Once More into the Breach

Well, I'm back from my second field visit and have some fun pictures to share. First, though, here are some pictures from an outing Katherina and I took in the Old City in Sana'a before I left. There is a great market in the Old City with a fun combination of touristy shops as well as practical shops selling anything from bolts of cloth to dustpans and brooms to belts to various skilled crafts such as mettle-works, carved doors and baskets. Katherina and I walked around the market and then went to a fancy hotel in the Old City called the Burj Al Salam Hotel. It's pretty expensive as far as Yemen goes, but it's actually really really cool. I didn't get to see any of the rooms, but the building is a beautiful old refurbished building. All the buildings in the Old City are these gorgeous old stone structures bordered by narrow cobbled streets. Anyway, the hotel has a mufraj on the top floor where you can sit comfortably and drink tea and juice while looking out over the city. It was quite enjoyable. Here's the mufraj (sitting room).




Here's the view of Sana'a from the mufraj.


So, now on to the field!
We decided to leave a little later in the morning than we had on previous trips because we wouldn't be visiting any villages the first day, just traveling to Ta'iz. This turned out to be an unfortunate decision to a certain extent, but it all worked out in the end.

After taking our time getting out of Sana'a we were stopped at the first of the checkpoints leaving the Sana'a area and they made us wait for a while. It turned out that the Social Fund had applied for my travel permission for both of my trips together on one permission. This was all correct and in order, but the checkpoint guards didn't like it and said we needed a new one for the second trip. We had to call the Social Fund who gave us the number of the person who does all the travel arrangements for them, then he had to call the tourist police and get them to contact the checkpoint guards and finally we were able to get on our way. While we waited we drove around some of the little side roads in the area, this is a picture taken on one of these little side drives.

Finally we got underway and started the long drive to Ta'iz. At this point we had probably already been in the car for a couple of hours what with getting around the traffic in Sana'a, getting to the checkpoint, and then waiting for about an hour to be let through. We still had a good 3 or 4 hours at least to drive, so we were settled in for a long trip.

The trip went smoothly other than the fact that we got a security tail twice. This happens often in Yemen and is the main reason why we should have left early in the morning. Had we gotten on the road earlier, it would have been less likely that there were police or army personnel hanging around with nothing better to do than to follow a car with an American in it. They do it for the safety of the foreigner nominally, but people say they actually want money. It was unfortunate for me because the way I was traveling (just me all dressed in black with a black headscarf and with my two Yemeni counterparts) it would have been safer for me to fly under the radar. Having a police car or army truck following you only draws attention to you. Anyway, we had a police car for a nice long stretch filled with like 5 or 6 police men insisting on following us. Then they finally laid off, but at another checkpoint there was an army truck that decided to follow us through the area around Ibb city. That was impressive... a big army truck with a mounted gun on the back and everything. Anyway, they only stuck with us for a short while and eventually we were back on our own.

The drive was absolutely beautiful. To travel to Ta'iz you drive through the governorate of Ibb which is known as the Green Governorate here. It's lush and epic with intense mountains and valleys like everywhere in Yemen, but somehow much more breathtaking due to the greenness of the landscape.




Finally we got to Ta'iz and after finding a hotel and getting some dinner Abdulla drove us up the mountain in Ta'iz to a great vantage point where you can see the city laid out under you.


The next day we got an early start and headed into the field. We made our way from Ta'iz into the governorate of Lahaj to a district called al-maqatira. We didn't have a local consultant with us in this area, our contact being one of the village members themselves who, when contacted once we got to the main city in that area, informed us that he was actually in Ta'iz that day, so we were on our own. It took us hours and hours to get to the first village. We had to stop and ask directions along the way repeatedly and initially were instructed to go a route that was actually not possible. This first route was through the wadi bottom and though it ended up being a dead end, it was quite beautiful.


Pictures from the wadi.





Finally we headed back up the road into the mountains and were directed to a little dirt road meandering its way along the mountain face. The roads in this area are just barely there and many are actively under construction. This one was in pretty bad shape and ended up being quite an adventure, though with a breathtaking view of the valley below us.

Finally we got to a point where the road ended and we were told by some kids that in order to get to the village we had to walk the rest of the way, so Sultan and I headed off along a narrow rocky trail skirting the mountain edge. It was beautiful, though exhausting. The altitude was quite high and I was in flip-flops, deciding to leave by tennis shoes in Sana'a on this trip to save space. We had to walk about a mile and a quarter to get to the village, give or take, and finally made it there and were able to gather some villagers together to get the interview underway. The interview went well, but it had taken us so long to get there that it was well into lunchtime by the time we got started so the villagers were itchy to stop and eat once food was brought. Because we hadn't finished the interview yet, were stuck over a mile from the car and our own supplies, were exhausted and famished, Sultan and I ended up not being able to refuse to share their meal, so we joined them for lunch and then finished the interview.

Unfortunately I didn't get many good pictures in the village because I had inadvertently hit a button on my camera that made the contrast really low and everything was coming out too bright but I couldn't figure out how to fix it. I finally figured it out on our walk back, but the pictures I have of the first set of terraces are not particularly good. I put this one in here because Sultan told me that the succulent plant in the bottom right corner is a plant called سلب (salab) in Arabic, and is used to make rope.

On the walk back to the car he pointed out some more local plants of interest. This is a Carob tree called كروب (Karoob) or كرنوب (Karnoob) in Arabic. They eat the dried pods right off the tree he said.

Here's a picture of me looking somewhat nonplussed. I was actually pretty happy at that point, the walk was really beautiful, but I pulled an odd face for the picture nevertheless.

Here's another neat plant. It's called مشموم (mashmoom) in Arabic and is used as a perfume in rural areas. Women pick bunches of it and place it on the backs of their necks under their scarves. It smells and looks to me like it's related to some type of geranium. We picked some to have in the car for the rest of the day.

I don't know what this one is called in Arabic, but I took a picture because I seemed like a kind of mint to me. It smelled a little like pennyroyal or mint and had pretty purple flowers.

After we got back to the car we drove a little way back along the windy bumpy dirt road, then stopped for our own lunch. Abdulla had waited at the car while we went to the village so he hadn't eaten yet, so we needed to stop for him at least. We had a little picnic on the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley. It consisted of canned tuna, yogurt, bread, and raw onion, mmmm.



We had originally planned to see a second village on that day, but by the time we finished at the first one it was already 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon and when we asked the villagers where the second village was they kindly pointed it out to us. It was visible from the vantage point of their village, but in order to access it we would have had to have drove all the way back down all through the wadi bottom, around the next set of mountain ridges, and back up into the mountains, and we would have had to walk the last stretch to get there too. So, given that we had to make it back to Ta'iz that night I made the call to drop the second village for that day.

It was actually pretty funny. The villagers at the first village were laughing telling us that when the Social Fund had come before to conduct the survey that had originally brought them to our attention, the surveyors hadn't even made it all the way to the village but had made the villagers come out to them. We were gratified to know that we had gone the extra mile... literally.

So, we headed straight back to Ta'iz and got there before dark. Abdulla took us to an old palace in Ta'iz. I believe it was an Imam's palace from some time in the 1800s. We walked around for a few minutes and took some pictures, then headed back to the hotel for an early evening.


This is a common site. These dry prickly branches are laid along the tops of low stone terrace walls and other places. They are used to keep goats and sheep and other grazing animals out of certain areas. I took a picture of this one because it's also adorned with the Yemeni national flower, the plastic bag, found EVERYWHERE. It was actually pretty funny because after we finished our picnic lunch that day I started gathering up all the leftovers and debris and putting them in the bags explaining that we should clean up after ourselves to make a good example. Sultan nodded sagely at this and helped me, then, when I picked up the bag he said "No, no, you can just leave it here." I explained that that was the point, that I didn't want to litter. He just looked at me blankly and explained to Abdulla that I wanted to take our garbage back with us in the car. Abdulla protested too, they both were looking at me like I was crazy. I finally had to pull rank, insisting that we take it with us. I guess the reduction in litter in this country will be a very long time coming.


On our way back to Ta'iz that day I asked Sultan and Abdulla what Ta'iz was famous for, if anything. They said they were famous for a certain type of cheese and they stopped at a roadside stand so that I could buy some. The cheese is a soft gelatinous goat cheese that tastes smoked. It's actually quite delicious, I had some with my dinner that night.


More on this trip to follow...

In the Field Day 3

On the last day we got up early again, because even though we only had one village to visit that day, we had to drive back to Sana'a, and we wanted to get back before dark. It took us a while to get to the last village because it was pretty remote, although the road wasn't bad. They are pretty high up in the mountains, and are the only village I've seen so far the grows coffee. While Yemen is famous for it's coffee, the market for it doesn't really exist to the extent it should in order to bolster Yemeni coffee production and export. Here are some pictures from the last village.
This picture is a close-up from the center of the first picture. The stone hole is what is called a "majeel" and is kind of a naturally occurring open containment that collects water used by the village.


The structure built along the cliff face is a water diversion canal used to divert water onto the coffee terraces.

After finishing at the last village, we stopped one final time in Bajil for lunch, and then started the long drive back to Sana'a. The road we took back to Sana'a is apparently one of the oldest modern roads in Yemen built by the Chinese before the Yemen civil war in the 1960s. It meandered through wadis for the most part, and was quite beautiful. We stopped at a fruit stand on our way because I told Abdulla that I hadn't tried the fruit called "kharbish" in Arabic and I guess custard apple in English. It looks like a soft pine cone on the outside, and you break it open and eat the soft white flesh. It's really really perfumey and floral and quite delicious. Here's where we got it.
Finally we made it back to Sana'a. Here's Sana'a from the mountains coming back towards it.

All in all the trip ended up being quite fun. Unlike on my first trip out where the car was filled with four native Arabic speakers and me, I got to be a part of the conversation this time. Abdulla and Sultan where very patient with me and let me stumble through my Arabic. It was nice with Sultan there to smooth over the rough patches and translate when need be so we could actually have a conversation.

All in all, a successful trip. I leave for my second trip on Sunday. We'll travel to and stay in Ta'iz and travel to villages in Lahaj governorate. Insha allah it will be as smooth as the first trip.

In the Field Day 2

On the second day we got another early start. After breakfast at Sultan's house we headed back to al-Rujum to meet up with the local consultant again. The roads to the two villages we visited on this day were much better and shorter, so getting to the villages was not the adventure it had been the day before. Here are a few pictures from the first village, you can see in the first two the path that a major rock slide made falling down the mountain and crushing terraces in its way. It started at the top of the first picture and then made its way through the terraces in the second picture.



Here are a bunch of the terraces cultivated by the first village.



After finishing at the first village we headed to the second village. This one was a much bigger community with a population of over 1000, possible close to 2000, while most of the other places we visited had a population of around 300-600. This time we met in a computer room in the school built for this community and there was a large group of maybe 20 farmers and they all argued with each other a lot in answering the questions, it was actually pretty funny.

Here's a picture of some of the farmers from the second community. This community also really wanted us to come have lunch with them. Most of the places we visited invited us, but these guys were really persistent. Poor Sultan, I made it all his fault by telling them he had to decide and that I didn't know, because I didn't want to be rude. Sultan told me afterwards that we can't accept that kind of hospitality from the beneficiaries of the Social Fund, something I didn't know before, but is good to know now so I don't have to feel bad about refusing.


After finishing at the second village we had lunch at the same restaurant again, and again I was admonished to eat more food. Then we started the several hour drive to Bajil in the al-Hodayda governorate to stay the night. However, when we got to Bajil it turned out the only hotel in the town that was good enough to stay at was full, so we decided to drive another half hour or so to the city of al-Hodayda to stay the night. Al-Hodayda is on the Red Sea and the road we took there is a road that goes to Saudi Arabia, so it was interesting to see all of the big trucks hauling imported supplies into the country from Saudi, and then leaving empty again.

On the drive there was a pretty heavy wind whipping sand up into the air, along with the ever-present haze from the humidity. This is actually a picture of the sun, it pretty much just looked like the moon through all the dust a haze.

After getting to al-Hodayda we found a hotel and took some time to clean up and settle in before dinner. It was pretty funny actually because Sultan and Abdulla were really concerned about the quality of my room. The room that I was initially supposed to have had a problem with the TV so they hassled the employees of the hotel to no end making them fix it, then decided it wasn't good enough anyway, so took me to a second room and then spent a bunch of time making everything in that room worked. I started calling them my army "jaysh" in Arabic, because they were like my front line in everything. Abdulla was even scouring the room looking for mosquitoes.

Al-Hodayda, being on the Red Sea and up north close to the desert of Saudi is really really hot. It was super humid and cloying there. However, it is know for having really fresh, outstanding sea food, so for dinner that night we went out to have fish. Here's dinner.

... and here are my dining companions.

The fish was absolutely delicious.

Later that night in the hotel I watched a bit of TV. In flipping around I found some pretty funny things, including SpongeBob SquarePants in Arabic... awesome!

In the Field Day 1

I'm back!
I had a great trip. It was very interesting, very exhausting, and actually a lot of fun! I have broken up the blogs about the trip into three parts. Here's the first one.

We left Sana'a early in the morning, at round 7:30am. We were supposed to leave at 6:30, but we needed to find a place that made photocopies in order to get copies of my travel papers, so we had to drive around for a while to find one that was open, plus we stopped for breakfast, etc. Finally we hit the road. The trip there was relatively uneventful. It was me, my driver Abdulla, and my translator Sultan. The first day was pretty quiet. None of us knew each other yet, so conversation was tentative, but friendly.

After between 2 and 3 hours we finally got to the the main town near the area where we would be visiting the first villages, called al-Rujum. In al-Rujum we picked up the local consultant that was to travel with us to the villages. He knew the area and knew the people, so he was a good asset.

The first village was called al-Hajaar. It was pretty high up in the mountains and I was so amazed that we made it up the road to get there. The road was all gravel and dirt, and very steep at parts. I was so impressed with the difficulty of this road that I took a video coming back down. However, at the risk of foreshadowing, I had no idea how bad it could really get!

Here is a picture of some of the terraces cultivated by this first village.


The interview went well. Sultan did a great job and I got all the information I needed. The interview took place in a meeting room with about 12-14 farmers and a smattering of curious children. Everyone was very friendly and it went pretty smooth.

Here's a picture of most of the group we talked with, though not everyone. The guy in the suit holding the notebook is my translator Sultan.

So, here's the video I took coming back down the road. It's not particularly good or informative, but I kept it in here because when you hear someone start talking, that's my driver Abdulla, and he's evoking Allah in exclamation about the road and the rain. I point this out because the frequency with which Allah was evoked in the car increased exponentially on our way to and from the second village! He's saying ماشاء الله (Masha Allah) which means "whatever God wills," plus more about the rain increasing.



After getting back to al-Rujum we stopped for lunch. Mmmmmm! Even though I was initially sad when my first translator, Khadija, quit. I think in retrospect having a male translator has been better. Rather than what happened the first time when Khadija and I ate by ourselves and the men ate together, I got to sit and eat with the guys in a private room and be a part of the conversation, it was fun! This was the first meal we had on the road and it was the beginning of the pattern which continued the entire rest of the trip. Abdulla and Sultan always exclaimed that I wasn't eating enough and urged me to eat more and more. It turned into kind of a joke eventually, but it also is an example of the fact that they were both concerned about me and watching out for me in all things on this trip.



So, after lunch we started making our way to the second village. The road was paved at first, and I was lulled into a false sense of security. It wasn't long before the paving ended and the road was then just graded. Then it wasn't long until the conditions of the road started to deteriorate rapidly. To top it all off, it was POURING rain and we were descending into a valley area so the farther down we went, the more water was just gushing down the road along with us. During a slight lull in the rain we stopped so I could take some pictures on the way down. I took a little video too. In the video you can hear me talking to Sultan. I was in the process of explaining how it's impossible to really capture all of what these vistas look like in a photo. The trip down to this second village, though crazy, was so incredibly beautiful! The drama of these mountains is amazing. I wish I had taking more pictures of this particular trek to this village, it was really something.


The road continued to worsen as we got farther and farther down. We started coming across areas where soil was starting to flow off of the slopes above us onto the road and the road was falling away at the edges down the slopes below us. There were parts where the road was made up of big wide slick boulders and at one point we had to drive under two HUGE boulders overhanging the road. It was crazy!

Finally we got to the village and made it into their meeting area, slightly damp, but ready to work. Here's a fuzzy picture of my driver Abdulla sitting the the meeting room. The meeting rooms were made up usually of large carpeted areas with cushions or folded blankets lining the walls. I would usually be placed at the head of the room and everyone would sprawl out on the cushions around me.



This meeting went well too, but it took a long time, and by the time we finished, what with the heavy cloud cover and the setting sun, I had a hard time getting pictures of the landscape around the village. Shortly we started the trek back up the mountain, and let me tell you, it was insane! The rain had stopped for the most part, but the ground was totally saturated and everything was slippery. There were countless points where I was convinced there was absolutely no way we'd be able to make it up a particular slope or hill or turn, but we always did. Then we hit one point where the road made a sharp turn on a steep upward slope and the ground was a bunch of slick boulders and rocks under the car. We couldn't quite make it and kept spinning out. Finally Abdulla backed up a bit and gunned it to get it up the slope. We finally got a tentative purchase on the rock, but the wheels were still spinning pretty bad, and we started sliding sideways toward the cliff! My heart stopped for about a second, but in the next moment we got traction and were on our way again. It was crazy! There were a couple of other moments were our wheels were spinning in the mud, but Sultan and the local consultant would get out and arrange the rocks under the car in such a way as to get us traction, so we always made it without too much delay.

We stopped again part way up the mountain so I could take some pictures of the sunset. You can't see very clearly, but all the little light-colored dots scattered along the mountainsides are little houses and villages. You look at these places and you can't imagine how people actually get to them! It was really beautiful and amazing.



By the time we made it to the main road it was dark. We were supposed to stay in the town of al-Mahweet in a hotel, but Sultan's family is originally from al-Mahweet and he offered that we go and stay at his family's house. I was a little dubious at first because I had just met him, but he assured me that his parents and sisters were there and that I would have a room to myself, so I agreed.

His house was very modest. The common room, like most houses here, was at the entry of the house and used for sitting with guests, especially men, since unrelated men can't go into the areas of the house where the women are. If it had just been me and Sultan it wouldn't have been a problem, but Abdulla was with us, so we were only able to socialize with Sultan's father and brother. We had a good dinner and then I was shown to my room. My room is actually the room Sultan and his wife use when staying at the house, but his wife is currently in Sana'a so I was given it to use. The common room had a carpeted floor, but the kitchen area where the women were had an earthen floor. There was one simple bathroom in the style common here with a squat toilet and a shower directly over it that drains into the toilet itself. My room was comfortable and modest as well. Here are some pictures of the room I stayed in.


It had been a long day and extremely exhausting. I feel asleep pretty promptly and spent a relatively comfortable night.