Yemen #1: The Crush of Self and Support of Others

"No, ekhi. No, no I don't want a taxi. Go on," I mumbled to myself with increasing volume as I walked down a shaded side street in Sana'a today, peering ahead at a taxi that'd stopped at the intersection to desperately await a fare from a foreigner in sunglasses." I shook my head and the white and yellow taxi pulled out into the trickle of other cars and floated away mournfully.

I felt alright, actually, my belly almost full with authentic Ethiopian food that I inhaled while Atiaf Wazir, the well-respected Yemeni-American blogger, took respectful little bites. My mind was full, too, of a little hope and a lot of calm. How could it not have been? Atiaf had just taken me out for lunch, and as I pulled bits of t'ibs off of a hot metal goblet with hunks of injera bread, she listened to me go on about my block: the paralysis that takes grip in my stomach, keeping me from taking a task  in manageable pieces, which makes me want to crumple up in depression and go to sleep.

She listened, and without a hint of impatience or frustration, excitedly threw out small steps for me to put on a list: Go chew qat (the stimulant leaf so deeply enshrined in Yemeni social rituals) with regular old Yemeni folks in Change Square and ask their opinions on politics and Yemeni current events, start working on my blog, let news outlets know I'm in Yemen and ready to do whatever for them, read Yemeni politics 'til my eyes hurt, network with expats, get working with a local newspaper, and so on. She actually waited as I wrote them down in my Arabic lesson notebook. Sometime before all that, she'd suggested I reach out to Ben, her husband, and get him to connect me with France24.

We wrapped up talking about Yemeni politics, about the necessity of a deeper revolutionary process that expels the old vested interests from the regime, and the omnipresence of foreign interests, like the US especially, in Yemeni affairs. She knows so much more than I do, I GOT to get on the books. As she spouted analysis of Yemen's rainbow politics main opposition party, Islah (Reform), her hijab's many folds and rolls came undone one by one, and as the fabric collapsed on her head, she folded it back up and adjusted her glasses with small fingers automatically.

Out on the street as she waited to hop on a debbēb (communal city transport van), I let a story spill about a taxi I took yesterday. I told Atiaf about the woman in the back seat, wearing a completely black unrevealing khimmār, who despite her attire spoke flintily with me, joked constantly, and kept putting her arms around the neck of the cab driver while he let go of the wheel for seconds at a time while we burned along traffic trenches in the Old City. It turns out she was a prostitute, according to Atiaf's analysis. A strange encounter for me on a Friday afternoon in Sana'a.

Hopefully that's just the beginning of the unusual encounters that get me under the surface of this place.