No Pictures This Time :(

Hi everyone!
Well, no pictures this time, but a good story.
On Friday, which is my weekend. I washed my hair (something wearing a scarf allows me the luxury of doing only once a week), washed my laundry (I have to do it by hand; another reason that wearing a balto, which keeps my outer clothes clean, is an excellent idea in this context), and went shopping at our local veggie market. When I got back Katherina was having tea with another German woman in our common room and they invited me to join them.

This other woman has to be one of the most interesting people I have ever met in my life. Her name is Annabell and she works for the International Committee of the Red Cross. She is a tribal negotiator! She goes up into these super remote tribal areas with a team of people and over months and months builds up a rapport with the tribes. Then, once they are willing to work with her and her team, she negotiates access to the remote villages in their territories so that the Red Cross can do a full assessment of the population in order to give aid. She also negotiates the distribution of the humanitarian aid, etc. She is an Islamic scholar and was in a Sufi order in Syria for like a year or two. What a woman, what a life!

After our cup of tea Katherina and Annabell were going to go back to Annabell's house to have a woman's night with the two of them and Annabell's neighbor, Krista (also German), and they invited me to come along. On our way we stopped at this bakery that I had heard a lot about. It was started by a Yemeni who studied to be a pastry chef in New York so there are all kinds of Western goodies. We got cheesecake, chocolate cake, custard fruit tarts and chocolate chip cookies and took them back to Annabell's. Then Krista came over.

Krista is another totally fascinating woman. She works for an organization called GTZ, (called Gee Tee Zed, being German). It's a German organization that does all kinds of development activities all over the world. Her role for GTZ here in Yemen is as their Security Coordinator, or something like that. She basically keeps her finger on the pulse of what's going on in the country and advises and arranges everything when members of GTZ are going into the field for their work.

I just sat, ate cake, and absorbed as these three incredible, interesting women talked for hours about their experiences here in Yemen and all over the world. Totally fascinating. Funnily enough though, one of the coolest things about Krista is that her and her partner just bought a farm house in Piedmont, Italy and are going to be fixing it up over the next couple of years. Her and her partner have been an item of sorts for many years, but he works on development projects too, so it has been rare that they've spent much time in the same country, so they're looking forward to this quiet time in Italy. It sounded really beautiful.

Other than that interesting evening all has been quiet. I'm making my final preparations for my trip into the field tomorrow. I'll be going with my translator/facilitator Sultan and one of the SFD drivers Abdulla. We'll be gone for three days (two nights). We're going to the governorates of Al-Mahweet and Al-Hodayda and will be visiting five villages to conduct my interviews. Sultan will be good, he seems pretty on top of it. I was disappointed to loose Khadija because she was really great, but she quit, so what are you going to do? All in all I feel as prepared as I'm going to be, so I'm just eager to get a move on.

I'll report more after my field visit. I should be back on Wednesday.

All the best!