 | DAY 2 |
Aden |
 
We rode the local bus, sitting in this particular one for 12 hot hours. The bus was primarily filled with men, with whom we did not make eye contact, except for this picture. 
I loved the way the men would lean out of the bus. People in Yemen were as varied as their landscape; this one looked rather 'African' to me. Aida as seen from inside the us in her Muslim outfit (albeit her scarf is typical of Uzbekistan, or some such place she travelled through once), sneaking a picture of a scenery close by.
Passing through an oasis
A banana seller, resting on a Toyota - I'd say easily 90% of cars in Yemen were Toyotas. They even call them "toyota" more often than "car."
Children in a town where we stopped for breakfast.
As I was about to discover, children love to pose for your pictures.
My Muslim outfit, standing in the bus. As this was the second day and there weren't many police passes, I had taken the black scarf off my face and remained only with the one covering my hair.
Having lunch on the road with the other bus riders |
 Mukalla | Woke up to the sounds of the muezzins at 4 am. A man we had met last night at the bus station had reserved the 2 best seats for us, without us ever having asked him anything. I'm amazed at how nice people are here, taking such detours to do favors for total strangers. The bus driver just told us about him, we never got to thank him in person. The crowds of men at the station, the smells of garbage, tea, sweat, the dense humidity of Aden – something about hell Rimbaud mentioned seems to make sense to me now. We don't stay too long for me to figure out precisely, it was just a fleeting feeling that I got. Sunrise over the Indian Ocean. Long flat straight views of sand – with little shrubs. Leading straight into the water. The blue pink sky dotted with overlapping clouds. You see shacks (in total shambles) every few hundred meters. Seems like an exotic place to live, from a Westerner perspective: that secluded lonely beach we long for is all over the coast of Yemen! But so remote. We did pass one collection of shacks that were inhabited – their boats (light blue carved wood) parked on the shore. We pass a police station, and although US passport in trembling hand, I was able to convince the guy we were Palestinians, without handing my passport over. My accent and dark eyes I think convinced him enough. Aida didn't speak, her accent is tainted with a bit too much French in it, plus she has blond hair and green eyes (although many think she must be Syrian). It will become a constant argument between her and I throughout the trip as to who will talk to the police or guard: she has a better grasp of Arabic vocabulary than I do 'cause she learned it recently and lived in Syria for a few years, and she has the Arabic name. I don't sound like a foreigner, rather like a downright Palestinian or Lebanese, and I can hold a conversation for an hour before the other person figures out that my vocabulary is limited; I'm darker with more of an Arab complexion, but my name (or middle name) is nothing remotely Arabic. And I'm certainly not as good as Aida at bargaining, arguing or convicing! The land gets a little more hilly. Larger bushes, same form of spread out trees, the occasional village. On the left nothing into the horizon but endless sand and brush. And the right, the Indian Ocean. How I'd like to removed this black dress and scarf and take a dive! We must be in a wadi. Suddenly it's all green. Palm trees everywhere, the short stocky kind and a few lonely tall ones. We stop in this small town and pick up a family. All are crowded on the floor next to me. The mom is completely covered. It seems the farther we go into the Hadramut, the more covered women are. There are people walking out in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road. I saw a camel pulling a load of hay and a man. At that rate he wasn't getting close to anything anytime soon. I can't see the sea but only the strong reflection from the sun still out to my right. On the left are desert mountains so similar to those I'm used to in California and Nevada. The man and the kid in front of me look at me funny when I write. My scarf keeps flying open, my birkenstocks look brand new and my toes are so clean, not having collected five days worth of sand on them. I look like such an outsider. I also feel like an outsider. Things that seem exotic to my now Western eyes are common to those around me, and vice versa. I realize how different my life is from theirs. I spend my time on computers, I can fly 3000 miles in 5 hours. Back a while ago I saw two veiled women waving down the bus. We're already fully loaded. How long will they wait till the next bus? Is this a reliable system of travelling for them? But they probably don't even think in these terms. Comfort, reliability, air conditioning, exposed hair and skin, I might as well be rambling on in an entirely different language than them! We passed through some kind of volcanic rocks and landscape. There was no vegetation on these slopes, there was nothing that looked remotely familiar to natural growth. It was as if this place had been passed over when nature was handed out. We had stopped for breakfast and shared some fasoulia (beans) and a mutton dish with the driver. Stopped again for lunch, and was finally able to take some pictures. I've been feeling uncomfortable up until now to take my camera out of my bag. I don't quite know what peoples' reactions are going to be. I've only taken pictures of Sana'a from a rooftop, so this is the first time I point it at people... And I can't help but feel like an invader of sorts when I do. I am inevitably the rich Western tourist on an exciting journey through Yemen, in a certain sense exploiting the people there, for their beauty, for a moment that I wish to capture on film. Like those British anthropologists hundreds of years ago heading deep into South East Asian forests and islands to find the 'natives.' But I do not want to be so belittling, so pompous; yet at the same time I realize that they see me in that way. Although once we begin speaking with people in Arabic, the dynamic changes entirely. And as soon as they discover that we're Palestinian, in a very strange way we become the ones they're interested in, the ones they feel sorry for, the ones they feel compassion for. I somehow doubt that the average Western tourist traveling through Yemen, experiences this feeling. I would have never expected that being Palestinian would have brought on to me looks of sadness and compassion, as 'back home' (in the US) it usually inspires fear and negative stereotypes instead! It's noon and we're still stuck in this town for bus breakdown reasons. Hopefully we'll get going soon. I'm dying of heat in this outfit. I can't imagine how these women do it! Black keeps in the heat doesn't it? In secrecy I let drop my head scarf and loosen my hair from its tight knots so that nothing intervenes between me and the sky. Coils of hair are left to drop and unravel on their own. I feel momentary freedom. We drive over a dry river bed. The bridge had washed away, who knows how long ago. We're flanked by canyon mountains – it reminds me a bit of the southwest, remotely some of my childhood years in nearby Oman. The road is very badly paved. I'm finally seeing the desert I longed to see. The endless sand. The natural oasis. The towns we are passing now have these tall buildings like Shibam, with little windows. Blue plastic bags loiter. The only remnants of qat. Rusted motor oil cans. Dead dogs on the streets. Wandering camels on their own... |