Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [104]
When I hug Luke good-bye, the Yemeni men protest the inequity. “He’s Californian!” I say. “It’s an essential part of his culture.”
I HAVE A FIT of anxiety about leaving the paper and fuss at Luke and Zuhra, leaving them lists and making sure they know which pages are due when.
“Just go,” says Luke. “We’ll be fine.”
“Okay. Just remember the Health page should be done the first day of the cycle. And try to keep on schedule.” I pick up my suitcase. “Oh! I feel like a mother leaving her child with a babysitter for the first time.”
“Yalla,” says Luke. “We’ll try to keep the kid alive.”
MARVIN, PEARL, AND I catch the Yemenia flight to Soqotra, leaving in the middle of the night. None of us sleeps on the plane. Despite my exhaustion and anxiety over abandoning the office for a week, I am excited. I remember my neighbor Mohammed telling me that people who haven’t seen Soqotra have only lived half a life. Yemenis speak rapturously about the tropical desert island, as one might speak of paradise. Even those who have never been there extol its charms. I prepare myself to enter a fairytale world.
We arrive at eight A.M. and emerge into oppressive heat—the kind difficult to imagine until it flattens you. The Soqotra “international airport” is one tiny building, thronged with people. Herds of foreigners from our plane mingle with crowds of Soqotri people hoping to get some work. The first thing I notice about Soqotris is their teeth. On the mainland, I am constantly confronted with rotting brown teeth. But Soqotris must not chew as much qat or smoke as much tobacco. Or perhaps they have been blessed with good genes. Their teeth are beautiful and white, dramatically so against their dark skin. A mix of Asian and African, Soqotris have very black skin and sculpted faces. I find them gorgeous.
Pearl and I go outside to find Rasheed, a Soqotri man who works with them and drives their company car, a monstrous white SUV. Rasheed is slim and handsome, with sparkling black eyes and a rascal’s smile. With all the windows open, we cruise along a coast so spectacular I almost forget the heat. The ocean glitters in the morning sun to our left, and mountains rise precipitously to our right. The lower slopes are peppered with fat, fleshy trees topped with pink flowers—the Soqotri desert rose. The coastline scallops in and out, creating pretty little lagoons. It only takes about fifteen minutes to reach the wee village—excuse me, the hopping capital city—of Hadibo. At first I don’t recognize it as even a town. It looks more like the ruins of something. Low stone walls, which apparently are buildings, crawl across the dust everywhere. At least, they’re buildings according to the Soqotri definition of the word, which doesn’t necessarily include a roof. This is the most populous area of the eighty-mile island. No exact census exists, but the population is estimated to be between forty thousand and a hundred thousand.
As we rumble down what passes for the main street, Pearl points out the Soqotra Women’s Development Association, which sells local handicrafts and offers opportunities for female tourists to meet with local Soqotri women; the Soqotri honey store, run by a French man and Lebanese woman who have been training the Soqotris to manage hives; a tiny grocery store selling soft drinks, tinned beans, and candy; and plain, boxy hotels without signs.
On the other side of town (the foreigners’ area, the Soqotri version of Hadda), we come to the house Pearl and Marvin rent from Rasheed. A metal door painted with red and blue diamonds opens into a pebbled courtyard. On our left is a raised, tiled area about the size of a large room, with only three walls. Just past that is an enclosed room. Across the courtyard is a kitchen containing only a sink, and opposite is a small, pink-tiled Yemeni bathroom with a squat toilet and a cold-water shower. (Cold being