Author archive
5 May 2006
Kim was supposed to arrive today but is stuck in Dubai due to missed connection. I booked him on Emirates’ Airbus service from Singapore to Dubai because it would be more comfortable than their B777. But the airline put him on the earlier B777 at check-in … then the B777 flight got diverted to KL […]
4 May 2006
Photo time As I’m approaching the end of my stay in Sana’a (but will be exploring the country next), I thought I’d go out with my camera again. But first I did my laundry. I was rewarded with one particularly nice shot once I was out and about the Bab Al Yaman area. An elderly […]
29 April 2006
Cupping After class in the morning, I went to Shmaila Hari department store in Hadda with Marie, Eelco and Sami. We went by dabab, the shared van service that operates along fixed routes. Passengers pass the money up to the driver through other passengers. Passengers seem to collect the money on behalf of the driver and ensure […]
28 April 2006
Wadi Dhahr I waited outside school at 0815 for Eelco, Jamila and Maude. We were going to the icon of Yemen’s tourism industry … Wadi Dhahr and the Dar Al Hajar palace on the edge of the city. It has taken me two weeks to finally get there. I had simply been too busy with bigger […]
27 April 2006
The Aussie couple living in the building had been invited to a wedding. Upon further enquiry, the Yemeni bride was marrying a Jew. Not sure if it is better that the man was an American Jew rather than a Yemeni Jew. Maybe the man will feature on this website soon (Jews for Allah) … The […]
25 April 2006
Bab Al Yemen While I go out walking around the old city often enough, I hadn’t made a concerted effort of bringing my camera with me to take pictures. Well, today I addressed that by going to Bab Al Yemen, the city’s main gate for photos. Enjoy these pictures! Text continues after this gallery. […]
20 April 2006
Boy’s night out We arrived in Aden’s Crater area after midnight. To my shock, one of the boys threw all the empty water bottles from the taxi ride onto the street. I know the streets get swept but it just seems wrong. Yep, he’s the same one I saw spitting in the carpeted mafraj (living […]
19 April 2006
I had moved my class forward to 1300 today, to finish at 1500 so that we could leave reasonably “early” for Aden by road. There were five of us: Aaron, Evan, Gary, Tom and myself. Three Americans, a Brit and a Malaysian. We walked to the taxi stand around 1530. It took a while for us […]
18 April 2006
After my usual 1330-1530 class and homework, I went to the hammam (bathhouse) with James, with whom we had an excursion together few days back. His teacher Badr took us to Hammam Al Khawi by taxi. I was scrubbed down by a child who was possibly 11 years old, while my English friend was done […]
15 April 2006
The language is written using a consonant script, like some other languages such as Hebrew. This means that it is written somewhat like SMS (TXT messages) … quite confusing as “bnk” could mean bank, bunk, bink, binak, banik etc. Additional vowel signs are shown by marks above and below the proper script to assist students […]