Where have I been?!? Busy. I mean... kind of. Well... not really.

Allow me to reference the greatest blog quote of all time:
"In case you didn't know. A blog is like a plant you get as a gift and feel obligated to water but eventually, like everything else done out of good intentions, it just dies." - Ben Carver

So true! Now it's time to play blog catch-up! I shall try and do this somewhat chronologically. So... Thanksgiving!

After an exhaustive (and futile) search of Aden for turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing ingredients, gravy mix, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie filling, wine, football, members of my family… really anything vaguely reminiscent of my favorite holiday, Ben and I flew to Sana’a to spend Thanksgiving in Sana’a with Matt. We dined at a downright fancy-pants restaurant- they put ice in the glasses! (Tangent: how divine it shall be to live in a country where ice isn’t seen as a luxury item….) and I had roast lamb on a bed of spiced rice- not quite mom’s super secret world famous swiss bean casserole but it sure seemed pretty decadent to Ben and I. Forks? Table cloth?! I’m not spooning beans into my mouth with a piece of bread, directly from the steaming hot sauce pan?! After din din we went to the British Embassy run “Lion and Jambiya Club” and had a couple beers and played scrabble with some British consulate workers. Much to my devastation and chagrin, no one was impressed with my scrabble skills.

Ben and I stayed at the house of a coworker of our development worker friend, Federica the Italian Cougar. The house was in the heart of old town Sana’a and it was pretty much everything I was looking for when I moved to Yemen- located in the middle of a residential area, found only by wending your way through ill lit, narrow alleys. The house was huge, and becomingly rustic (rustic = charming, not dilapidated or ramshackle) with a giant top floor mafraj (qat chewing/arab style living room) and sweeping views of the old city skyline. The first day we got up early and lounged about the mafraj, luxuriating in the fact that we a) weren’t at work, and b) weren’t in Aden. I made us a pot of coffee and then! An entire pitcher of mimosas! from a bottle of wine we snagged the night before. I like Sana’a, it feels vaguely, slightly reminiscent of real life. I was only in Sana’a for a couple of days, my trip coinciding with Islam’s “Eid” holiday. Not to be confused with the Eid after the month long fast of Ramadan, this Eid is all about the slaying… I mean sacrificing of the goats.
It was straight out of a tale of two cities- the streets LITERALLY ran red with blood. The aroma of guts, and fresh blood was visceral, tangible. It hung cloyingly in the air and was completely inescapable. Walking down the alleys of old Sana’a you had to hike up your pants and tip toe through running streams of blood- I almost went down several times. I've never seen anything like it- it was like a massacre. pools of entrails covering the roadways, the drains plugged with blood clots. At one point as I was walking along I saw a huge pile of old goat heads. Just hanging around on the street corner. Happy Thanksgiving!