From a Distance

It appears that we've shown you pictures of every city we've been to in Yemen except the one we live in. This is Mukalla, our beautiful coastal town. It's quite small and very compact. Arranged in a row along the top of the ridge you can see four white gaurd houses - testament to a violent past. That's a Somaliam fishing boat moored on the right.

As the mountains and the sea leave very little room for expansion, overcrowding is really the best and only option available - 'downtown' is a labyrinth of tiny streets and alleyways, crammed full of shops and street vendors. In the mornings and evenings it's insanely busy and cacaphonous, but between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. you could swear it's a ghost town, recently abandoned by every single living thing. Like most towns in Yemen, the place just shuts down for the afternoon; 1 o'clock rolls around and you can hear shop doors slam shut all over the city, all at once (they slam shop doors with startling conviction around here, just so you really know). Immediately Mukalla goes from the busyness and chaos of a three-ring circus to the busyness and chaos of a crypt. Like magic, everyone disappears and the town sleeps with a grave-like silence that says "We're not going to work and there's nothing you can do about it." (Hint: do not try to do business in Yemen in the middle of the afternoon.)

...Peaceful spot, really.

Anyway, here's another angle - what you can't see in the picture above is that the far right portion - and oldest part - of the city is actually a small peninsula, and from the east it looks like this:



This is a dhow - the traditional Arabian boat. There are quite a few of them in the harbour, and they're just beautiful (especially when they happen to glide past you at sunset). Tragically, most of them are moored next to the naval base, where I'm not allowed to take pictures:(


Mukalla Harbour at sundown. With the exception of the second one, these pictures were taken from a small fishing boat on which we spent the evening last Thursday - good times.

And that's it folks - this is where we've been holed up for the last year. We've enjoyed it a great deal and we'll miss it when we're gone, but we're also very excited to see you all at home!