SHROUD

I wear abaya (enveloping black cloak. Minus the hijab and burka) when I go out around my house and when I go to boxing. All my girls from boxing certainly appreciated it and its nice not to put a million covering articles of clothing back on after I’ve been sweating so profusely. The other day I went out with just a sports bra and a pair of boxers on under my abaya. It was a bold move. It was particularly bold given my propensity to trip on the dragging hems of my abaya and tear open all the buttons, most frequently upon entering or exiting a bus. As I was walking down the stairs last night (and in fact, numerous other nights) I slipped on the end of it and plummeted down many stairs until finally settling, crumpled and chagrined upon the lower landing- simultaneously wounding both my pride and my posterior in the process.

The other day my girl Sherin was perched up on the edge of the diwan in the squatting position. She is tall and extremely skinny. When she started gesticulating wildly her resemblance to a great winged bat was truly astounding. It’s super creepy at twilight as all the women roam about on their way home, like ethereal specters, faceless and floating in the night sky.

My, what a little flight of fancy that was!

tasteful and understated

I am wearing a shirt with sequins on it. It also has large embroidered flowers, shiny beadwork, and hanging tassles on the cuffs. I bought it here in Yemen. This is easily the most tasteful, sedate article of clothing I was able to find anywhere in Yemen, and instantly upon purchase became the most garish thing I own. All day long I received compliments on how pretty I looked. I don't know why this type of thing continues to suprise me.

I'm a frickin bombshell

A note on all things sartorial-
Muslim culture mandates that all women not wearing abaya dress extremely conservatively. I was told to wear long sleeved, loose, long shirts, in a light material, that were a size larger than usual so as not show off my comely figure (unfortunately I assumed this was the rule for pants as well, and at a size too large I find myself harrowingly close to mooning people every day).
The other day I was wearing the other day was a very becoming shade of turquoise with little blue embroidered flowers in a long tunic form. I fear it might have been unsuitable though- not due to an inappropriately plunging neckline, nor was my problem exposed midriff, rather for an unfortunately clingy, stretchy accentuation of my ladyparts.
Before I moved I picked up what I thought was a sufficiency of such garments, assuming that they would be readily available here. Such is NOT the case. Ladies fashion is..umm…singular. Beneath the flowing, billowy black abayas, women care wear whatever they wish. Upon investigation it appears that none of the women wish to wear long, loose, body-shielding attire, THEY WANT TO IN A BRITTNEY SPEARS MUSIC VIDEO. All garments are comprised of one part shiny, one part stretchy, one part gemstone bedazzled, and one part dangling appurtenances. Even at my most chic, I am blessedly aware, that I simply cannot pull off dangling appurtenances.

No booze + dress-up + makeovers + dancing, Yemeni wedding or my own personal hell?

Tomorrow I'm going to a Yemeni wedding. I have absolutely NO idea what to expect, what to wear, how to behave, what to bring... my anxiety level is sky rocketing. This is what I know- My roommate and I are going with a woman, Aliza, whom we literally just met, yet somehow we were invited to this wedding.... I know that men and women have entirely separate wedding celebrations. I know that woman wear lots of make-up, dress up rather scandalously(because they are covered head to toe the other 99.5% of the time), they are extremely bedecked, bedazzeled and bejeweled, and there is lots of wild, body-gyrating dancing. Which pretty much sounds like everything in the world that I hate/makes me incredibly uncomfortable and self-conscious..
I also know that for the men's celebration they get to go out into the countryside and chew qat and shoot AK-47s. D it all to H I wish I was a boy...even just for a day...(so I just quote Beyonce now? thats just what I do?)

this will be wild.

Yemeni wedding summation- Quintessential late 90’s junior high prom x Boy George make-up x random wilting, flora head-adornments = What the hell was that?!?

The whole thing was a bit of a fiasco- super unfamiliar social situations make me panicky and without the aide of a little liquid courage I was just a heap of anxiety. Not knowing what to expect I decided to straighten my hair(creepy, white-girl fro seemed inappropriate) Oh fine, no big deal. WRONG. First, doing my hair involved a frigid, low-pressure, drip shower. Then obviously I needed to dry it- my wild main of hair has mixed with the humidity in a truly appalling way- I pretty much just have a fro now. Constantly. My hair has just been an endless debacle- my straigtener wouldn’t work…then my hair dryer blew out all our fuses… then I bought a Yemeni straightener but the only plug for it is in the kitchen… actually the only plug in the whole house is in the kitchen, which, clearly, is fantastic. But I digress…
After my shower I obviously needed to dry my hair. This manifested itself by me standing on my tip toes on a chair in the middle of the living room, harnessing the power of the languidly twirling ceiling fan for an hour. Good times. Then came the straightening- did I mention that it’s boiling lava hot here? I adopted a 2 mins on, 2 mins of straightening method. Frantically straighten my hair for two minutes then run! to my room and twirl about in the fan-breeze, whisk away temple-perspiration(from both the elements and hair apparatus), collect myself, and back to the kitchen again!
Liza picked us up at four- for and 8:30 wedding! Good lord what can we possibly be doing for 4.5 hours you ask? Why bedazzling our hair and faces of course!
We were told to wear whatever we had on hand and next time (really though? Next time?) we would really do it up right( upon hearing this I thought “yeah that sounds right, I don’t know what to wear or how to act, with a little hindsight and experience I can really look good for the next wedding I go to.” Now that I’ve seen the monster that is a Yemeni wedding, I shudder to think what will happen when they really help me next time). When we got to Liza’s house all hell broke loose. To sum it up picture Taryn- nice, simple, halter-style dress, hair down, heels, minimal, tasteful jewelry, and light, becoming make-up. Hours later T-MONSTER comes out- wearing shocking-pink lipstick(with some drawn on to make my lips look fuller. Thanks for that, Yemen) cloyingly sweet perfume, and more eye shadow and in a darker variety than I have ever worn in my entire life combined. On my ears I wore big, fake, dangling gemstones, I had a matching big, choker-style necklace, and a large, multi-colored firefly broach on(just so I would look a bit dressier). And then the hair. Oh wow, the hair! My hair was gently and efficiently arranged for me- one half down dangling in my face, the other half pinned up. Yes, that’s right. ONLY HALF WAS PINNED UP. With bobby pins? No. With a giant gem-cluster with shooting-star dangling pieces pinned along the side of my head. I was, in a word, pretty. After being “shown off” to many family-members and several of my own co-workers(much to my chagrin) We were off to the wedding!
It was held in the basement of a hotel- we were taken to the back entrance so as not to be gawked at. Inside was a small vestibule for removing niqabs, hijabs, and the million other shroud-like, enveloping outer garments that Yemeni’s wear. It was amazing to see the transformation of lemming-like, faceless, shapeless females into beautiful, vibrant women. Everywhere you looked were women fully bedecked in outrageous gowns, every color of the rainbow. It was a fashion explosion. The eye-shadow situation was unbelievable- sparkly blue was a favorite and it often covered from the base of the eyelid all the way up to the eyebrow. It was straight out of a drag show. Another popular thing was head ornamentation; big sunglasses, sparkly gems, even fake alien antennae- but by far the most popular was plant matter. A shocking amount of women had their entire heads covered with a wilty-looking, green, weed. It was fastened with bobby pins and looked exactly how you would imagine hair covered in deed leaves would look. What was that about?! I have truly never seen anything like it- it was the singular most gaudy, tacky, outrageous and mystifying occurrence of my life. The wedding hall was teeeeeeeeming with ladies- No men! Yemeni weddings don’t serve food so it is custom to invite everyone you know, and let me tell you EVERYONE THEY KNEW WAS THERE. Plus one American lady!(keep in mind even now, I just have no idea who got married, or even what her name is). The music was LOUD. Way beyond necessary or comfortable. It made conversation impossible (as though it were possible already with our profound language barrier…). Liza said that it was to be a religious wedding, and she seemed pretty sad about it. Later I found out that “religious” meant that there was only Yemeni music, not any Egyptian or American rock. Oh? Dang. In order to get to our table in the very back we had to walk through surging crowds of dancing/shouting women- most of whom stopped and stared me down as I went. They were staring at you? Was it because you had a firefly broach on? And bedazzled hair? No. It was because A) I am a pasty-white, American and B) because the day before I became so engrossed in my book whilst lounging on the terrace that I got a wicked sunburn-but only on my shoulders and shins. Liza said that they had probably never seen sunburn before, “what is this rare breed of red and white speckled human?!”
At no point throughout the night did I not have an entourage of smiling, squirming, little girls by my side. They practically sat on my lap, openly staring at me and shouting “what you name?” over and over. IT’S TARYN! Taryn! Can’t you understand me?!? Every once in awhile I would whirl on them quickly and make a wild face or slyly bring my hand around and poke them on the back. Just to keep things lively.
I also had a number of teenage girls stalking me throughout the night- to make a long story short I ended up giving them my mobile number as a means of appeasing them and they now call me all the time.
There was literally no ceremony- the purpose was to showcase the bride, and to let the women cut loose! The bride made her grand(and interminable) entrance and then sat on a gaudy throne the rest of the night. At one point everyone suddenly surrounded her, jumping up and down, ululating shrilly. And then, just as suddenly, they all stopped and went back to the dancing. Alas I have no pictures of the event because cameras were not allowed- all the women were letting their hair down, dancing, shouting, communing- and we certainly cannot have pictures of that. The sight of myself in the mirror however, bedecked in my full Yemeni glory will remain emblazoned in my mind for all eternity.

Okay life, here we go!

As I’ve been gadding about Bremerton the last couple of weeks my life has been a frenzy of preparation and packing because, wouldn’t you know it, moving to a foreign country that you know remarkably little about for A YEAR is a rather difficult endeavor.



I've been practicing wearig a Hijab around, and if I may say so myself, looking quite dapper(is “dapper” only really used to describe men?) The blue and green striped scarf really made my eyes pop, which, no doubt, is what Muslims are going for. I almost wore it out running errands but I thought- wear a hijab in Yemen, they will appreciate your earnest attempt to assimilate with their culture and your respect for their conservative way of life. Wear a hijab in Bremerton, everyone will think you’re a big asshole. Soo…no.
I have also procured a number of loose, natural fabric, clothing items. Yemeni culture is highly conservative and obviously I want to dress appropriately/not make an ass of myself. I tried on a large, billowy linen shirt with my hijab the other day. Let me tell you I cut a fine figure! Big, oversized clothing does little to inspire my self confidence and I feel dowdy and prudish but, I promised my father I wouldn’t come home with a husband so I guess all is well.