Ali's First week in Happy Yemen (QAT for all AWQAT)

Salam from happy yemen

It's been a week in this country, can't say I'm too surprised. You might say it was less than what I hoped for but around what I expected.

I'm temporarily staying in a four star hotel apartment with one flat mate from Jordan. The flat has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a 6 chair dining room, a balcony, and a living room with BIG ass TV. This week were dining in restaurants that are better than those in Amman, So you can say that I'm not mingling with the masses!

But I can't get too comfortable doing this because A. Living well in Yemen IS expensive, for example, Fotor in the Italian restaurant cost us after corporate discount 15 JDs! And the flat I'm living in costs 80$ per night, as corporate rate.

Yemen dishes are amazing! Me5bazah salta fa7sah 7aneeth mandi and lots and lots of Shrimps! You can say that I am (mebghal)

So you can say I haven't seen the REAL yemen. All I have seen are beautiful buildings, and Yemen's version of Tobacco Mulukhieh… QAT

It is really a major problem here, especially in Ramadan. Imagine that you are a chain smoker that smokes non stop for at least four hours a day, then imagine fasting in Ramadan! I'll get back to Ramadan later, first, abit on Qat.

Yemeni people believe that Qat is a magnificent tool to open up your mind and give you both mental and physical energy… but without the wings.

I saw a lot of testimonies to that, but -among 10000000 other things- there are three major problems:

1. After the qat's supposed high, there is a MAJOR down, that wil prohibit you from doing anything without it

2. There are many types of Qat around, most of the common kinds only give you the fix without the needed effect, the GOOD stuff will start at 50$ a day and reach thousands! Anything cheaper than that will be like chewing Panadol soaked Mulokhiah, which brings me to the third point:

3. Since there is overfilling demand on qat (90% of males over 10 years and a growing habit between females) a lot is being grown in (allah 3aleem feha) unsupervised conditioned filled with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, meaning that you are basically chewing a one way ticket to all sorts of cancer types.

Back to Ramadan, basically a person would be feeling down all through the day, once iftar time comes, a person would eat then go to ta5zeeeeeen qat until dawn, the next day he will have a hangover like nothing he seen before, so he stays at home. Basically specking: stoned at night and hungover in the morning.

But to give them cridet, there is a growing trend in yemen to stop ta5zeen, but it's still in it's early stages.

You can find what ever you want in Sana'a, you just need to look hard and know that you will have limited options. American companies have entered the market in two ways: clearly (like Pizza hut and KFC) and (bel3agel) like pizza hut's first ventue (7owais Hut for Kebabs) and (Yemen Ce-town)… true story.

The social grid is pretty much meshed here because of the qat sessions, you would have a Minster, his driver, and a couple of whitat drivers (whitat is the plural of white, which is a water tanker) all in the same room doing the qat ritual for hours.

The whole Yemeni culture is around qat, all major economic, business, and political decisions are made around qat. Even the houses are designed with qat mind. A simple house would have a separate room especially for qat with only a small window. The window (as I was told) is small because when a person is chewing (be5azzen) his body temperature rises, so a draft would send him into an epilepsy (sara3) episode. Hence the small window. A more sophisticated house will have two or even more rooms for that purpose.

Yemen is not really an Islamic state; it's more like a Bedouin socialist state with an Amsterdam like 7asheesh feeling and some representatives of qa3dh here. There are even Yezedieh She3ah here, but too stoned to be any different than sunnah. Iran tried once to get the 12 Imam she3ah thingy going in Yemen, they shot all of them dead (the shee3ah, not the 12 Imams)

Speaking of weapons, I'm no sure if the statistics are true, but it is said that there are 3 pieces of weapon for each man woman and child in Yemen! And that's only counting simple handsets like the klashen (pistols are child toys here). Janbieh (khanjar) is the Man's bling of choice, some would cost more than 50,000 $! The price is related to the handle (good ones are made from dear horns), the owner, and the age+history: all janbieh have certificates of ownership history. For example, I could buy a janbieh from an important guy for 50,000$ but when I sell it, it wont get me shelen.

Anyways, I know this is more of an essay than an email, bas sallek 7alaaak! Work is a huge challenge, but living within good standards and not much spending is possible.

Ed3olna wa salmoooooo

Ali Abu-Salma Al-Yamani