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Thursday 2007-04-05 - Sana’a, Yemen
First impressions of Sana’a
The old city of Sana’a is easy to get lost in: there are no right angles to be found in the street pattern. To give us our first feeling for the city, Marie Josee, our tour companion, takes us on a small walking tour, and shows us a good (Palestinian) restaurant, two money changers where we immediately get our first Yemeni Rials (YR) at a much better rate than at the airport of course, the post office, next door to the Internet cafe; in the old city she points out where the different suqs are (sorted by trade), and we make a reservation for dinner at a nice restaurant, Marie Josee skillfully haggling to get us a good price.
Then we walk on the Bab al Yaman, the old gate into the old city, where we all sit down at a little sidewalk cafe for a cup of tea and to watch the crowd. The metal tables and benches are under a tarpaulin — good thinking, because the clouds that had been gathering for an hour or so choose this moment to release their load. We sit dry, sip our tea, and watch how the locals deal with the downpour: a little girl with an enormous umbrella is skipping around, little boys playing in the puddles; men gathering their robes and hooking them over their jambiya (the traditional Yemeni knife), showing a good deal of leg (often skinny leg), and some of their shorts; some men taking of their sandals and continuing on their bare feet; women gathering their skirts and showing a bit of their long underpants. One woman stops next to us to wait a bit under our tarpaulin and chat with us, her little boy observing us wide-eyed; then she throws her cloak over him, scoops him up in her arms, and walks away: a two-headed figure in black.
Neither Carla nor me brought along anything for the rain, not expecting any in the morning, normally it rains mid to late afternoon in the rainy season. When the rain lets up a little we get up and walk to our hotel, without a map but I trust my sense of direction will get us there. I want to take a short cut in the direction of the wadi which crosses the street, but first end up in a dead-end street — no problem, we’ll try the next one. When we turn, a man gets out of a car and asks where we want to go; then he asks where we come from — Oh, Dutch? — he continues in German and indicates we should take “eine kleine Strasse links” to get to the edge of the Sa’ila wadi. We thank him politely. When we get to a small alley, I want to turn in but Carla thinks it’s too small. When we turn again, we hear “no, no!” behind us: two boys point to the alley: that’s where we should go. Sure enough, the alley curves a little but takes us otherwise straight to where we want to go.
We have a nice view of the Sa’ila here: it used to be just a river bed, full of water when heavy rains fall, but the clever Sana’ites have paved the river bed, made ramps, and now it’s a through street — as long as it isn’t needed for the water that is. It’s in-between now, with some water flowing along one side but the cars brave it, making some waves. But in the next rainy season in July-August, with much heavier rains, the water can get to 30 centimeters below the top of the wall!
The wedding
When we arrived at our Sana’a hotel last night, we noted a big tent on a field across from the hotel; it’s for a wedding, they told us: men and women celebrate separately, and it lasts three days. A big wedding like this one also costs a lot of money.
Today is the third day of the wedding, and Marie Josee heard the men would do the special Jambiya dance. After a copious dinner with lots of local dishes, all delicious, we head to the big tent — which turns out to be completely empty! A man nearby spots our intention and points us into a street, at the end of which we see a crowd, and white stuff curving through the air (rice?); there’s music coming from that direction, too, we can’t miss it. When we get close, we see men and boys dancing to music coming from loudspeakers, a big crowd around then watching, boys even sitting on walls to get the best view; unless it’s the women we note on one of the roofs looking over the parapet who have an even better view from above. In the middle is a man with a video camera, and lots of people are also taking pictures with compact cameras and with their mobile phones.
We conclude it’s OK to take pictures then, and try to find a place on some piles of stone against a wall. Soon one man spots us, takes Thom by the hand, and thus leads us through the crowd until we have a place at the front! In one corner of the dancing floor the groom is sitting, behind a little decorative tree with candles; he’s only watching the proceedings, in beautiful clothes, a flower garland around his neck, holding a big sword in a golden sheath. I think he looks a little stoned, maybe he had a lot of qat, or maybe he’s just tired after three days of celebrations — or both. One by one, some of us are invited to sit down next to him, and get photographed and videoed together with the groom as if we are special guests — me included. That gives me occasion to take a close-up portrait of him, which he likes very much. Someone offers to take a picture of us both with my camera, which after some fiddling and advice from bystanders he manages to do: a nice memento of a special first evening in Yemen.
