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.