Welcome to Yemen
View from my hotel room at night
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.
Gradually, we started to pass through streets with little food stands that were open for business at 2 am. We passed very few cars, and a handful of people out on the streets. It felt a bit like a ghost town, or a city under curfew. Even Kabul seemed livelier and more electric at that hour. We passed through one checkpoint, and the Kalashnikov-clad police officer let us pass after examining all of our paperwork (no money involved).
On the whole, the first 2/3rds of the drive left me with a sense that the city was a bit of a wasteland. But, as we got closer to the hotel, everything perked up. There were more cars, more people, and more of the street front restaurants open. The buildings looked more developed and habitable, and by the time I got to the hotel (around 2:30 am) I was starting to feel like the city was more alive and more like other cities in the region. In fact, the night time view from my hotel room was quite striking.
On Monday morning, my minder came to the hotel to discuss some of my plans, and we walked down the street so I could buy a SIM card for my phone. The streets were full of cars and people, and shops open everywhere. Car horns honked constantly, and pedestrians dodged in and out of traffic. Again, it felt like Cairo or Damascus – crowded, alive, and dancing to that quirky rhythm you so often find in the Middle East.
We found a shop that sold SIM cards, and I made my purchase and we walked back to the hotel. People generally seemed friendly and unfazed to see a very white guy (who’s often taken for an intelligence operative) walking down the street.
And in terms of the people, so far they have been exceedingly friendly, kind, and helpful. From hotel clerks to taxi drivers, people have been engaging, and quick to welcome me to Yemen as soon as they learned I am American. There’s clearly a strong desire that Americans and the rest of the world see Yemen for more than radicalism and terrorism. But, that’s only a small part of it. The reality is that the culture of hospitality runs deep.
After I purchased my SIM card, I was supposed to wait 30 minutes for it to activate. I returned to my hotel to do some work, and after an hour the card still wasn’t working. So, I walked back down the street to the shop.
The two men there spoke English as well as I speak Arabic – meaning about 25 words, and most of them inappropriate. But, I was able to communicate that the card wasn’t working. They went about making calls, entering codes and doing a number of things, and after about 10 minutes I was all set.
I thanked them and was about to leave when one made a gesture to a cooler in the back of the tiny shop. I assumed he was asking if I wanted tea, and even though I didn’t, I obliged so as not to turn down hospitality.
He proceeded to place a square plastic tarp on the floor, and the other man went to the front of the shop and closed the doors (yes, this was a moment when the nervous or paranoid type might start to panic, but I had faith that there was nothing malicious going on). Then, they produced a lunch spread of chicken, rice, bread, and a yogurt sauce.
So, we sat on the floor, and dug in with bare hands. I will admit that I am still an oaf when it comes to eating with my hands, but I wasn’t about to embarrass myself further by asking for a utensil.
And so there I sat, 12 hours after arriving in the country, I was having a “home cooked” lunch on the floor of a random cell phone shop with two men I didn’t know and couldn’t speak with. Other than sitting on a hard floor, it was a perfectly wonderful experience.
After we finished, I thanked them, we shook hands, and I left. They asked nothing of me, and will probably never see me again, but it was a wonderful piece of diplomacy on their part. And if I’m in that neighborhood again, I will most certainly stop in to say hello.
So far, that has been the paradigm of my time here. Taxi drivers have been friendly (although like most countries in the region, they don’t seem to know where anything is, and it takes several phone calls and 3-4 stops along the way to ask for directions), and haven’t tried to gouge me on fares. In fact, one driver today pulled out a marshmallow cookie treat for me (it was a packaged/processed product, so I had no hesitation in accepting it), and tried to point out sites along the way even though I couldn’t understand him.
My interpersonal interactions have been an amazing contrast to the images and impressions created by the drive into the city from the airport. And I should note, that in the daylight Sana’s is a beautiful city.
Despite not being near the top of the economic food chain, the city’s architecture has a history and style to it that few other cites I’ve visited can match. The uniformity of the buildings and lack of many new, giant or brutalist edifices is refreshing. Cairo, for example, is jammed with large, soulless apartment buildings with ugly AC units hanging from the windows. Here, there is little of that, and rather, more authentic and attractive architecture.
It’s a fascinating city and culture, and while there are a verity of dark sides and problems that I will be exploring, I can’t deny the charm of the place.