but there had been some threats recently, and my coworker with a mommy complex made me swear to check before I left. Abu Jamal, a jovial Yemeni guard with a long pointy white beard, a large rounded gut, always clad in traditional Yemeni garb, greeted me at the gate and assured me that my five-minute walk to the Women’s Center in plain view of the compound would be perfectly safe. He laughed at the worries of Nusaiba and others, but offered to escort me if I wanted. I declined. Ten minutes later, I was in the Women’s Center, and I hear a knock on the door. It’s Abu Jamal and he is yelling at me to come on get out now! I grabbed all my stuff and went to find out what happened. He whisked me into the ambulance which he had somehow commandeered, squeezing us both into the passenger seat and we zoomed back to the compound. During our very short ride, he informed me that a truck full of Yemeni men with weapons had come by the compound just after I left, swearing to kidnap the first red person they saw. Never having heard of myself being referred to as a “red person,” I checked to make sure they were talking about me. “Oh yes,” I was informed by the driver of the car who was himself ironically covered with henna mud in the process of dying his hair, beard and face an orangey-red in the fashion of some Yemenis, “Foreigners like you are red.” I’m not sure if the armed men actually saw me and thus made their threat, but I was told by my boss that this is the first time Yemenis in this area had actually threatened kidnapping of a foreigner even though this was a common practice in other parts of the country. He was concerned and I was kept under lock and key for the rest of the weekend. I was mostly amused by how the story grew. That night I got a phone call from Aden asking me if I had been hurt by my would-kidnappers, and for the next week people kept coming to me to make sure I was all right. Somehow the story grew to me being almost kidnapped or beaten up or chased by evil Yemeni villagers. Fortunately, it all blew over quickly and I was only escorted to work in the camp one time—by a scrawny unarmed soldier boy who probably would have run away as fast as his little legs could carry him if anything had really happened. But with him, I was safer than on my own, I guess.
More recently another threat to my security was from a crazy Somali refugee who decided to follow me and my microfinance assistant, Abdifatah, around in our work. He kept trying to offer us cigarettes, and we refused. Abdi tried to get him to leave, but he refused. He kept trying to walk closer and closer to me, and finally Abdi gave me his phone to carry, pushed up his sleeves and said: “I’m going to fight him.” I laughed at him (he’s kind of a tough guy), and we kept walking and Crazy Guy didn’t try anything else until we got back to our office. Then, I am guessing, he said something that made Abdi mad, maybe something about Al Shabab as he claims to be on their side and Abdi hates Al Shabab enough that even a crazy guy might push him over the edge on that point. Abdi went into the office and got a fold-up metal chair and starts to threaten to hit the guy with it. I’m thinking this is going to turn into something TV worthy and considering changing into my bikini and high heels, but I got distracted because at that moment the oldest car in the world carrying the oldest living man in Yemen put-putted up to my office and died. I noticed that it was carrying some much-needed supplies for my gardening project so I started poking around in the back of the truck while Methuselah undid the padlock on the hood of the car to start his own poking around the engine, trying to make it stop smoking. I was making sure everything was there, keeping an eye on Abdi and Crazy who was picking up rocks to throw at Abdi (there is never a shortage of large rocks here in Kharaz). Another man ran to get the armed security men I told you about before. An armed soldier (they will come armed if they’re going to fight a refugee) showed up and told Crazy to leave. But Crazy, in the true sense of “crazy,” says the equivalent of “Bring on your gun! I’ve got a rock!” At that point my boss shows up trying to get me to go to a wedding which I know I can’t make it to since I now have to deal with Crazy, have a meeting with a potential loan client and his guarantor, and unload and register everything in the Oldest Truck in the World. While my boss, not a very big man at all, is talking to me, Crazy comes up to him and starts waving his finger in Mohamed Osman’s face and yelling stuff at him. Mohamed replied calmly, and Abdi got out the chair again. I was told later that Crazy was warning Mohamed not to talk to me. I’m not sure if he was trying to protect me or warning Mohamed away from the infidel foreigner with uncovered hair. Crazy then put his flipflops on his hands and started doing push-ups to show his toughness. At this point, the owner of the Oldest Truck who had been busily working away under the corroded rusty hood, oblivious to the mayhem around him, had managed to get the truck to gasp out a few more miles, and I got in the truck to go with him to unload everything. As I was very slowly driving (rolling) away I saw four armed soldiers come and forcefully escort Crazy, ranting and raving, away to our little Kharaz jail.
In reality, I think my biggest danger here is the wild dogs. I was out early one morning and a couple a dogs were sniffing around. They barked, but I ignored them until one came up and nipped at me. Fortunately for me not wanting to have to go get rabies shots, he only caught the hem of my long black dress. I grabbed a convenient rock (of which I told you previously there are plenty) and chucked it at him and he ran away. Ever since then, I always load up on rocks to throw at attacking dogs just in case. I’ve been attacked a couple of times since then, but the rocks work. I have never wanted to throw rocks at dogs before, but these dogs have mauled people before in the camp. The maintenance people tried to kill them, but compassionate refugees kept some in their houses and they were never able to eradicate them all. It did help me understand some of the fear that people have for dogs now. But I still don’t get why some of the girls I live with in the compound are deathly afraid of the tiny new born kittens living in our yard. “Are you afraid of the big cats?” I asked them. “No. Just the little ones. They are so creepy,” they informed me.
So you see between my weapon of choice (rocks) and Abdi’s weapon of choice (the chair) and security’s weapon of choice (the Kalashnikov), I don’t see how THIS red person is going to be kidnapped any time soon. But if I am, don’t worry, their demands will be promptly faxed to the UNHCR, and I’m sure I’ll be released soon.
