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.

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.

Happy Holidays (warning: long with extraneous details)

Much like in the US, the holiday season in Yemen involves lots of food and time hanging around the house. Unlike in the US, the electricity often cuts out, which is unfortunate for foreign guests who are supposed to be sitting in front of the TV being entertained while their hosts are cooking (and not wanting said foreign guests underfoot in the kitchen). Because much of the three day holiday that marks the celebration of the end of a month of fasting involves so much cooking, I spent a lot of time obliging my hosts by sitting in front of the TV. Sometimes I would venture into the kitchen, hoping to be useful stirring or chopping something, but usually I got sent out again. Other times the younger siblings who weren’t cooking or hanging out in the streets eating candy would sit in the room with me. Then we would watch Arabic soap operas or music videos on one of the many music channels (while eating candy). During one of these times we actually managed to watch the same video four times in a row on four different channels. I kept thinking it was over and then they’d find it again. Sadly, it is probably my least favorite Nancy Ajram song too…although that might be because I heard it so many times. It was one of her deeper and more emotional videos where she cried a few times and pooched out her plastic lips as much as possible.

The soap operas were more entertaining. My favorite one was about a woman who had married 5 husbands at the same time, thinking that at least 3 of them were dead and that the other divorce had been finalized. She perfected the art of dramatically fainting when coming into contact with what she thought was the ghost of one of her dead husbands. There were also some bad drug dealers involved which seems to be a common plot in Egypt these days judging by the movie I saw on my flight over here which also involved drug dealers and twins separated at birth—one twin was a cop and the other was working for a drug dealer. My favorite part of that movie was the subtitles. The drug dealer convinces the bad twin to run over (translated “dash”) his cop brother and take over his life. Forever after the bad twin feels deep remorse for dashing his brother with the car. Dashing things with cars is definitely a common Middle Eastern problem, so I always look carefully when I’m standing in the middle of the road to make sure that the cars are swerving around me.

Aside from the long hours sitting around and hoping that I could convince my friend to let me come back to Aden early so I could enjoy the wonderful loneliness of an empty apartment, I did have some memorable fun times. I definitely enjoyed eating all the great food prepared for me in the kitchen. Nusaiba promises to teach me to make fuul when we get back to Kharaz because it is mumtaztik, especially with lots of besbas (one of the best words for hot peppers that I have heard in any language). I also loved exploring the old city of Sana’a with its unique gingerbread houses and perfect not-too-cold-not-too-hot weather. Drinking mint lemonade on the roof of a hotel overlooking the city at sunset and getting some exciting news from my sister in a text message was pretty sweet too. I also had some good times just hanging out with my lovely Sudanese family, hearing stories about Sudan, learning how to wrap myself in a thobe, and planning our trip there in November if our UNHCR Sudanese friend has enough wasta to get me a visa.

On the second day of my Eid vacation, we met up with a couple of Nusaiba’s friends. A slightly crazy non-terrorist from Palestine married to a good friend of hers from school. Every time I met one of Nusaiba’s Yemeni friends she would always point out that they were friends even though they’re not both from Sudan. Apparently that was important information for me to hold on to. These friends are going through a rough time in their marriage and in an attempt to not think about it, they road-tripped to Sana’a from Taiz for the weekend in their friend’s car. That was convenient for us because they chauffeured us around to various places we wanted to go. I especially enjoyed Ibrahim’s refreshingly clear Palestinian accent unobstructed by a cheek full of qat leaves. The first night Ibrahim insisted on taking me to Fun City (basically Six Flags over Sana’a with more people and less rides plus somehow separate lines for women and men on certain rides). Only, neither he nor Nusaiba will ride the rides, so I got pushed into riding with Sabah (Ibrahim’s Yemeni wife who is friends with Nusaiba even though she is Sudanese-just pointing that out again for all of you). I don’t mind riding rides, but I hate waiting hours in line which is just as much a part of the Fun City experience as it is in any overly-crowded amusement park in the US. In Yemen, these waits are made even more annoying by virtue of the fact that they are a complete waste of everyone’s time. Not only are the people waiting in line to ride on the rides, but the people on the rides are waiting on the rides for the operators to personally lock each seatbelt and then slowly saunter back over to the operation booth to turn on the ride. After 30-45 minutes of waiting in line while two groups before us each enjoyed a 1 minute ride, we finally made it. We began our 15 minute wait sitting in the horribly uncomfortable seats waiting for the ride to start. Sabah was very nervous about this ride. Maybe it was the fact that a large sign sternly warned all “pregnants” from taking part in this electrical adventure, but she was not pregnant. She said she was more concerned about the part of the ride where we would be sitting upside down 50 feet in the air (or some sort of large distance). I was just glad we had finally made it to the ride, and actually the 15 minute wait came in handy as Ibrahim surreptitiously snapped several thousand pictures of us. He was trying to do it secretly because it’s actually frowned upon/forbidden because of the modest women riding the rides (the ones waiting in the women’s only line) who might be accidently caught in your photo which would then probably make it into some evil American pornography website (maybe Facebook). Haram. But the flash gave him away and an annoyed guard told him several times to stop. Fortunately for my Facebook photo album, Ibrahim is Palestinian and he told me that he would never let a Yemeni tell him what to do.

So we are sitting in the seats and we finally get locked in. And then, amazingly, we began to move. It looks like 45 minutes of waiting is finally going to produce the much-anticipated excitement of flipping upside-down high in the air. As a precaution, knowing that in Yemen Fun has no safety standards, I said a little prayer to Jesus that went something like this: “God, please don’t let me die in Fun City.” And just then, He answered my prayer. The electricity snapped off (remember how I said it had been doing that a lot?). The ride creaked to a stop and our seatbelts popped open. As everyone started to yell and complain and insist on staying in their seats until the electricity came back on and people could ride again, I jumped out and ran to the fence where Nusaiba and Ibrahim were telling me to stay in my seat so no one else could take it. I looked at Ibrahim and said, “What if the electricity had stopped when we were upside down?” He said: “Disaster.” I said, “I’m done here.” Sabah and I went to ride the rides that spin around in circles on the ground. They never did get the upside-down ride back on, so I will never know if anyone died there, but so far that is the nearest to death that I’ve come since being here in Yemen.

Our other trips around Sana’a to KFC at midnight and the old Imam’s house on a rock were also fun and eventful but better seen in the pictures I put up on Facebook. Plus they were slightly marred by Ibrahim and Sabah’s constant bickering and the awkwardness that was that.

So all in all it was a good trip. The magazine in the seat on my flight back listed 5 must-do things in Sana’a, and I was proud to see that I had done them all, including trying aseeda (a disgusting blob of what seemed to be to be uncooked bread dough which is pinched off, squished into a ball, dipped in some weird yoghurt curds and eaten…give me good old plain Sudanese beans any day). Coming home and finding that someone had been allowed to stay in my house (without my knowledge) while I was gone and had eaten all my food and left trash everywhere was slightly annoying, but we worked all that out today. And I am enjoying my solitude in the apartment while Cait and Nusaiba are gone which is actually my idea of a perfect holiday.