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.