The streets of Yemen are full of vendors of all kinds. On the sidewalks you walk past people selling clothing, food, books, sunglasses, watches and more. In the ubiquitous traffic in the city, young men (and sometimes women) walk among the cars hawking everything from DVD’s to children’s toys to steering wheel covers to Yemeni flags. This is really no different than most cities I’ve visited in the Middle East where the streets are clogged with vendors of all description.
In the area around Tahrir Square I’ve seen a variety of merchants and creative street businesses. There was the horse ride racket (or at least pictures on a horse), and then the man offering photos with a young bird of prey (sorry, the photo is a bit blurry as I was trying to snap it discretely).
But, the most memorable and baffling business venture, and frankly the most baffling thing I have seen so far in Yemen, was a young man sitting on the sidewalk with an old bathroom scale in front of him. As people walked by, he would gesture to the scale as an invitation for people to step on it. He was polite and unobtrusive, and if he made any disparaging comments about my weight, I couldn’t understand him anyhow.
Ultimately, I declined his pitch, as did everyone else I saw walk past him. I can only guess that he was asking for donations from people who stepped on the scale, if any did. I walked past him once on my way to the square, and about 15 minutes later I passed by him again. It didn’t look like he had much luck in that time. While it made me smile and chuckle to myself each time I walked by, I have to say it’s probably the least lucrative street business I have seen. But, I give him points for creativity, and at least he wasn’t chewing qat (although it was early in the day)or running around doing anything destructive.
The Foreign Ministry building sits on a wide-open plot of land adjacent to to major roads in Sana’a. The building looks fairly modern, and there is a security entrance off one of the main roads. There is a small hut with one guard, and the typical rolling rail of 6” metal spikes across the driveway.
We pull up to the outer perimeter entrance and the driver tells the guard I’m an American journalist. The man looks in the car and waves us in without any inspection of the vehicle, my back, the trunk, etc. We pull up to the second gate, which is at a fence that surrounds the building complex, and the driver again tells the guard I’m an American journalist. The guard tells the driver to park the car and I get out. I walk to the gate and a man asks to look in my bag. I open it, and he asks a question I can’t quite understand. He then says “TV?” I say, “radio.” With that he waves me in and points to the building.
Faisel al Hemyri is 28-years old. He looks like he’s closer to 40. He’s a police soldier. It’s a job he’s held since the age of 14. He drives around in patrol trucks every night, and sometimes during the day. He’s originally from a village in southern Yemen, but moved to Sana’a for his job 14 years ago. Today he lives in a small cinder block house with his wife, mother and four children – a small family by Yemeni standards. His house is in a remote village on the outskirts of Sana’a (but still within the city limits, and within the ring of security checkpoints that surround the city).
The drive to his house from downtown Sana’a takes about 30 minutes. The scenery and terrain gradually transforms from the dense urban bustle of the city center, to a gradually more industrial and sparse surrounding. Industrial should be qualified – small-scale industries like cinder block plants, construction businesses and auto repair shops. Periodic stretches of markets line the streets, and men mull about chewing qat and buying fruit and wares from vendors chewing qat. Continue reading ‘Faisel al Hemyri’ »
Have you ever noticed how often the drive from an airport into the city is a “worst hits” tour? Airports are often in less affluent/attractive sections of cities so it makes sense, but it can also shape first impressions.
I arrived in Sana’a around 1:30 am Monday of this week. I breezed through immigration, and my handler from the Ministry of Information met me at baggage claim to shepherd my equipment through customs – yes there was a “grandfather handshake” that took place between the handler and the customs agent.
Then, we hopped in one of the typical yellow and white taxis to head into the city and to my hotel. The ancient Peugeot wagon looked like it had been through a few wars in the 20-or-so years it’s been on the road, but it did the job.
Anyhow, the drive into the city at that hour was eerie, and borderline creepy. There was little light most of the way. The orange-hued streetlights were about the only signs of electricity for the first half of the drive. The buildings were dark, shuttered, and somewhat decrepit. It certainly fit the image of a fragile state beset by a raft of socio-economic challenges.
Back in November I spent a couple of weeks in Peru on an International Reporting Project Gatekeepers Fellowship. The program was a whirlwind tour of the country. We began with a few days in Lima, flew to Cusco, visited Machu Picchu, trekked off to the Amazon region of Madre de Dios, and back to Lima. Along the way we met with government, business, academic, and development figures. We explored public health, development, environmental, and political issues.
We even visited the International Potato Center and learned that the country has more potato varieties (on the order of 3,000), than any other country.
So, I want to share some thoughts, observations, and takeaways from the trip. In essence, the best summary of Peru came from the US Embassy team who described Peru as a “swing state.”
Last year, President Mohammad Nasheed of the Maldives, convened a cabinet meeting at the bottom of the ocean. He wanted to call attention to the threat that climate change and rising sea levels poses to his island nation. After the meeting, he surfaced in his scuba gear and held a press conference while floating in the Indian Ocean.
“This is a challenging situation, and we want to see that everyone else is also occupied as much as we are, and would like to see that people actually do something about it.”
A publicity stunt? Most likely. But it was a sign of the growing frustration over the lack of a new global climate change agreement, a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that called on counties to limit global warming. On the ground, it’s not clear what’s actually more difficult, agreeing on reducing carbon emissions, or actually reducing emissions.
America Abroad examines some of the obstacles, opportunities, and challenges of converting to a low carbon diet. We explore the changing climate of carbon emissions – from the Peruvian rainforest where economic development is decimating forests, to the U.S. where a proposed wind farm off Cape Cod is facing resistance. We also look back at the first major cap and trade program in the U.S. and discuss some of the challenges of reducing global carbon emissions with Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, Director of The Copenhagen Consensus Center and Adjunct Professor at the Copenhagen Business School. Listen to The Carbon Conundrum.
As I was sitting here in my hotel room in Sanaa, jousting with the Internet in an effort to upload an audio slideshow about illegal gold mining in Peru (to accompany our new program on reducing carbon emissions), and preparing to write a blog post about my observations during my first 24 hours in town, I heard the distinct sound of a ruckus outside. I peered out my window, and saw a small mass of people marching down the street singing songs and carrying signs (ok, they weren’t so much singing songs as chanting, but couldn’t resist the Buffalo Springfield reference).
Journalists are drawn to demonstrations/marches like moths to a flame, so I grabbed my camera and recorder and ran outside. The crowd had stopped in the middle of the street outside my hotel and people began delivering speeches over the battery-operated PA system they were carrying. Many of the signs had the picture of the same man. One of the pictures showed him severely injured and in a medical facility. One sign had the words “Women Journalists Without Chains” written in English at the bottom.
I was unsure what this was all about, but one thing was clear – it was peaceful. There were a number of police/military men wandering around and none looked threatened or concerned. In fact, on of them helped me up onto a small wall so I could take better pictures, so there didn’t seem to be any concern about violence or security.
The U.S. is quietly increasing its presence in the Gulf and speeding up arms sales to several Gulf Arab states against a potential Iranian strike in advance of increased sanctions against Iran. The U.S. Navy has been deployed to key strategic areas where they will be capable of knocking hostile missiles down in flight to the region. U.S. officials have let it be known that it now has Patriot batteries in four Gulf states – Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. These moves are designed to deter Iran from launching attacks against its Sunni Muslim neighbors and to send a message to Israel that a preemptive strike against Iran is unnecessary. From the BBC:
The U.S. position on Iran was delicately summed up on 7 January by Admiral Michael Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “I believe they’re on a path that has a strategic intent to develop nuclear weapons, and have been for some time. I think that outcome is potentially a very, very destabilizing outcome. On the other hand, when asked about striking Iran, specifically, that also has a very, very destabilizing outcome.”
This defensive measure is seen as an adjustment in the U.S. approach since the failure to engage the Iranians diplomatically has not yielded any results. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters last week that the U.S. will now press for additional sanctions against the Iranian government. Listen to an excerpt from Secretary Clinton on Power and Persuation: A Conversation with Secretaries Clinton and Gates with Frank Sesno and Christiane Amanpour on Iranian nuclear ambitions:
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Carved out of the jungle 120 years ago, as the site to unify this massive nation, Brazil’s ultra-modern capital, Brasilia is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Brainchild of the visionary architect Oscar Niemeyer, the city is infamously non-walkable and utopian in both the best and worst sense of the word. But the city is also studded with remarkable public buildings, including those housing all Brazilian Ministries – like the Ministry of Health that heads the national AIDS program. As an optic treat, AAM presents images of one of the most visually stunning cities in the world.
Radio Producer Matt Ozug produced this piece for America Abroad’s AIDS: The Politics of Prevention. Music: “Carolina,” Seu Jorge.
James Cameron’s “Avatar” has become a worldwide phenomenon, with a plethora of awards and nominations, and a box office record of over $1.8 billion, making it the highest grossing movie ever. However, the story woven around the natives of Cameron’s fictional planet “Pandora” has been reinvented and retold in Hollywood for decades, but at its heart is the history of the Native Americans and their core belief in the sanctity of Mother Earth.
One of Avatar’s pivotal scenes depicts the N’avi gathered around the “Tree of Souls,” ceremoniously attempting to bring Sigourney Weaver’s character back to life. The ceremony bears a striking resemblance to the traditional Native American Ghost Dance, which began with the vision of a Paiute Indian during an eclipse of the sun, and became a central ritual among many of the Plains tribes. The tribes who practiced the Ghost Dance ritual believed that if they danced and chanted together with enough intensity, the earth would turn upside down, the non-native invaders would be destroyed, and the sanctity of the earth would be restored. With the restoration of the earth, the souls of all American Indians would be reunited, free of death and disease, and their land would be rightly returned.
Ilana Weinberg, AAMTV producer and journalist, will begin a series of posts on religion and peace-building. Her next post will be on Hinduism.
