Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [59]
“You look like an angel!” Zuhra says when she sees me. Ha! Everyone comments on my outfit, even al-Asaadi, who tells me that white becomes me. Compliments from al-Asaadi are rare and precious things. Zuhra and I draw stares when we walk down the street for lunch, negative images of each other.
“Together, we’re a penguin,” I say. “Or a nun.”
“Or I am your shadow!”
“That, we knew.”
September 11 is a Monday, and thus a closing day, so work and its frustrations divert me from personal sorrow. I’m a wee bit exasperated with the three-and-a-half-hour lunch breaks my male reporters are taking. If they could cut their lunch break down to even an hour or two, we could get out of the office much earlier. However, I know I can never suggest this ridiculously American idea without a mutiny.
In an effort to help me with election coverage, al-Asaadi hands me a new intern, a tall, broad young man named Jabr. Jabr wears his hair slicked back and dreams of becoming a movie star. In the meantime, the Yemen Observer will do. He has no experience, but I can’t afford to turn away able bodies.
I send Jabr out to poll people for our opinion poll column, in which four ordinary people answer a question such as “Can democracy work in Yemen?” “What is the first thing you want the new president to tackle?” or “Do you think the newly released bin Laden video is real?” This should take about half an hour, tops.
Jabr disappears before lunch and is gone for six hours. I’m wondering if maybe he has decided to quit when he returns to tell me he has quotes from only three people, and they are all men. I had told him explicitly that we must always interview two women and two men.
“Jabr,” I say, “you’ve been gone from the office for six hours, and you’re telling me you couldn’t find four people to talk to? In all that time?”
“Some of the women wouldn’t talk.”
“So ask more of them.”
“Where am I supposed to go?” He stands there looking large and helpless.
“Walk out to Algiers Street. Hundreds of people walk by every minute. Surely you can find one who will talk. And we need women. We are half of the population. And I would like to know what both halves of the population have to say.” Representative democracy begins here.
He nods and backs out of the room.
Two hours later he comes back to tell me that he can’t find anyone.
It would be generous to call Jabr a slow starter. Luke and I become so frustrated with his inability to perform even the simplest of tasks that we begin referring to him as the Missing Link. I can’t fire him though; we’re hardly paying him anything, and I suppose (though sometimes I have doubts about this) that having him around is better than having no one.
Adding to our woes, the Internet connection goes down regularly, usually on closing days, when we most need it. Ibrahim e-mails me his election stories from home on closing days, and all of the op-ed pieces and Middle Eastern news must be drawn from the wires. With the Internet connection down, we cannot finish an issue. No one seems to know what to do when this happens. Everyone stands around and complains, but no one does anything. The Doctor is supposed to help, but he is either out on a four-hour lunch break or useless. He will shout at people and then come tell me it’s all taken care of, which it rarely is. Only one technician can help us with our Internet, Enass says. But often when we need him, his phone is off.
Faris has promised me an Arabic tutor, who has yet to materialize. I’ve taught myself enough to get around on my own, but here are a few phrases I’m desperate to know:
“None of the power outlets in my office is working.