Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [54]
President Saleh issues a statement offering condolences and cash to the bereaved families, calling the deceased “martyrs of democracy.” Opposition parties, eager to use the tragedy to their political advantage, rush to blame Saleh, decrying his shoddy security and criticizing him for busing groups of students from schools to the rally to support him, contributing to overcrowding and putting young people in danger.
This stampede followed a smaller one in Ta’iz, a hundred and fifty miles south of Sana’a, which killed four or five people. Several papers report a third stampede, rumored to have killed five or six people in Zinjibar in Abyan Governorate in the south, but government spokesmen vigorously deny this. An auto accident killed a few people, they say. Not a stampede.
The kidnappings and stampedes, happening right on top of each other, underscore the near-impossibility of squeezing facts out of the Yemeni government or any other sources, although perhaps this isn’t surprising in a culture that values belief over empirical evidence.
Farouq keeps busy trying to sort out both tragedies. Big stories like these, I know from experience, are good at staving off grief. At least until deadline.
ONE GOOD THING the kidnapping brings us is Karim, a Belgian-Tunisian photographer on freelance assignment for Paris Match. When I run up to Faris’s office with a lengthy list of demands—a residency visa, more staff, business cards, toilet paper—I find Karim sitting there. Tall, with dark curling hair and mischievous eyes, he’s possibly the most attractive person I’ve seen since arriving in Yemen. I am suddenly acutely aware of my untidy braids and spinsterish skirts.
Karim hopes to get photographs of the kidnapped tourists, so he’ll be staying in Yemen until they are released. I immediately want to go with him, though Faris tells me in no uncertain terms that I am not to endanger myself. “Maybe you can do some reporting for us then,” I say to Karim. No one seems to worry that any violence will befall the hostages. Farouq’s source says that they are being fed well. Yemen will not attempt to use military might to get them back; a new sheikh has begun mediating.
I linger in the office until Faris invites me to join them for dinner. “Faris says he’s taking me to some sort of five-star restaurant,” says Karim.
I laugh. “That would be Zorba’s.”
WE CHOOSE AN OUTSIDE TABLE, overlooking busy Hadda Street. Karim, I discover, has been everywhere. He has been embedded with the U.S. military in Afghanistan, traveled with the Taliban, covered the Iraq war, explored Iran, and written features on the nightlife of Beirut. Of all of the countries he has visited, Yemen is the most beautiful, he says. Karim’s impressive résumé includes freelance work for the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, the International Herald Tribune, Geo, and various German magazines. He is planning to go back to Afghanistan next month to be embedded and then to go on a night raid against the Afghan National Army with the Taliban.
“That’s just crazy,” says Faris.
“That’s just responsible journalism,” says Karim.
I could use him on my staff. He tells me stories about smoking opium in the mountains with the Taliban. One morning, he woke up to find his socks missing, only to find out that the Taliban soldiers had washed them for him. I’m impressed by his fearlessness and a bit dispirited that I’ll probably never have my socks washed by the Taliban.
Talk turns to the hostages down south. While the kidnappings don’t make Faris worry about my personal safety in Yemen, he does fret that violence could break out around the upcoming elections and that westerners could be targeted. Yemen is home to myriad groups of extremists, among them al-Qaeda, which has been growing in strength in recent years.
“Jennifer,” says Faris. “Do me a favor. Don’t leave your house at the same time every morning.” Predictable routines