Category: Uncategorized

I went to the nearby hotel, Felix Arabia, for lunch today. Got there at noon, which is when they usually start serving lunch. The waiter said that they were not serving yet. No problem, I got some water and hung out. Well, 40 minutes later I asked the manager when lunch would be served. He explained to me that it would be another 20 minutes since this was friday. Grrr, no one could have told me this? I felt like pointing out that he wasn’t at the mosque, the waiters weren’t at the mosque, so why couldn’t they serve now? I didn’t do it, but the thoughts were running around in my head. Anyway, they eventually took my order. Half an hour later, they brought the wrong dish to me. I didn’t say anything since I was happy to have anything at all. It was their “lemon chicken”, a soupy mix of chicken and veggies with some rice. The waiter then explained that there wasn’t any silverware. Now there are some things that I will eat with my hands, but this wasn’t one of them, it was just too messy. They certainly had silverware the other night (more on that later) so I asked him why there wasn’t any now. He explained that there wasn’t any clean silverware, but that my hands looked clean… “Do you have water? Do you have soap? Then you can have CLEAN SILVERWARE YOU LAZY SON OF A BITCH” was what was going through my head. I live just a minute or two from the place so I went back and got a fork, when I returned, they had put out silverware for me…

The last time I went there, I ordered “lamp (sic) Yemen style.” It was pretty good except that the lamb was the worst cuts I’ve ever had. It was still on the bone and was all gristle. On top of that, there were a whole bunch of tiny shards of bone in it as well essentially making it inedible. The first time I went was really good, that and the fact that they are 2 or three minutes from my house makes me want to keep trying them. One more screw up and I’m done with them…

Isaac

Turns out I couldn’t go to Ta’izz and Ibb, my passport is still in limbo. I’ll just go some other time, but I feel bad that I couldn’t take Anne there. She’s seen more of Yemen than I have at this point. She got back from Marib today, that’s where the queen of Sheba lived (you know, the one that supplied Solomon with all of his gold?).

The internet connection at the school is about as fast (or not) as I was getting at the internet cafe. It is nice to have a wireless connection, and it is certainly more convenient and quieter as well. I think I caught one of the guys they hire to clean the building looking at something he knows he shouldn’t. When I came in the room, he immediately minimized all the windows, closed them, and then shut off the computer, LOL. I’m in the process of trying to download the latest battlestar galactica episode, but it’s going to take a total of three days to do it. I’ll finish it up tomorrow….

Isaac

That’s what I paid today for an eye exam, a new lens for my existing glasses, and some prescription ray bans. Turns out my left eye is worse than my right, by a quarter of a diopter (I think that’s the way we talk about these sorts of things.) The guy assured me that I’d have 6/6 vision with these glasses… That would be 6 cent. at 6 meters. It all seemed pretty reasonable, so I went ahead and paid for everything. I probably could have gotten much less expensive frames, but these are the first ones that I actually took to right away. I have grown to like my regular glasses, but now I’ll have a set for outside.

Isaac

Anne is here and is seeing Yemen. She’s a friend of my stepfather’s and has been all around the world. Quite a traveler, not much seems to phase her. She’s seen Sana’a the last couple of days and went on a day trip to some places just north of here today.

I’m supposed to go to Ta’izz and Ibb with Anne and my teacher this weekend (thursday and friday) but there’s an issue with my passport. It is in bureaucratic limbo while I attempt to get a long term visa and I won’t get it back until next week. Not sure if I’ll get to go or not.:-(

Isaac

They do think that it is manmade stuff that is causing the temperature to rise. I am most impressed with their figures for the impact of this warming though. They estimate that the sea level in 2100 will be 17 inches higher than it is now. That is a far cry from Gore’s film’s hysteria. That film predicts a 21 foot rise in the same time period. Why the difference? The big thing is that the new estimates on Greenland’s ice melting is much lower, something like 6 1/100 of an inch PER DECADE. That’s mighty slow. In addition, the ice shelves in Antarctica are expected to grow over the same time period. This is the first report on global warming that I have seen that has managed to avoid hysteria, and it is the first one that I don’t really mind the outcomes. Surely people can adapt to 17 inches of sea rise over the next 93 years without massive expenditures. We’ll see if these findings crack the news media. News organizations seem to be addicted to doomsday scenarios, I would think that good news would be better received…

Isaac

He’s a Brit and is a naturalized American citizen. He’s an interesting guy, and very nice. He also loves to hunt and loves west Texas…. Boy, when he decided to become American he didn’t screw around! My current house mates are all very cool, it’s good to have decent people living with you.

Isaac

Sen. Clinton recently wrote a letter to the treasury secretary outlining her “concern” about foreign governments holding so much of our debt. She’s afraid that they could somehow coerce us into doing something that we don’t want to do… In any borrowing situation without collateral, the borrower has a huge advantage over the lender. The borrower could simply refuse to pay back the loan. Somehow, Sen/ Clinton thinks that the Chinese in particular have us over a barrel. Let’s ignore that for the time being. Her solution to this “problem” is to impose trade restrictions with China. Here’s a better idea, stop spending so damn much money and you won’t have to worry about debt at all… If you spend more than you take in, someone has to finance the debt, and why not the CHinese if they are willing. Stop deficit spending and there re no more worries about who holds the debt, pretty simple and much better for the economy….

Isaac

Jameel (the manager of the school) has informed me that they will have wireless, high speed internet access at the school within the next couple of days. It’ll be $10 a month, which works just fine for me. It is set up in the guy’s building next to the school, not sure what the women will do, with all the stone structures I’m not so sure how good the signal will be in the woman’s residence. Oh well, at least I’ll finally get a reliable internet connection!!!

Isaac

My prescription for my glasses is pretty weak, it makes more of a difference at distances although I’ve noticed my near vision deteriorating too… Anyway, I realized last night that one of my lenses was missing, and I hadn’t noticed it. Well, that’s not exactly true. I had been pointing out to my housemate that everything looked slightly askew to me. The pavement on the sidewalk to our house looked more slanted and nothing seemed to be square anymore. It was like living in a Dali painting, but just barely… I was actually wondering if I was starting to go crazy, but then I figured out my glasses were the problem. One side slightly magnifies (or demagnifies, not sure which) and the other is my normal vision, hence the skewed view of the world. I’m tempted to try to go without them, but I think that it would be wise to go get some more. The good news is that glasses and prescriptions for them are pretty cheap here, just gotta work it into my schedule.

Isaac

I got these from the latest copy of the Yemen Times, I have no idea how accurate they are.

Average income $400 a year
30 something percent unemployment
40% live below the poverty line, I have no idea how they calculate that.

Bottom line, this economy is terrible, and it shows. One of the big problems is that the government does not allow foreign capital investment except for case by case exceptions. For example, I am unable to buy property here, for any purpose. That would really make it difficult to start a business, or make me want to move here (ha!). If you ask the locals what is wrong with the country, a common answer is that Yemeni’s are just lazy. There’s certainly a lot of anecdotal evidence of that, but I wonder what causes it? I do think that this place has a screwed up enough economy that you can’t point to just one thing. Corruption, restrictive trade laws, and government interference in starting businesses are all here, but when you mix them, you get an economy like Yemen’s! I wonder how long this will go on before something really big happens politically, good, bad, or status quo. There are still remnants of a socialist party here. Until 1994, Yemen was divided between the socialist south Yemen and the more capitalistic north. They unified in 1994, but nothing ha gotten better.

Isaac