Tipping the Scale in Sana’a
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.
