The Stone Palace

Well, hello there everyone. I have had an eventful couple of days. Yesterday was my half day at work, kind of the start of the weekend. When I got to work, my boss, the director of the Social Fund, (her name is Lamis), invited me to lunch at her house. Her family was having a big get-together to welcome back a nephew of hers that is back visiting from his studies in Canada. After work we were picked up by her family's driver and stuffed in the car along with her parents one of her nephews, a person I believe was one of their maids, the driver, Lamis and myself.

Their house was amazing. Totally ornate and enormous. I only got to see the first few rooms since those were the mufraj (the women's sitting area) and the dinning room we used, but you got the impression that there was much more to it. Because one of the men there was distant enough of a member of the family to be marriageable to some of the women there, there was separation, meaning the men and women ate and socialized separately in the house. I don't know how many men were there since I only saw a few fleetingly, but there were quite a few women: Lamis' mother, two of her sisters, two of her sisters in law and a handful of nieces, plus several kids running around. The food was very good and basically consisted of rice, smoked and roasted meat (lamb I think), sulta (which I described in an early post), this bread and yogurt mixture with herbs which was delicious, and bread. Then came the watermelon (called hub-hub in Arabic... cute), then the بنت الصحن (bint as-sahin) which means "daughter of the plate" which is a huge layered flaky flat bread with little black seeds sprinkled on top and then honey poured over the top. Finally, after the meal, we retired back to the mufraj and had some pastries and Qishr for dessert. Qishr is a really yummy drink traditional here in Yemen made from the husks of coffee beans. It's mild, less strong and less bitter than coffee, and tastes a little like chai but less spicy. Not only that but the Qishr was from coffee grown on Lamis' family's farm. All in all I had a very nice time despite feeling very exhausted by the end having tried for hours, and failed, to follow the quick Yemeni Arabic going on around me.

Today was another great adventure. One of the other women staying at the hostel, Gail, said she wanted to go and visit Dar al-Hajar (The Palace of Stone) which is an ancient site on the outskirts of Sana'a. She's leaving Monday and really wanted to go see it, but didn't want to go alone. I decided to go with her. So, to be on the safe side, I decided to call Ali, who is a taxi driver for the Raha taxi service. I got his number from my work and he is intended to sort of be my taxi while I'm here in Yemen. That way I don't have to end up in taxis with strange men. Anyway, I had not met Ali yet, but decided that this would be a good opportunity to meet him so that we would know each other in the future. I called him and arranged for him to meet us on the main street by our hostel. We walked out to the street to wait, and pretty quickly a taxi pulled up and the driver motioned to us. We went over to the taxi and got in and I asked in Arabic "are you Ali" and the guy nodded. We started going down the street about a block or two and I was just about to reach in my purse and grab my phone to call Ali's number, just to make sure this guy was Ali, and my phone rang. It was Ali. We had gotten in the wrong taxi and the driver had not understood me, or chosen not to understand me, when I asked who he was. So, we quickly told the driver to pull over and we got out. Unfortunately at this point we didn't know what street we were on, but I had Ali on the phone, and there were some old men selling grapes next to us, so I had one of the old men tell Ali where we were. It was actually kind of funny because the guy had his hands full of grapes that he was trying to give us so he had me hold the phone up so he could talk into it. While waiting for Ali we almost got into a second non-Ali taxi that had pulled up and waved at us, but found out quickly that this guy's name was Salih, so we didn't go with him. Finally Ali's taxi pulled up and, after verifying that it was indeed Ali, we got in. The old guy who helped us came over to the window and admonished Ali to watch out for us and gave him some grapes.

Anyway, Ali turned out to be a very good-natured person. He drove us out to Dar al-Hajar and came with us inside to show us around. Here are the pictures from the palace. It's from the 17/1800s originally and is built half-way from the living stone of the cliff it's on. It was really cool walking around there because most of the site-seers there were Yemeni. Everyone was out and about with their families, dressed in their Friday best, and enjoying the sites. It was really cool.
When we first entered the compound of the palace we saw that some men were doing a demonstration of a Yemeni dance where they dance with their knives. These knives, called jambiya, are traditional in Yemen, and about 70% of the men walking around in the street are wearing them in these cool ornate sheaths in their belts. I got a short video clip of the dance. I wish I had gotten more, but I felt self-conscious. Note that I happened to capture one of the illusive Sana'a women in the frame as well.


Here are some views from the palace. Most of the trees you see growing around there are Qat trees.






This shot is in a little niche off of one of the rooms. Apparently it's a cooling chamber. The hooks were used to hang water bottles to keep them cool.

Most of the palace was bare of any furniture or anything, but they had a couple of rooms appointed in the traditional fashion and displayed behind glass.


These shots were taken in the area that is built into the live rock. The sign in the second picture says "Pre-historic burial cave" which leads me to believe that possibly these caves pre-dated the palace and were used for burial in ancient times. I have to do some digging (no pun intended) and find out if this is true or not. I took this first picture to try and catch the cool scratches in the rock from when the cave was hollowed out. You can see them in the second picture better though.


More views from the palace.

It's so crazy to see so many of the buildings made from mud-brick just melt over time.


Another illusive Yemeni woman captured by accident.

I've been meaning to take some pictures of local plants for mom and my grandma to enjoy and haven't gotten a chance, so a took a few here. I just posted a few of my favorites.



This is Qat.

After finishing at the palace Ali took us back to the hostel and we met up with Katherina and went for lunch in a "fancy" restaurant called Shay Bani. The food was absolutely delicious. Here are a few of the dishes including a spicy shrimp dish in the bottom right corner and a spicy fish dish in the top right being placed on the table. Yemen has really good sea food.

After Shay Bani we went to get Turkish coffee at this other nicer restaurant. All in all it was a very fun day and now I know who Ali is, so next time I need him, no problems!