so so sorry

Back by popular demand and an end to laziness, here is my first blog post of the new year. So so much has happened to me in the last 42 days (that's what my blog counter tells me anyway). I'm going to try and back track a bit.

So, after I last posted we had a long long break from school and I decided to travel to East Yemen with some friends. The trip was absolutely amazing because I got to see the other side of Yemen. The Hadromat area has had a distinct culture and history that goes back more then 6 thousand years and -- its still Yemen and the Arab world, but there are many things that make it unique. The first day there, my friends (Hannah, Paula, Frederica, and Eric) and I spent the day in Sayun. I thought that the people in Sana'a and Aden were the nicest people I'd ever met, but the people in Sayun were somehow even nicer: everyone wanted to talk to us (like Sana'a) but their deminor was even more inviting. After a few days there we actually got invited to this guys house for tea at like 10 in the evening, and Eric and I became friends with these guys who hung out in front of our hotel within about 5 minutes. The people were just increadible.

The futahs people wear, the architectural style, the look of the people -- so much was different from West Yemen (Or North Yemen as people here call it for some bizzare reason).

The Hadrawmat area is also one of the greenest in Yemen (it's actually one giant wet of wadis, which is a word that doesn't really translate into English. It's kindof like river valley) so I got to see palm trees, mango trees, local grown apples and bananas. Yemeni apples are delicious by the way, almost as good as Egyptian apples, and better than Iranian ones. I should say, Hadrowmat is the name of an areas, and the cities I visited in it wer Sayun, Tarim, Shibam, and Wadi Do'han. We went to Tarim a few times, and we got to walk through a huge fruit farm on the edge of a city. It was like I wasn't even in Yemen any more. Shibam was also amazing, because it's like a set of mudbrick high rises in the middle of the desert. The city is a collection of ten story high 2000 year old buildings sorrounded by a massive wall, and when you walk in you feel like your in something straight out of 'Arabian Nights' or something. We were in it at night, which made it even more interesting.

I also climbed about two mountains every day that I was there: sometimes to get to a city or village, or other times just to get a nice view of the area. It was really really fun. There are also a lot of abandonded mudbrick houses and castles in the area, and I spent a lot of time exploring them. It was like going on my own private archeological expidition. One house I went into had a burrned out copy of the Koran in it, and another had peices of the koran stuffed into the holes in the wall (apparently to protect the house). I also saw a house that was haunted by jin (evil spirits mentioned in the Koran), but a guy told me his grandfather killed them -- he still said it wasn't a good idea to go in. I guess you can never be too careful. The weird thing was that, coming from the west where we put some much emphasis on preserving anything that's even remotely "old," there was all of these amazing sights that were just being left to the weather. I guess part of it is the money issue in Yemen, but still, it was weird to visit these beautiful mudbrick houses older than the U.S. republic that were falling apart because of the rain.

One thing that I could not stop looking at was how different the people were. Western Yemenis are really short and small, but people in Hadrawmat were big. Like straight up big people: they were taller and very... solid, or something. People there were even darker than Western Yemenis, and I saw so many huge beards. Men in Sana'a like to rock the moustache, but in Hadrawmat its the beard. Not too surprisingly, the hottest guys I've seen so far in Yemen were there. I think that part of the reason for the size difference is the attitude their towards qat. It's really, really socially unexceptable to chew qat and so people actually EAT FOOD instead of chewing all day. Plus, they have an immanent supply of fresh fruits.

Overall, I can't say enough that I loved everything about that area. It's completely incomprehensible to me how the Belgium tourist attack happened there a week ago. For some reason Al-qaida (at least that's what the Yemeni and US governmetns think) is strong in the region. Its close to where the Spanish attack was during the summer. It's also quite eerie to think that I was in Hajarrayn 3 weeks before the attack happened.

Know, something funny. The 3 girls we were traveling with left early, so it was just me and Eric for another week. On our last day in Sayun, we got back to the hotel and started talking with the desk clerk. At some point I shook his hand and he kept holding on (which is normal between men in the Arab world), but then he started scratching the bottom of my palm, and I got really uncomfotable ane went to my room thinking that he might have been hitting on me. About five minutes later Eric ran in and shut the door really fast, saying 'I think this guy's gay." He told me that the clerk took him back to the cafeteria and hugged him (which is also normal between men), but wouldn't let go. He started kissing his neck and called him 'my baby' in Arabic.

We decided to avoid him the rest of the day, but when I went to the lobby to check the time he started macking on me too. He wanted these japanese tourists to take a picture of us, and while we were posing together he grabbed my ass. After that I tried to go up to my room to go to bed, but he followed me up and said, "so you're leaving tomorrow (sad face)." I said yeah, and we he hugged me, he did the same neck kissing thing and called me baby. I just pulled him off of me and went to bed. Even though I was tempted by the prsopect of any action, he was really gross. Lust is one of the least attractive emotions a person can display.

The next morning we had to get up at 5 to catch a bus to al-Mukallah -- the desk clerk knew this btw -- and when we got to the lobby, we found that he was gone for morning prayer and had locked us in the hotel. All the doors were locked, no one was there and we had a bus to catch in 45 minutes. In the same cafeteria where Eric was gropped we found an open window that was only about a 11/2 story drop, and there was a narrow sign that we could use to jump down to a ledge. Eric jumped first and scratched the shit out of his hands and knees, but he had a set of keys with him that we thought would open the front door. Unfortunatly, the front door was PAD LOCKED from the outside. So I grabbed our bags, threw them out the window, hiked up my mouaz so that I could jump properly, and took the pludge from the rickedy sign into Eric's arms. Then, we ran like hell to get the fuck out of there.

Tomorrow, I will regail you with more tails of homosexual encounters from al-Mukallah, a port town two hours south of Sayun.

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