Leaving Yemen

Having finally bought my ticket for the States, or rather, having finally had my sister and power of attorney buy my ticket on my behalf, this whole “leaving Yemen” thing suddenly became more real. Spending lots of money will often have that effect on me. I’ve been sad all week as people have come to me and insisted I stay and regaled me with stories about how they haven’t been sleeping or eating since they found out I was leaving or how they went home and cried for hours thinking about it. Walking through the camp several times this week I even felt tears pricking behind my eyes, although I think that might have been because the hot steamy wind was blowing chunks of sand into them, but I will count it as a sign of my humanity and compassion. So I was going to write about all the things that I am going to miss when I leave Yemen, and then I thought about the things that I won’t miss. And then I realized that even though there are things that I will be glad to leave behind, I will kind of miss them because they made great stories, helped people to feel sorry for me (I’m counting on that translating into lots of nice things that will be done for me when I get back to the States, Joanna), and eventually (as was the case during one horrible terrible camping trip I was dragged to in Syria) I will be able to find these little hardships kind of amusing. So I’m just going to make a list of the things that I won’t have anymore when I am no longer a resident in a country on the brink of civil war, the majority of whose population lives on less than $2 a day (that last bit of the sentence is courtesy of every single article ever written about Yemen in the last six months). Here goes:

· Being Amina Nuur Jaamac- the Somali name that Mosman (Mohamed Osman) and I came up with. Everywhere I walk in the camp, there’s always someone who knows that name and they yell, “Amina, Amina!” after me. A few know Amanda, but they usually forget it and call me Amina anyway. Most also know the “Nuur Jaamac” which in Somali culture at the names of my Father (Nuur) and my Grandfather (Jaamac). I hope they like their new names. I actually chose those names because in my mind they sound more feminine and I like them. Nuur is a girl’s name in Arabic, but a man’s name in Somali. Also I didn’t want to join the crowd of “Mohamed’s” as I think there are too many of them. Although I do find it convenient in a way because whenever someone asks if I know him (and I know that I should know him, but I can’t remember his name), I say, “Yeah, you’re Mohamed, right?” And half the time I am right and they are amazed! Incidentally, I came up with Mosman’s name, but he didn’t appreciate it much and resents the fact that others now call him that as well. I knew it was catchy!

·Sandstorms

· Fasoulieh (spicy beans) and khubz tawa (large, soft, flat naan-like bread)

· Rocks

· Living in the Women’s Section and talking to boys through the wall at night when I’m not wearing ‘outside clothing.’

· Flamingoes in the Gulf of Aden

· Crazy Khadra—she really is crazy. I like her because she scares the crap out of Filip who has actually run for cover a few times when he’s seen her coming. She is thin and black and chews qat perpetually. Occasionally a violent stone-thrower, she is also sometimes very affectionate. Apparently her son is very smart and doing well in Aden, but I’ve never met him. I wonder what happened to her to make her crazy, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.

· Swarms of moths. I really think that God should have thrown this plague in for the Egyptians. Moths are seriously annoying and when you kill them they squish disgustingly.

· Being attacked by children who want to hug me, kiss my hand, and/or get candy for me. Just so you know, they hug me even when I don’t have candy! Love these cute African babies…like the Yemeni ones too, I just don’t see them that much.

· Being screamed at by children who have never seen a white person and find my odd skin color terrifying.

· Convincing a couple of those children to love me anyway (to see my true colors shining through, of course) by shear perseverance involving candy and learning the word for “high five” in Somali.

· Livestock-goats, donkeys, especially camels wandering around. I like to see goats who have climbed to the top of the shrubby little desert trees and camels with crows perched on their heads.

· UNDSS text messages telling me that “gunfire has been heard in Ma’alla district. Please avoid the area” or “Demonstration in Crater near al-Ahli Bank and road blocks in Tawahi. Please use alternate routes” and of course “Celebratory gunshots being fired in honor of the president’s speech. Stay inside away from windows.”

· Wearing a burqa to sneak out of the camp and avoid potential kidnappers.

· Going to church with a lovely Pakistani family, a couple of Ethiopians, a Filipino, a Canadian, and a Brit—the beautiful diversity of the family of God!

· Checking the car for bombs before we start it. Pretending to be joking about having someone check the car for bombs before we start it so that we can check anyway. This is a recent development since a British captain (not my British captain though, Thank God) was killed by a bomb in his car last week. It has made things more exciting for us. It seems this incident is not connected to him being a foreigner, but rather to the work he was doing. Still, you never really know in Yemen.

· Swarms of mosquitoes in the girls’ bathroom that make it sound like a helicopter is in the room with you while you’re sitting on the toilet. An awkward feeling.

· My Adeni AC which occasionally, usually in the middle of the night, bursts into a squeaky sound much like the violin music used in horror films to signal the entrance of the ax murderer or the impending doom of a secondary character. My body has been trained to respond with trepidation to this sound and I find myself awaking in a panic looking for the creepy little girl with scary eyes who should be standing over me with a knife. Still, I’m really grateful for the 22-hour electricity we have in Aden.

· Having a sauna for a bathroom.

· Having naturally heated hot water coming from my faucet that is hot enough to make tea at certain hours of the day.

· Running with Osman, the driver for CSSW who talks like he’s got a wad of qat in his mouth even when he doesn’t. Most of the time I have no idea what he’s saying, but I am so good at pretending. We have had many great conversations, most of which have likely been on completely different topics. We usually run around in circles for about 3 minutes (me holding up my abaya so I don’t trip on the skirt) and then he goes off to do his 7arakat (literal translation=moves) which include some intense stretching and high kicks while I put in my music and keep walking around and around the compound like an insane hamster.

· UNDSS security emails from Simon Butt. I am going to miss that guy.

· Swarms of flies that attack me while I’m trying to shower.

· Showering and then finding myself dripping with sweat two minutes later.

· Showering with no electricity so I have to grope around to find my shampoo.

· Hanging out with Oromos on the weekend, drinking strong coffee, eating wonderful spicy Ethiopian food, smoking sheesha, and playing with cute kids.

· Running, hiking, exploring the rocky Adeni mountains with the Captain.

· Swimming in the sea with the Captain.

· Learning random seaman’s facts from the captain-how to tell when the sun will go down by measuring with my hand and how to tell how far it is to the horizon on a clear day and how to count between the wave cycles.

· Eating “spicy goat” with the captain.

· Practicing driving a standard car with the captain.

· Finding unexploded mortars in the mountains with the Captain and carefully walking away.

· Doing anything at all with probably the coolest 70 year old man in the world. What is cooler than a British sea captain living in Yemen, climbing and swimming during his free time, and generally being awesome?

· OK, I’m really going to miss the Captain.

· Kafa dying my hair with henna.

· Speaking Arabic as fast as I can with Nusaiba because that’s how she talks…

· Practicing Somali.

· Flirting outrageously with the Yemeni security escorts and check point personnel. They taught me how to shoot a Kalashnikov but I didn’t actually pull the trigger because I didn’t want to kill any of the nearby camels and/or people. They love me. Always be charming to people with guns.

· Wearing the same clothes two days in a row because everyone else does.

· My home gardening team. Man, I love those guys so much! Abdulqadir, Jihad, Jeylani, Osman, Mandela, Abdirizak, Yusuf, and even crazy Isaq—ok, maybe especially crazy Isaq. There is something about being patted on the head by a seven foot tall skinny Somali man in a sarong that I find charming.

· Pulling off an event I’ve planned even when I have to improvise to fill in gaps left by the Aden team not procuring the stuff that I requested decades previously.

· Hearing heart-breaking stories that make me love these people more than I ever thought I could.

· Shada, Abdishukur, and Shayma-my favorite kids that I have actually dreamed of adopting if their mother didn’t get better.

· Washing my clothes by hand. Not rinsing them. Hanging them up on the line.

· Washing my clothes in the washing machine in Aden which I often leads to floods when the water overflows because I forget to turn off the stupid hose.

· Being able to love the poor, the oppressed, the down-trodden. Being able to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel of Peace to a people who have seen violence all their lives and show them where to find freedom for the captives.

I’m going to miss this place! There’s a lot I’m looking forward to in my future—seeing family, loving nephews, niece and the Unborn, the next adventure… But knowing that I have a future to look forward to while others do not is what makes leaving here one of the hardest things I’ve done in a while. Never before have I felt so much like I’m abandoning people I love when the wanderlust catches me again. Many caring friends, more than just my mom even, have been reminding me that I’m not the savior of these people. While I know that’s true, I hate that I am another person they’ve learned to love who they must say goodbye to, possibly forever. I hate that I’m leaving during the most miserably hot time of year when the situation in their ‘refuge’ country is uncertain. I don’t know what’s going to happen to these people I care about. I know I was supposed to come here, and I’ve done my best in a difficult place. As usual, I came to give, work, help, love and I’m leaving with so many memories wonderful blessings, special friends, exciting stories, and enlarged CV. I’m also leaving behind another piece of my heart in another precious country, and again, wondering why I do this to myself and when I won’t have any more pieces left to leave behind…but I love it and doubt I’ll stop anytime soon. Of course that means that I’ll continue to sporadically update this blog with sappy paragraphs like this one and longer stories of random things that amuse me.

Jurassic Park 3

Last July Benji and I somehow convinced his wife-my sister to watch Jurassic Park 3 with us. This masterpiece of cinematography is probably familiar to most of you due to the multiple awards it has won and its great critical acclaim. Joanna, afraid of dinosaurs in spite of the fact that they don’t exist anymore (some people argue that they never existed) was not easy to persuade. I guess we must have led her to believe that there was some swashbuckling romantic action or maybe she just didn’t have the energy to argue with us after chasing her son around all day. Anyway, I’d already seen JP3 on a train in China, and its main draw for me was the idea of wandering around in an abandoned museum-ish thing (modern ruins if you will), and, of course, dinosaurs whose existence I continue to believe in faithfully. So I wanted to watch it again for those reasons and also because I like to convince other people to watch dumb movies, something that Marian and Josh can attest to.

So why am I bringing up Jurassic Park 3? Because of the stellar acting? To revel in my powers of coercing others to do things they don’t yet know that they don’t want to do? To convince you that dinosaurs exist? In fact, it is none of these things, but my actual logic may be hard for you to grasp. Today I finally traveled back to Kharaz after much begging, pouting, and generally making a nuisance of myself in order to convince people to let me go. The trip from to and from Kharaz always reminds me of JP3. First, there is a large abandoned (well, technically never completed) hotel resort area that we pass by on our way out. The part that we can see is a large pink wall that stretches on for miles. This wall is the exact shade of pink that is most often the background for a Hello Kitty face. It is surrounded by dead palm trees in varying stages of decay. The door is wide and welcoming, but blocked by a pile of sand. I don’t know what is behind the wall. I know it was built by a foreign businessman (some say Emirati, others say Japanese) who dreamt of providing rich Gulfies with their own all-inclusive resort. All inclusive which is including an amusement park (see my blog entry about Fun City), a golf course, a 5-star hotel, and the beach. Apparently he built the wall and ran out of money. I guess that pink paint is expensive. Some people say there is the beginning of a hotel deep inside the compound, and I like to think of it existing, infested by wandering camels and evil crows. Camels I find to be reminiscent of dinosaurs, the brontosaurus kind of dinosaur that eats grass and has a long neck. You know, the kind made famous in the plethora of Land Before Time movies which were created to drive babysitters crazy. Later the Barney market developed-- another attempt to further discredit dinosaurs and torture childcare workers. But Barney is a mutant psycho T-rex who lures in his prey with a façade of family-friendly kindness. At least he is not a Teletubby, the most terrifying of all creatures conjured up for childhood entertainment.

So back to the journey which connects to the dinosaur theme by virtue of the fact that the car that we were driving could possibly be carbon-dated back to the Jurassic period, offering more proof that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. I would offer to try to discover its origins, but as far as I know it remains broken down by the side of the road where we left it. I’ll definitely look for it on my way back to Aden later.

Because recently the villagers decided that shooting at NGO cars and/or hijacking them is a fun way to get free transportation, ADRA has decided not to drive our cars into the camp for the time being. Because I whined and moaned, they agreed to hire one of the refugee cars that drives refugees from their summer homes in the urban slums of Basateen to their refugee homes where they can collect free rations and live in a tent. I’m usually not allowed in these cars because they are not “official” and I would be stopped at police checkpoints, but some papers were drawn up and I was approved for travel. The power of a good temper-tantrum. Abdullah, a coworker whose awkwardness has driven many a foreign female to extreme lengths, was to choose “a good car” for our journey which also included one other Yemeni of Indonesian descent (cool, huh?!) colleague named Khaled Jawi (Khaled the Java person). Sadly, Abdullah made that fatal mistake common to man and immortalized in many a cliché: he picked the one with the best paint job. In this case, judging the book by its cover brought us to a sputtering standstill a few miles past the pink wall, maybe half an hour into our journey. While the men worked to fix the car, Abdullah and I wandered down to the beach. When we came back, he was pressed into service as a car pusher, and my services were refused. I jogged alongside shouting encouragement instead. A convenient handle on the side of the car should have helped Abdullah guess that this car was meant for pushing. But in spite of the enthusiastic efforts of the men and a nearby friendly car, the engine refused to be coaxed into working. Much pushing and hacking at the inside of the engine went on for quite some time. I went to the beach again and sat down to work on my ankle and wrist tans. They will be golden-bronze in no time.

An hour and a half later, we gave up and Khaled and I crammed into the friendly refugee car built to hold a maximum of 10 people which was now holding almost twice that, plus baggage that couldn’t be tied to the roof of the car. Abdullah, as punishment for choosing a bad car, was designated as the person who was to stay and watch the stuff until the rescue car arrived. They wouldn’t let me stay even though I didn’t want to cram in the car with a bunch of people who had already been forced to wait for us and now were going to be forced to squish in their seats (which they paid for) next to a couple of foreigners (Khaled is a Jawi after all). As my foot developed a cramp and sweat dripped down my back and sand flew in my face and crunched in my teeth, I hoped that we would not clip one of the many large sand piles that were creeping into the road and tip over. I didn’t really want to die in a refugee car on the way back to Kharaz—not while there’s still a chance I might get to evacuate Yemen by boat.

Anyway, I’m back. I might go to Sana’a this weekend to get more pages in my passport as I’m a bit worried about having only one page left, and what if I have a long layover somewhere on my way back to the US and I can’t leave the airport because I don’t have enough pages in my passport? But I might stay here if it looks like I can’t get back next week. With the uncertain situation in the country, and the lack of diesel for our cars, transportation is becoming a bit difficult. That’s why I’m voting for the UNHCR to purchase a helicopter for the use of their personnel and the IPs (Implementing Partners of which ADRA is one). All of their overpaid workers could donate a tiny percentage of their salaries and we could buy it right away. Then, if we did evacuate, we could just fly over to the nearest boat and head to Djibouti. And since Jurassic Park 3 is not a movie based on real events (Joanna), there is only the smallest of chances that we will get knocked out of the sky by a flock of pterodactyls.

Me preparing to hitchhike, but at this point it just looks like I'm giving the 'thumbs up' to the driver--"Good job staying on the road, Mr!" I did amuse myself by waving enthusiastically at all passing vehicles. I'm sure that they enjoyed having a crazy foreigner divert them from the monotony of blue sea, brown sand, camels, and shrubs.

Something I wrote a while ago and never posted...

Yemeni Product Names

I can’t really blame the odd English names on Yemen alone. Anyone who has ever travelled in Asia (probably Africa too, but I only know Asia) will have noticed the many ingenious English product names. I assume that the thought process is that English is cool or at least useful for business and so products named in English are cool or at least make good business sense. I do remember one intrepid entrepreneur from our church in Indonesia who purposefully named his sandals “Konichiwa” and made them look Japanese-ish by placing odd looking cartoon characters with large mouths jumping around the plastic packaging. I remember him saying that people thought that Indonesian-made products were inferior to foreign-made ones and so he would make a better profit with his faux-Japanese flipflops. My mom and I recently purchased matching Konichiwa sandals and they still fill us with a spirit of Hello Kitty and Pikachu. So, Pak Karmen’s desire to present his product as “foreign” and therefore “awesome” might be a motivation for the English monikers attached to random goods I find in the supermarket here.

Laundry soap is a product that you might not think needs an English name to sell it. You would be wrong. Here the favored brands are “FasClean,” “White Cat,” and “Wild Cat.” We’ll take “FasClean” to start with. I am guessing that “FasClean” is supposed to suggest to the fluent English speakers buying laundry soap (no one who does not speak English buys laundry soap of course) that this type of soap cleans with lightning speed. You only need leave your clothes soaking in the water a few minutes and –voila- done. Although, I read the Arabic underneath the English to see if it was translated thus in Arabic, but it was merely transliterated so I can’t be positive that I am indeed understanding the meaning correctly. Still, for people like me who frequently forget that they put their clothes in a bucket of water and need to scrub them, squeeze them, and hang them out on the line, “fascleaning” is not as necessary. I would prefer something like “No-Scrub” detergent, along the lines of “no-rub” contact solution that would take some of the effort out of hand-washing my clothes. But honestly, I am not the most diligent of hand-washers. I tend to throw things in a bucket with soap, swish them around, forget about them for a few hours, come back, dump the water on the floor to mop it, squeeze a bit of the excess wetness out, and then sling the clothes over the line to dry. It’s already hot enough here that it doesn’t matter how much I squeeze out, they’re going to dry anyway. And no, I did not forget to include the step where I rinse the soap out of the clothes because I don’t, in fact, do that. I just leave the clothes in long enough for all the soap to dissolve out.

Sadly, neither “White Cat” nor “Wild Cat” are “no-scrub” detergents, but they both do have horrifying pictures of ferocious-looking cats on them. I’m not sure why a cat was chosen for their mascot. Is the idea that if you can get a mangy, flea-bitten cat who rolls in the dirt and eats garbage to look white with this laundry soap then you can clean anything? Or is the idea that this laundry soap cleans with the power of an insane rabid feline more what the manufacturer is going for? Either way, one should never leave the package lying out unattended. If you glance at it in the dark, say, while you’re on the toilet at night, it can look pretty creepy.

Another thing that brings me joy is the Indonesian on my cleaning solution. This product is tri-lingual, catering to Arabic-speaking Indonesians living in gulf countries where they must communicate with the English-speaking Indians doing all the outside work. My cleaning solution boasts in the fact that it contains “SPF.” At first, I was pleased to know that my countertops in my windowless room would all be protected from sun damage, until I read that, in this case, “SPF” means “spot protection formula.” I suppose it is good to protect the spots on my furniture as well. Al muhim: it is easier to read Indonesian than Arabic, and I was able to see that it is possible to use this fancy “SPF” spray in my kitchen, living room, bed room, and/or bathroom for maximum cleanliness. Cleanliness, it may surprise you to know given my sad reputation as a domestic novice, I appreciate greatly. I appreciate it even more after living with many many girls who don’t realize that garbage disposals have never been brought to Yemen and you can’t throw bits of food in a sink and expect them to just disappear. They only do disappear because that weird foreign girl gets tired of having crap in the sink where she brushes her teeth and cleans them. Also, throwing water on the floor doesn’t keep it as clean as keeping a clean floor dry so as not to track mud all over the bathroom. Random dark thoughts I have…

Another Indonesian thing I use consistently is my Ciptadent toothpaste. This toothpaste informs me boldly that it can “menguatkan email gigi.” I guessed from the context that in this case “email” is “enamel” and the toothpaste is strengthening that not the personal electronic address of my teeth, because I must admit that I didn’t know previously the word for “enamel” in Bahasa and sometimes still when I look at it, it makes me think strange thoughts. Still, that toothpaste is amazing as it is contains “multivitamins and microactive foam.” The foam I have noticed, and recently, after purchasing very expensive vitamins at the local pharmacy in an attempt to balance nutrition with the stress that is making my hair fall out, I considered eating the toothpaste in lieu of purchasing more vitamins. It would be cheaper and more efficient, adding that “two-in-one” value to one of my daily activities.

In conclusion, I will continue to enjoy my “Freshly Peanut Butter” and my “London Dairy” ice cream even if they are Yemen products with fake English names because, while they’re not Peter Pan or Eddy’s, they’re not so bad.

More Somaliland Musings

Dundumo

If I were a photographer, I would travel the world make coffee table books. I feel that it is an important market niche. There are many excellent subjects for coffee table books in Greater Somalia. (I refer to Greater Somalia in an attempt to be politically correct for Somalilanders who are hoping for international recognition as a separate country from Somalia and the state of Puntland which is also Somalia and plans to go back to Somalia if Somalia ever gets its act together. I think Somaliland deserves recognition but I will not write about that because it would take too long and require sources and MLA format and lots of stuff I left behind me when I completed my formal education.) Driving around the countryside visiting ADRA worksites gave me a great view of this strangely beautiful country. While I am always fascinated by camels and flocks of goats, I am also interested in muddy unpaved roads and dry riverbeds, but I recognize that buyers of coffee tables books might not share that interest. But who could possibly not share my interest in the subject of what would be my first coffee table book--dundumo (Somali for ant hill)?

Ironically, in spite of my self-stated desire to coffee-table-book dundumo, I didn't get many photos. While it shouldn't nomally be too difficult to take photos of stationary objects, in my case, I was taking all these photos from the back of a speeding car. Occasionally we'd hit a bump, catch some air, and go flying over several deep holes only to slam on the breaks in order to avoid hitting a wandering camel. I imagine it would be bad to hit a Somali symbol of wealth and future someone's future dowry. In Garowe, someone offered 100 camels for me, but I told him that as an imported women, I was naturally going to be more expensive and I wouldn't go for less than 500 (shipping costs are higher with the pirates). He tried to bargain but then realized that in the end, products imported aren't worth as much as you pay for them-they don't last much longer than those that are domestically-produced and it is often difficult to get used to their systems. Also the owner's manuals are written in so many different languages, it's hard to find the one that you want. Anyway, I don't have many pictures yet. I'll have to make a special trip on somebody's dowry camel so I can go slower and take more photos.

These dundumo are massive. They can be more that 2 meters high. Some are tall and slim and look like how I imagine Lot's wife turned out after she became a pillar of salt. Others look more like funky dirt snowmen. Some, fittingly, are reminiscent of sand castles. I like the ones built around trees that remind me of Angkor Watt temples that have been covered by jungle trees and vines although in this case, I'm pretty sure the trees were there before the buildings, unlike the Cambodian ruins. I also appreciate the dundumo that are right beside a tree. They look like they're in a competition to see who can grow taller. Sometimes the trees win, sometimes the ants pull it off.

I also noticed that dundumo are often found in the middle of a farm with the land cultivated around them. They also aren't removed from their places even if they are right beside a house or tent. I was surprised by this at first, wondering why they weren't cleared away. First I thought that maybe the people were afraid of being attacked by large red ants, angry at the destruction of their homes. Then I was more charitable and chalked it up to Somali respect for hard-working creatures who take weeks (months? years? I have no idea...I'll have to find out before I make my book) to build their elaborate hives (hives? nests? Again, stuff I'll need to know before I publish). But later, when I requested a photo beside a particularly massive one, I was told that Somalis are afraid of them because they are "the house of the devil" which I think means that they think that evil spirits live there. It also meant that the security guard who was already mad at me for a short trip to the beach while everyone else was in the bathroom (The foreign girl will be attacked by gangs with knives! Why did you let her go down to the beach? It's not deserted as it looks! In fact there are many evil people lying in wait for her! Now I have to convince the other fatter guard to go down there and watch out for her because at least he kind of likes her.) and mad at me for stopping for another photo-op picking up a tortoise (I need to get home to chew qat because stupid ADRA refused to pay me extra money for my drug of choice!) was even more furious with me for this last stop I politely requested. He was also mad because we stopped before we noticed a large monkey clan hanging around the tree nearby (They will eat up the foreign girl and then who will get in trouble? That's right, me. The guy who didn't get to chew qat). He didn't have to worry about me going over to the monkeys to get them to pose with me. I know monkeys from childhood days in Indo. They are not nice creatures. Sure the babies are cute and fuzzy and it's so clever how they hang on to their mommies, but they bite, steal food, give you rabies, throw stuff at you, and break your things. I don't mess with monkeys. Unless I am throwing stuff at them. Fair's fair.





So I got my photo, escaped a loud lecture from the guard by feigning ignorance of the Somali language, which is mostly true but I did recognize several new words I'd recently learned (badeed-sea, deen-tortoise, daanyeer-monkey, cun- eat, dundumo-you know this word already if you've been paying attention), and sat demurely in the car for the rest of the journey planning out various titles for my coffee table book, hoping that my qat-deprived guard wouldn't start shooting at our car, trying to get us to go faster. Here are some of the titles I came up with.

My first creative choice: Ant-hills of the Somali Desert. It seems pretty straightforward, but I did struggle with the Somali part (see side note above about Somaliland, Puntland, etc). Genius will come through at the end though, of course.

Then I thought, if I were catering to a more academic group (of course academics make up a huge percentage of coffee table book consumers), I would go for something like: The Architectural Masterpieces of Somali Desert Denizens, subtitled: How Evolution Helped Ants Adapt to Harsh Surroundings that Would Ultimately be Caused by Manmade Climate Change so That When Humans Destroy Themselves and Ants Take Over the World They Will All Have Nice Places to Live.

Naturally, my very popular book would spawn a series for children which I would entitle: Ants are People Too and They Feel Sad When People or Camels Kick Over Their Houses and Usually They Eat People Who Upset Them. I think this could make a very pleasing pop-up book as well.

Sadly, photography is not one of my skills. While I do believe that those super-fancy cameras are a huge part of why many aspiring photographers actually take good pictures, A) I am too poor and too cheap even if I weren't poor to buy one and B) I congratulate myself on taking pictures when my thumb isn't making an appearance in the left corner of the screen, the object I'm trying to shoot is near the middle of the photo, and a casual observer won't find him or herself feeling symptoms of vertigo when looking the picture. Alas, I shall leave my idea to others who agree that coffee and ant houses go together and he or she can reap the rewards, financial and otherwise, thereof. All I ask is that a small donation be made to the charity I happen to be working with at the time made out to "Amanda Stillman's salary" as a way of thanking me for my awesome idea.

Somaliland Musings (one of a few more to come)

Various stories out of chronological order will be added pending my access to computers. Here's the first one:

Las Geel

Not satisfied with their own Lascaux cave paintings, some French archaeologists came to Somaliland a few years ago to check out some ancient cows on rocks they heard rumors about exisiting in Las Geel (pompously translated "The dromedaries' watering hole" by whoever wrote the poster in the guard house/museum). They immediately recognized the awesomeness of these pictures (cows and men, men and cows, cows and calves, and some cow pornography) and stayed to study them. Now the area has become Somaliland's primary tourist destination, which is to say that when we drove off the paved-ish road through the desert for about twenty minutes, we finally found a tiny house with a couple of guides hanging out who were almost as surprised to see us as we were to see them. We then embarked on a lovely hike made awkward by stupid long dresses up the rocky hill/mountain to get to the first paintings marked off by barbed wire which was already broken down. We climbed around to get a better look.

The paintings were colorful and primitive looking, and I tried to get more information from the guide-a charming older gentleman with a wooden cane that he used for hiking and pointing out important details on the paintings. He didn't speak English so we communicated through broken Somali, a bit of Arabic, and some hand gestures. Interestingly, for your future reference, the Somali hand sign for knife is similar to the gesture other people use for "I'm going to kill you." I can see how this could potentially cause problems for future tourists who might misunderstand him.

Since I was small, I always loved ruins, the older the better, even going through a brief "I'm going to be an archeaologist when I grow up" phase. I like to walk on ancient under-water roads and climb up old crumbly staircases, and I generally ignore signs telling me not to go beyond a certain point or not to touch certain objects. Naturally, I touched one of the paintings to see how the paint felt and was immediately gasped at and ordered never to do that again. Not because I might mess up the paintings (I didn't touch it enough to do take of any of the paint and I didn't scratch at it and I didn't write "Amanda was here 2011" either) but because they were unsure what the people used for paint and how that might affect my health and/or state of pureness. I thought that was a good call by the French, letting that rumor spread because I think that many people share my same desire to ignore "don't touch" signs, but if you make people afraid to touch something, they are more likely to leave it alone. Personally, I think all museums should be like the Egyptian museum where you can shake hands with a statue of Ra or tweak the nose of a sphinx. You can pretty much do anything except try on Queen Nefertiti's jewelry, which I think would be an awesome exhibit even though it would probably only last a few hours until all of the Queen's old treasures had found new owners. Anyway, I of course touched another painting, and I am happy to report that as yet none of my fingers have turned black and fallen off.

Gesh2 lBa7r

I went to Sana’a this week. People always try to get me to go there to “ghayr al-jau” or “change the atmosphere.” The Country Director has offered to pay for my plane ticket and put me in any hotel I want for a night or two. The general consensus is that Sana’a is awesome and everyone should want to stay in a fancy hotel there. But I disagree. For one thing, coming to Aden is “ghayr-ing the jau” for me. More importantly, Sana’a does not have a beach, and most importantly, Captain Roy does not live there. Today I went for a 3 hour hike up and around the rocky mountains of Shamsan, never losing sight of the perfectly beautiful blue water down below. We ended the hike down on the beach, went for a quick in the not-too-cold-not-too-hot-just-perfect Gulf of Aden. Just as we were preparing to climb up out of the wadi to head back to the car, one of the Captain’s friends showed up in his little boat, and boated us around to the other side of the hill from which we could easily saunter up to the car. Then the Captain showed us around his office, which looks out over the port. We admired the lights of the boats anchored around and remembered the USS Cole which the Captain heard explode and went to help. Then I came home to make cookies for the guys in the office, managing to burn every single one of the 3 batches I made…how is that even possible? Shouldn’t the odds be in my favor for at least one batch? But anyway, we can all agree that it was an epic day, full of adventure and now a blog and anti-terrorism TV commercials…yes, it’s true. In American you have (had?) “this is your brain on drugs” commercials, in the Middle East we have commercials reminding kids that it’s not “cool” to be a terrorist, and being a terrorist might make some people cry.

Does this blog post have a point? Not yet…maybe I’ll get there…maybe it’s letting you get a glimpse of the things that go on in my mind…keep reading at your own risk.

I should take this time to explain the title. Upon arriving back in Aden on Thursday night, a most impressive feat, actually, since they bought my ticket for Friday night against my express wishes and I had to go to the airport with Khaled and hope there was an empty seat on the flight. There wasn’t, but fortunately, there is a lot of unrest in Sana’a (you may have heard something about it) and the main roads are all closed, making traffic ridiculous and some people where late so I managed to make it on the flight. I pulled the poor foreign girl and tried (unsuccessfully of course) to cry. It only worked because some people didn’t follow the “be at the airport at least one hour before domestic flights” rule. Al muhim: Success! No thanks to Miriam who thought I was joking when I informed her that I wanted to be back in Aden by Thursday night in case of unrest in Sana’a on Friday, leading to evacuation, which I only want to do from Aden in a boat with the Captain. So I am very thankful for Khaled, who knew ahead of time that he didn’t want to spend extra time with those dahabashi’s in Sana’a (dahabashi is roughly the equivalent of “damn Yankee”) and he also didn’t trust ADRA Yemen dahabashi’s to buy his ticket. He had his already and he never lost hope that I would make it on the plane, chuckling gleefully that I was keeping another carpet-bagger off the plane to the paradise of the south.

When we landed in Aden, I was so happy to be home in the warm wet air with the smell of the sea mixed with jasmine bushes somehow growing in the dirty parking lot of the airport. I mentioned to Khaled that I love the smell of the ocean. That is when I learned the lovely phrase that is the title of this blog: gesh2 Lba7r. The direct translation of this phrase is “burp of the sea.” Apparently, this is the Arabic way of saying “the smell of the sea.” People with the lovely and refined Levantine accent would pronounce this word “jesh2” but I’m not sure if those kind of refined peoples would use this lovely expression. Well, no one every accused me of being lovely and/or refined so “burp of the sea” it is. And I love the sea and all its regurgitated smells.

Here are the high points of my time in Sana’a:

1. Two hot showers. Wow. I had forgotten why showering was fun. Showering here is a necessity, but there is no joy in it. Showering in the Sheraton was “from the nose.” A Yemeni expression meaning “awesome.” Apparently, Yemeni noses produce awesomeness.
2. Meeting the people from ADRA Somalia and planning my trip there. End of the month inshalla! Somalia waxaan ku tagayaa!
3.  Not dying of boredom during the millions of powerpoint presentations I was forced to sit through. I had planned my funeral and it was going to be mumtaztik, but I know that my mom and one or two other people would have been really disappointed if I don’t make it to at least age 30. Besides, dying of powerpoint presentations is almost like dying in Fun City. There are more creative ways to go, especially here in Yemen.
4. The highlight of the meetings for me was the security presentation by Chris Gibbs. At first, I was disappointed that it was not Simon Butt. Since the beginning of the Qat Revolution, I have been getting a plethora of security related emails. I never read them if I have to open an attachment, and I never read them unless I see that they were written by Simon Butt. Simon is the head of the UN Department of Safety and Security in Yemen. These security guys are usually really tough looking former military guys who are just trying to make the world a better place using their skills which may or may not have been developed on dangerous undercover evil government missions for which they are now trying to atone. Simon, I’m sure, was driven to this life by his unfortunate last name, which made him become extra bad-ass to protect himself from bullies who prey on people with unfortunate last names. Somehow, and this is unusual for security-type people, he also developed a sense of humor. In his emails he once mocked the international media for showing a “very horrifying potentially violent demonstration” which was actually so insignificant as to have been broken up by one policeman with a stick. Another time he caustically informed the UN that when they see that people are throwing rocks, even if they have not been informed of a riot happening in that particular area, not to drive through the line of fire. In such a situation, a broken windscreen is only natural. I sensed that he almost added “it’s your own fault, morons.”

Anyway, Simon couldn’t make it to our meeting. I guess he’s too busy being awesome. So he sent a slightly-less awesome stand-in by the name of Chris Gibbs. Chris was very rugged and tough looking. He took us through the Impact/Likelihood matrix which he uses to predict the future. I don’t really remember all he was saying because I was busy admiring his accent. It was mostly classic British, but not your stereotypical “prim-and-proper-sit-up-straighter” British accent. Somehow his aforementioned badassness showed up in his accent. I did find the way he pronounced the name of a local tribe distracting. The Houthis have this rebellious streak going on and they like to stir up trouble when possible, and so they came up in some of our discussions. The way Chris pronounced their name sounded sort of like “the Hooters.” It was just hard for me when he would mentioned that certain sheikhs had “gone over to the Hooters” or that “the President was driving many people to the Hooters.” At any rate, he didn’t use powerpoint. He wasn’t one of those security people that falls back on technology to save him. He doesn’t diffuse bombs with a robot, he rips it to pieces with his bare hands before it explodes. He had to leave our meeting really fast after his session. I’m pretty sure there was a bomb somewhere that needed him. That or he was afraid he would have to sit through the next powerpoint presentation….I escaped it by taking an extra long bathroom break, because not everyone can be called on to diffuse bombs with their bare hands.

So there you have it, people. It’s been a while since this blog has been updated, so I made this one especially long. You’re welcome.

The Qat Revolution

In light of the reported impending violence in Yemen, I think it’s time to share a little of my experiences regarding the upcoming end of Ali Abdullah Salah’s reign in Yemen. First, most of the concern for Yemen’s security comes from the West, especially the media and bored NGO security advisers who are all secretly hoping something will happen so that their jobs will get more exciting. Sadly, they aren’t really paying attention to crucial aspects o Yemeni culture, such as prime qat-chewing hours (evening and late afternoon) and a general lack of unity amongst the Yemeni people themselves, most of whom cannot agree on whether or not Ali AS is a good guy, a bad guy, or better than any other alternative or if the South will/should rise again. But the media and security experts everywhere are correct that if anything happened it would be bad. Yemenis wear their Kalashnikovs slung around their shoulders like gangster rappers wear large ostentatious gold necklaces. Just like the average citizen of the 21^st century grabs his cell phone before heading out the door, a Yemeni man picks up his gun or his knife in case of emergency. So if any one or two groups did manage to stir up some emotion that could last more than 24 hours without a qat break, there is a high possibility that Yemeni protests would make Egyptian protests look like they had been organized by Gandhi and Mother Theresa come back from their respective graves.

In light of this information, NGOs in Yemen are prepared to evacuate their personnel as necessary. Consequently, I have been forced to come back to Aden every weekend instead of staying in the camp where I want to visit some refugees and watch my friend’s goat have its baby. If something were to happen here, I would be safer in the camp because the riots would happen in the city, but I would be far away from the airport and that would not be ideal. So I obligingly came back to Aden at the emphatic request of my boss and sat in my apartment to enjoy unlimited internet and a clear view of the street where riots are supposed to happen. Last night I got a call from Khaled warning me to stay in the house because guns were going to be fired. I was fine with that because I was already scandalously attired in my tiny shorts and that would be inappropriate for attending a riot. I ended up going to bed early, a luxury I enjoy in Aden, but I heard shots and car horns a while later so I went to my window to see all the fun. Besides, I have never been adept at sleeping with lots of loud noises all around me.

I was a little disappointed in the view, I must admit…probably the same feelings that the media and NGO security advisers are feeling. There were maybe 10 cars driving around in a circle, honking their honks and yelling. There were some shots being fired, but all in all, it was more like a Lebanese wedding than a riot. Furthermore, everyone else on the street was completely unconcerned by the “chaos”. The stores were still open and kids were riding their bikes outside. The qat-chewers hanging out beside the road in their skirts and turbans continued their conversation which I’m sure went something like this (speaking around the bulge of qat in their cheeks, of course):

“Nice night for a riot.”

“Not bad, not bad.”

“Just those 10 cars making that loud honking noise? Impressive. Wonder where the driver got his qat?”

“You know how qat gives you so much alertness and energy? I am feeling good right now. I could sit here all night chewing-- that’s how alert and full of energy I am.”

“Yeah. Me too. Yemen is the greatest country in the world.”

As you can see from that authentic Yemeni conversation (translated and paraphrased by yours truly), the denizens of this country are doing fine. Just in case of a post-Friday-prayer riot at the big mosque across the street from my house, the government kindly provided several police cars filled with heavily armed soldiers and two camouflaged trucks with antiaircraft guns and snow plows (just in case!) that could barely be seen thanks to their clever paint job.

So all you people safe in snowy America (or somewhere else not as awesome as Yemen), don’t worry for me. I’m protected on many many levels. And I’m about to go running in the mountains and swimming in the sea so you see, Yemen IS the greatest country in the world. If any of you get tired of snow, come visit. Yemen will show you a good time.