do you practice?

After narrowly escaping from the "Palace Sayun Hotel", we arrived in the capitol of the Hadrawmat province, al-Mukallah. The only thing Eric and I had ever heard about Mukallah was that it smelled horrible because its main exports are fish, and refrigeration is not very popular in Yemen. We stopped there just so that we could have a break between Sayun and Bir Ali, so we weren't hoping for much besides a clean hotel room. That was probably our first mistake. Holding on to any expectations about the future is a pretty fruitless endeavour in Yemen, which is why you hear 'god willing' about 20 times per day.

We were getting kindof turned around while looking for a hotel, but fortuneatly for us we met someone who spoke fluent English and was willing to help us find it. Because it was Eid al-Kabir season, all of the hotels we wanted to stay in were ridiculously expensive. Our new friend Hussein said that he knew of a descent hotel that we could stay in. We booked it and Hussein said that he would be back later on in the evening to show us around. We ate delicious fried-chicken and sat on the harbor rocks watching the crabs get swept away by the breaking waves. At some point in the midst of spacing out, Eric said 'Merry Christmas' to me, and I realized that I had completely lost track of the days since we left on the 20th. I really could have cared less about Christmas because it doesn't mean anything in Yemen, and I was very content to watch the waves and feel the sea-spray on my face all afternoon.

At about 6 Hussein came to our hotel with his friend Hassan (which is cute, because those are the names of the Prophet's only two surviving grandchildren, one of them becoming the 3rd imam). My previous experiences in Yemen did not prepare me at all for what happened next. We went down to the shaba, a long canal that split the new city and was connected by modern steel bridges lit up with neon lights, to go for a walk. This place was like an American mall, insofar as juvenille culture is concerned. There were packs of teenagers checking out girls (still in full veil), break dancing to poor quality Little John reproductions coming from a cell phone, and cruising up and down the canal. I never was into this culture in the U.S., and it was equally as monotonus in Yemen. We spent about two hours just walking around in circles, eating little snacks occasionally, and learning pickup lines in Arabic.

There was something very strange about Hussein: is personality and mannerisms reminded me of Chris Tucker's character from 'The Fifth Element.' Hassan was much more normal, but seemed to be very uninterested in what was going on, as if it was chore to be there. On the one hand they were doing the typical Yemeni hospitality ritual, but they were going sort of overboard, and I couldn't really figure out what the motivation was. They were also very critical of our Arabic abilities; at one point they Hassan said, "you know, the only way that you're going to learn this is to practice more." I was pretty insulted by that because I had only been studying for 2 months, because they kept laughing at us when we spoke Arabic, and because they spoke their fucking crazy ass Hadawmi dialect and expected us to understand it. So 90% of the time we just spoke English.

After eating more delicious fried chicken, Hussein said that we should hang out the next day and chew qat. He started asking me how I felt when I chewed, and his response when I asked him how he felt was, "Oh after I chew I feel like practicing. You know, with a girl... or a boy. You see, we do that in Yemen." And it all came together in that one sentence: this whole evening was one extended pickup line. After promising to hang out the next day, Eric and I escaped to our disgusting little hotel (which we later found out we paid too much for) and the whole day came into focus. At first we hypothosized that they were both involved with each other, but Hassan didn't actually seem that gay and there was also is lack of interest in anything that was going on. Rather I thought that after Hussein met us during the day, he went back to Hassan and said, "I just met two honkies who I really want to fuck. Will you be my wing man on this one?" Hassan reluctently agreed, and since he wasn't into the whole 'practicing with boys thing' he was only there out of obligation to his friend.

Because of this creepiness and the uninteresting character of Mukallah, Eric and I decided to split the next day. The whole situation was just way too uncomfortable, full of expectations, and kind of frightening. But, just leaving the city was an adventure in and of itself involving a hash-dealing Tanzanian, bribing a police officer, and a truck full of ak-47s. I shit you not.

The hope that we had escaped Hassan and Hussein would also prove to be poorly conceived, we found out in the next few days...

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