friends! plural!

At a going away party the other night for my friend Johnathan (Canadian, UN educational intern. Of sorts.) there was an explosion of foreigners. It was nice. About a month and a half ago I audaciously decided to go fishing with a bunch of strangers, and now I actually have friends here, from Moldova, Hong Kong, Eritrea, Germany, Spain, Italy, etc. I feel boring and purely ordinary in comparison to these people. I am however, easily the youngest, so I have time.
But I ran into two French diplomats in the kitchen. Clearly if ever, this was the chance to demonstrate my superior linguistic ability! I proceeded to tell them my awesome French joke, and the 3 other phrases I know in French- one of which has a slightly racy/saucy connotation. It was all very impressive on my part.
We went to the disco/Yemeni dance club located next to the 2nd international restaurant in Aden, the Pizza Hut! (tuna pizza is their specialty) And then after that we went out to an abandoned stretch of beach where the Gulf of Aden meets the Red Sea and went swimming. No one but us around, unbelievable phosphorescence, star-lit sky, it was beautiful. It was also incredibly shallow and I could still touch the bottom a few hundred feet off shore. Much later we learned that those were shark infested waters, but hey! Still have all ten fingers and toes!

friend!

My friend Ahmed (head of security at UNHCR Aden) introduced me to his friend Jen. What a lady! She is a fantastically irreverent, funny, well-intentioned gal of an indiscriminate age (I guess between 25-33)hailing from Detroit. She is essentially a shit-show and has brought untold joy into my life. Although she has explained it several times (usually when I’m only pretending to listen, but really thinking about just anything else. Usually food. Girls, you know what I’m talking about) I still don’t really understand what she’s doing here. Something with AIDS, refugees, global healthcare… I’m not sure. She’s pretty cool, and my first real lady friend here. I only hang-out with dudes. Wonderful but exhausting.

This is why my students love me

Yesterday I had to collect a final writing assignment from the class. It was something we had been working on for awhile, with lots of in-class group revision and peer-correction. They were pretty pumped about the quality of their writing (mostly I think they were pretty pumped to finally be done with it) So I asked them to hand in there writing, I was standing in the middle of the room collecting papers. I made a big deal out of it, waving my arms, telling them to hurry up, hand them in already. Then haphazardly, clearly distractedly, I stacked the papers in a disorderly pile and put a paperclip around them. While I was doing this all eyes were on me. After I got all the papers somewhat sorted (and knowing that everyone was watching me), I turned from my desk, strode across the room and nonchalantly flung all their papers into the wastebasket. Then, just as casually I went to my desk, whisked up my book, pretending everything was normal and said, “Now! Let’s talk present continuous…!” They were simply astounded. Good joke. This is the kinda stuff that keeps me young. And might get me fired.

All is well here

I am safe, happy, having a good experience I have only felt unsafe one singular time and it was entirely Matt’s fault, not Yemen or Al Qaeda’s. Oh and also that time that we became an American Embassy Security threat…
My last night in Sana’a Matt wanted to go up to the mountain side and smoke shisha while appreciating the scenic beauty. He claimed he knew exactly where we were going, and I acquiesced to his superior familiarity with the Sana’anee countryside.
But as we continued mile after mile up a dark, windy, unlit, unpopulated, barely perceptible track of dirt road, it became clear that if ever I was to be kidnapped it would happen in exactly a situation such as this. Later we made contingency plans for our actions if ever we get in actual trouble- it’s a pretty smooth plan involving effusive praise of Yemen, hugs, and incessant jabbering away in Spanish. It’ll totally work. Luckily I already know what to do if I get ALL of my shit stolen again.
But other than that I feel quite safe and contented.

And this week I got my residency and work permits AND my passport! I'm legal again!

Round-house kick... mustached-lip...

Another Somali man was beat up by police on my behalf the other day. I won’t go into details, but DAMN. This is so not America.



100th post! Woo-hoo!

Kors + meetings = stick a fork in my eye

Kors came! Korstiaan Kors (or something like that) came to Aden this session, our Amideast office in Al Mukullah was shut down- Previously I wanted to go there, but it is in the highly lawless region of Hadramout, so clearly, that wasn’t going to happen. And also I discovered that the Al Mukullah “office” was really just Kors teaching four classes a day and running all the administrative duties as well… so okay, I’ll stay here. But I (in a completely uncharitable act that goes against my angelic, benevolent nature) decided that I was predisposed to not like him. EVERYTHING I had heard about him was overwhelmingly positive. “Oh Kors is the best teacher!” “He is so funny!” “He plays the guitar!” “He really knows what he’s doing, what a natural teacher! He just makes class alive!”
Oh barf. What a goody-goody. Matt reminded me that it was other people saying these things, not Kors himself. But still, no thanks. I choose not to like him.
The first time I met him was at the pre-session teachers meeting. Already a hellacious endeavor, Kors only exacerbated a dreadful, mind-numbingly boring situation by being APPALINGLY enthusiastic about teaching. He isn’t the only one, the amount of joy some people attain by discussing teaching theory, learning style, grammar instruction, and classroom methodology among other equally stimulating topics absolutely boggles my mind.
Everything really came to a head when someone mentioned spelling lists. It piqued my interest momentarily because I was all, huh? We are supposed to give them spelling lists before the tests? I just say if it’s in the book, if I write it on the board, learn it. Know it, it will be on the test. Verbal debate ensued about providing students with spelling and vocabulary lists prior to exams to aide studying (it promotes rote memorization vs. it helps the weaker students/multi-level classes succeed). People were getting downright heated, many a voice was raised with everyone shouting exuberantly at the same time, with no progress being made or end in sight. As the spelling list debate waged on (and on and on and on…) I doodled some pictures (swine flu, life under the sea), and made some bullet points on a piece of scratch paper:
- I am soooo young (this was in regards to starring around the circle of my colleagues realizing that besides Ben, I was the only one without multiple children, or even grandchildren)
- I cannot work here anymore (listening to even one more minute about teaching methodologies was going to put me perilously close to an explosion of some sort, probably involving loud yelling)
- Spoon analogy? Really? Get it together.(in regards to a horrible, misused analogy of spoon-feeding the students answers that was enthusiastically repeated over and over and over again)
- I need to work on my footwork for left-handed hooks (boxing)
Throughout this trying and traumatic ordeal Ben and I had many occurrences of burning eye contact and giving the secret “we gotta get the hell out of here” signal expressing mutual commiseration, horrification, and an undercurrent of nausea.

Eventually I had to meet Kors. I called him out on perpetuating the absurd spelling list debate, he manned up and apologized. He was forgiven. I apologised for making an unfounded snap-judgment of his character. I was forgiven. All is well.
He laughs at my jokes which is clearly a point in his favor, and it’s nice to have someone fun and young in the office. He teaches in the same room after me and sometimes I don’t wipe off my dry-erase board after class so I can wow him with my superior in-class time management, Pictionary-style teaching approach. And the frequency with which I jokingly teach my students a Spanish word instead of English. Yeah, I’m pretty good at my job.

coffee snob, and rightly so

My last vacation I went to Sana’a again. At that point I still didn’t have residency or work permits for my passport so I couldn’t leave the country. I happened upon a place called Coffee Trader. It’s the new “Oasis of Tranquility”. That’s pretty much all I did on my vacay. I went there every single day, I had my own spot outside under a big umbrella, monopolizing an entire area near lush flowers and shrubberies. After the second day they knew my order (giant, bucket o’ black coffee, and keep those refills coming) it was fantastically good- clearly being the first real coffee I’ve had in almost four months. I get the occasional Turkish coffee, or the special ginger coffee you drink at qat chews, but mostly here “coffee” means Nescafe. My first week in Yemen I was fooled in that regards on multiple occasions. The host/hostess would offer coffee and I was all YEAH! Yes please! Coffee? Really? Thanks! And then I would have a mighty battle masking my crushing disappointment when I realized they just meant Nescafe. I held out at first- refusing to buy or imbibe in the gritty, noxious, instant brew. Please, I have some standards I will not sink below. I drank soooo much tea. The tea, called “shay” is pretty awesome. Also I’m a dang expert at making it. It comes in two forms, “shay haleeb” tea with milk, or “shay ahmar” red tea. Both are super delicious, served boiling-lava hot in handle-less cups (Handle! Handle! Handle!) with cardamom, mint, and LOADED with sugar. That’s finally what made me switch to Nescafe, all the dang sugar I was ingesting day after day. I already talked about the Yemen15…
So I reacted with surprise as much as horror yesterday when after a big gulp of black Nescafe, I gave a deep, contented sigh and smacked my lips appreciatively. WHAT? I have always been considered a coffee snob-purist. Yemen, you’ve done it again! and again and again!

really though, I saw it

The other day at a restaurant Matt wanted to order banana juice. Well that just sounds pretty nasty, right? It is in fact quite delicious. It’s actually mushed up bananas and milk, served cold. It’s essentially a banana milkshake. So the correct order would be “aseer mooz wa haleeb” or banana juice with milk technically. Instead of “mooz” or “banana” matt said “mowaz” which is an in-vogue wrap-around skirt that many men here wear. So pretty much matt ordered milky man-skirt juice. Hahahah, eeeew. Though he vehemently denies that that was what he said, I know it to be true. Kinda like how he claims that when were idly walking around Tawhid the other day a goat didn’t pee on him, BUT I SWEAR I SAW IT.

My personal mecca

Front door of my apartment building, and my balcony!

living room going to my bedroom

I mentioned that I moved. It’s in the complete opposite direction of where I intended to move, but pretty awesome. I have a small, one bedroom flat with a living area, kitchen, bathroom and… A BALCONY! Balconies are surprisingly hard to come by and seeing it pretty much sold me on the spot. Living standards are… shall we say, lower than I am used to (and clearly that’s saying a lot as my previous living arrangements were such littlr gems as the Trem39, Club 425, 615 the lakehouse and then Club Abyss in Wisco)My standards aren’t exactly high but come on! I saw horrific apartment after horrific apartment, and it was all pretty discouraging. Living at the place you work (aka hundreds of exuberant teenagers constantly around from 8am to 8pm) = not awesome. So when I found this place- newish, cleanish, quiet, BALCONY, I was instantly smitten. I was in and out, negotiations done, pleasantries exchanged, contract signed, idle, mandatory chit chat about Obama, hands shook, in 15 minutes. Boom. This is my first big-girl apartment with no roommates, my own little oasis of solitude. I am enjoying it immensely.
bedroom
My landlord asked me how old I am the other day. Oh, 23. What? I thought you were 16, maybeeee 17. Yeah. I get it. You people think I look young. But I was like really? You were perfectly okay renting an apartment to a 16 year old? Now that's just ballsy, mister.

view from my balcony

what is not pictured- a small diwan, the kitchen, and the bathroom that has a "God is Great!" written at the base of the toilet.

I have been blowing it..

I haven’t blogged in over a month and that’s just completely outrageous. I didn’t think it was a problem- I moved to a place without internet, and I don’t really like blogging in the office at school… mostly because none of my coworkers know I have a blog… mostly because sometimes (rarely!) I write uncharitable things about Yemen, or my place of employment. But as I was giving an exam in class today I found myself with surfeit of time on my hands- well okay that’s not at all true, I had 40 papers, 20 quizzes, and 20 tests to grade, a ton of lesson planning to do, and more work being generated by the second... So clearly I was playing about on my email. I keep getting these odd emails in Arabic, always from the same sender, and I just never know what they are. I delete them, I move on. But today (because of the aforementioned abundance of time) I thought I would take a gander and try to ascertain the sender. They were from Facebook! Oh! I woefully neglect my Facebook account, I literally have over a hundred messages in my inbox, and about 90 event reminders/friend requests/group invites. But as I was perusing FB it just made me super nostalgic. It’s an unfortunate amalgamation of feeling like I’m having once-in-a-lifetime experiences and gaining invaluable insight onto another way of life, and wondering if I’m missing out on the best years of my life at home being a young twenty-something on the East Coast with all my friends. Although I do little to retain contact, I’m terrified that if I stay away too long everyone will forget me. I really miss everyone. I am a horrible correspondent, I know this, it’s just that I forget to write back. All the time.
But I think my blog is my main source of connection to home right now. Sometimes people put comments to my posts and my heart soars with well being and contentment! To that end, I will definitely endeavor to maintain my blog more. And Insha’allah I will get internet in my apartment soon.