Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [130]
Farouq is surprised that it is illegal to persecute Muslims in the United States and surprised that any paper has written anything pro-Muslim. Even more, he seems surprised that the United States encompasses diverse viewpoints.
In his story about the students’ Islam project, a source claims that the reason the United States is so afraid of Islam is that it is worried that its entire population will convert.
“I don’t think that’s quite it,” I tell Farouq. “The reason some people in the U.S. worry about Islam is that terrorists have used it as an excuse to attack our country.” But I leave the quotation in anyway.
Farouq doesn’t argue with me. He listens. This alone is progress. He has begun to ask me more questions and seems to be trying harder to impress me. Last week he redesigned the front page. He does this fairly often now, coming into my office to show me the two pages side by side in the hopes I will choose his. Sometimes he is right; I am the first to admit I have little design sense. But in this issue I have been quite firm about where I wanted which stories, and when I express this to Farouq, he just shrugs. “You’re the boss,” he says. “It’s your call.”
His deference makes me feel so warm and fuzzy that when he tells me he needs to leave just before deadline to go buy drugs, I don’t try to stop him.
NINETEEN
bright days before deluge
I have stopped fantasizing about going back to New York. I have stopped thinking of anywhere as home other than my own lovely gingerbread house in Sana’a. I sleep through the night more often than not. I eat meals. When I return to the Old City at sunset and see the gold and rose evening light setting the houses aglow against a darkening sky, I feel like the luckiest person on earth. The paper has never run more smoothly; we’re on such a predictable schedule now that I can make plans with friends even on closing days.
This is how it happens. My canny reporters figure out that meeting deadlines means getting out of work earlier. Getting out of work earlier means spending more time napping, chewing qat, or, in rare cases, with their families. In other words, all it takes is for them to realize that they are not just making me happy—there is something in it for them.
It sounds so simple. I suppose every manager realizes this at some point: that you must convince your staff that they themselves will benefit from doing what you want them to do. There’s a big difference, however, between reading this seemingly simple philosophy in a management self-help book and trying to implement it at a newspaper in a foreign culture. Not that I’ve ever read a management book. Or—until now—been a manager in a foreign culture. I just fumbled in the dark until one day, light dawned, the paper closed at three P.M., and we all sat around marveling at ourselves and wondering how it happened.
Almost everything I learn in Yemen happens through improvisation, through feeling my way over each hurdle, each newsroom battle, and—after 1,001 mistakes—actually hitting upon a successful strategy. For example, one closing day in June, I discover that it isn’t just Faris who can be manipulated with peanut butter cups.
I arrive at work that morning feeling cheerful and excited about social plans I have later. “I don’t feel like dawdling around here today,” I announce to the newsroom. “How about we have the earliest close ever?”
My reporters look up from their computers. “Insha’allah,” they say, looking dubious.
I have three front-page stories edited before eleven thirty A.M., which gives me plenty of time to hustle my staff. It is then I am struck with genius.
“The first person to get me his or her front-page story gets five peanut butter cups,” I say. “The second person gets four, the third person gets three, et cetera. Now, go!”
I cannot believe how well this works. Noor gets her story in first, followed by Jabr and Radia. Soon, the men all have chocolate-swollen cheeks, and the women’s hands keep disappearing under their niqabs.
As I am in the middle of designing