Connections

Last night Ruth and I went into town. We found what we were looking for in the markets and then picked up some street food to eat while resting on the breakwater. Then a man who looked like a westerner disguised as a Yemeni walked by and said "hi" and kept on walking. Now it's a rare thing to see another foriegner here, especially one wearing local clothes, so this minor occurance led to some speculation around the Carroll table. As we were leaving some time later we found him sitting down outside a restaurant on the far end of the breakwater and he invited us to join him. Turns out he's a recent law graduate from Washington DC and he's been here before - a few years ago he taught in Sana'a and he's fluent in Arabic. This time he's been here for four months, always on the go, writing a book for Bradt Travel Guides based in Britain. This we found interesting, because the last book about this place was put out by Lonely Planet, but they stopped publishing on Yemen in '99; their only comment on this cessation was something akin to "on second thought, you probably shouldn't go there," which interestingly enough was also the only advice we were able to obtain from Foreign Affairs Canada before we came.

At any rate, this guy had some awesome stories to tell and we had a fascinating conversation with him for about an hour. He's leaving for home in a few days so by now he's seen just about everything in the entire country, except for one; he missed the sea turtle experience because he was passing by in the daytime. After hearing Ruth's enthusiastic description of our visits there, he asked us to write them up for publication in the guide, which comes out in February. So keep an eye out for Bradt's Yemen edition of 2007 - Yemeni Cricket just became a byline;)

Photo Sans Title

Cutting Room Floor

These are from Socotra. Until now they've managed to avoid getting posted; no one's quite sure how. They are of two boys that we met, one of them fishing for supper and the other, younger one standing by his aging dugout canoe. The dugouts still do active duty on Socotra, alongside the newer, fibreglass-and-outboard rigs seen in the first picture.

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So you say it's your birthday?

Well, I'm a little late on this one - the internet hasn't been working well this week. November 16th was Ruth's birthday; work's been really crazy lately so I thought the best thing we could do would be to force her to relax. When she woke up Tanya had cooked a wonderful breakfast of crepes with mountains of fresh fruit and whipped cream, and then we kidnapped her and took her to the Hadramout Hotel, where we spent the rest of the morning swimming and snorkelling. We then whiled away the afternoon sunbathing on the dock with fresh lime juice and a few good books. It was a gorgeous day for it; now that it's winter the temperature in Mukalla has dropped to a comfy thirty degrees.




And, I bought her a window. I'm aware that this may seem strange to you, so here's the scoop: Yemeni architecture can really be quite stunning, and one of the things they're fond of here is putting these stained glass creations over every window - well, at least in the north, and you can see an example peeking through the flowers in the picture below. Down here in the south we don't get it as much, but Ruth really likes them and she had mentioned that it would be neat to have one just to hang on the wall as artwork. Also I smuggled that blanket and another one like it back from Socotra without her knowing, so she was surprised.














All in all the day went very well and we're all feeling quite relaxed on the dawn of another week.

Yemeni Cricket Goes to School

You asked for a boring office-post, you've got it. Here it is - proof (or as close as it comes) that we work. Allow us to take you through our day.

Every morning we arrive at the school in the company vehicle.

Just kidding; I made that part up. We walk to school.

We're usually in the office around 9 a.m.; we then have two hours to mark tests or fine-tune our lessons or whatever. Here is the view from my desk: to the left of me, Tanya Boone, i.e. "the new girl," whom we kidnapped from Hartland NB in the summer. She is holding that fan because it is from China and she used to teach in China.




And straight ahead, over the top of the monitor, my darling wife Ruth is busy fixing many of the mistakes that we've all made here. She works in the office in the mornings, and teaches in the afternoons, while Tanya and I teach both morning and afternoon. First class is 11:00-2:00, and the second is 3:00-6:00.






Also ahead but slightly to the left is Nicholas, Acting Director of the Canadian Hadramout University College (that's us). Specifically, this is Nick getting his daily dose of frustrating news from our business partners in the Yemeni government.

Oh and here's me.














And now some classroom shots: here are Ruth and Sean earning money.































We're on an old campus and everything's made of concrete. Not the good kind, the crumbly kind. Yesterday a small section of my ceiling fell down and hit an empty desk, right beside one of my students. I was facing the board at the time and the impact was so loud I thought that the LCD projector had blown up, which it has threatened to do on occasion.

And here's me teaching a cat, because it was the only thing that showed up that day. Festivals are a little bit tricksy in this part of the world - you never know when one of them is going to jump on you. Sometimes we all get to work and then... no students. Surprise! It's a festival.

In the evenings, which are short because we're so tired, we relax in our flat and prepare lessons for the next day (Tanya's living with us for now, as her apartment is not yet ready).

And that's about it for five days of our week. We very rarely do anything adventurous or interesting on weekdays because we're working all day long.

So there you have it - Yemeni Cricket has a job:) If you want to know more about our school, let us know, because we don't want you to get the wrong idea - we really do enjoy our jobs a great deal, and we have a fantastic relationship with the students, and work in general consumes about 95% of our entire existence right now. But do forgive us if we slip back into presenting a slightly skewed version of reality here on the blog;) Ciao.

Socotra, Fourth and Final

And now for the last installment in our serial....Sheikh Isa's village! We took a leisurely drive up a mountain and down the Wadi Dhiaho, through the Dragon's Blood Forest (names don't come much cooler than that) and abreast an amazing canyon. Here are some shots from the drive.























































When we arrived in the village, the Sheikh, who reigns over all the villages in the Wadi (about 400 people in total) gave us a hearty welcome and prepared a feast of goat for us in the shade of a large tree. This was a very special honour as it was during Ramadan and he had cooked a meal for us during the time of fasting. He spoke very limited English but his nephew was a good translator. The goat was boiled and then seared on the fire and they didn't waste one bit. The ears, skull, brain, eyes and eye-sockets were served as appetizers and then came the main course of the meat and rice. I was able to avoid gnawing on bones and brain by pleading sickness, as even the smell was making me feel a bit naseous. Sean had an eye socket (eyelid still attached) and a very rubbery ear. The socket was not bad but he could live without eating another ear.

In the evening Sheik Isa insisted that I have some bread and honey (he was very concerned that I hadn’t eaten anything all day). The honey was from bees pollinating the dragon's blood trees; it was rich and deep red; I ate a little of it, much to his delight. In the eyes of a Yemeni, honey can heal absolutely anything.

We stayed the night in a one-room stone “guest house”; this was the view from our door in the morning - all saddled up and ready to go.

Tanya and I took the first shift on them to the base of the mountain. Unfortunately, after about five minutes of climbing I realized that I wouldn’t be able to make it up the mountain let alone complete the six hour hike/ride to follow - my sickness wasn't letting up any. Sean accompanied me back to the village thereby sacrificing his chance to ride a camel.

The Sheik and his family were convinced that my sickness was due to pregnancy (it wasn't) and so it was with knowing smiles that they very happily watched me lose all the honey I’d consumed the day before. We traveled back to our hotel and returned to Mukalla two days early, but this was no great loss
as we'd packed so many things into our first few days on the island.

We are now comfortably back into the swing of teaching, about which we will soon post just to prove to you that we work.