Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [69]
I want to believe that there has been some progress, that something good is coming of this. My standards for success have dropped dramatically. Give me just one grammatical headline. One issue closed before midnight. One day when my male reporters get to work on time. But I am still fighting simply to fill pages—forget trying to fill them with good reporting or decent writing. I still have no one to whom I can delegate any of my work and no one to cover for Luke over Christmas when he is gone for a month. Talha vanished from the office after I caught him plagiarizing an entire story from the IRIN news service and has not been seen since. Zuhra is out sick until after Eid al-Fitr, the festive holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan. Her doctor told her she has exhaustion and must rest. Whom can I turn to now to find stories at the last minute? Who will make me laugh when I am feeling cross? Who will walk me to the Jordanian sandwich shop? I miss my little shadow.
Giving up isn’t an option. After all, I have no backup plan. But I feel so tapped out I just don’t know where to turn. Everything overwhelms me. I remember that Faris gets back from a trip to Washington the next day, and I decide to talk to him. Maybe he will know where I can find good reporters. The number of applications I get from people with master’s degrees in English who can barely write astonishes me. The résumés and cover letters are riddled with typos, malapropisms, and grammatical mistakes.
I’ve just reached the nadir of my despair, however, when I have my best closing night yet. Al-Asaadi is away, so I pull the entire issue together myself, and my skeleton staff pulls through for me. Thilo, a German freelancer I hired in desperation without ever having read his writing, turns in a wonderful piece about antiquities smuggling. Hassan writes several news stories. Ibrahim sends front-page stories from his home office, and I realize I will have enough stories to fill the paper after all.
I whip out my editorial in fifteen minutes and even enjoy the process. When no pressing issue is begging to be editorialized, I indulge my pet peeves. Tonight, it’s honking.
Excessive, ear-ravaging honking of automobile horns is a pervasive problem in Sana’a, but perhaps never quite as terrible as it is during Ramadan. During the holy month of fasting, everyone in the city rushes home for iftar to break his or her fast at exactly the same time. The ensuing gridlock only aggravates the frustration of drivers, who turn to their horns to express their dissatisfaction with the situation.
But these are futile gestures. Blaring horns are powerless to move heavy chunks of automobile. Making screeching noises that harm the ears of passengers, pedestrians, and bystanders alike will not make the cars in front of you move any faster. Nor will it make other drivers behave any more kindly toward you….
Scores of medical studies have found that exposure to elevated noise such as loud horns causes a range of physical and psychological problems, including: hearing loss, high blood pressure, stress, heart problems, increased levels of aggression, as well as vasoconstriction, which can lead to erectile dysfunction. Before leaning on that horn, perhaps a man should think about what it could do to his reproductive capabilities.
(This prompts an e-mail from my mother, who is concerned that perhaps attacking men’s reproductive capabilities isn’t a wise move on my part. “But, Mom,” I protest, “that’s a surefire way to get their attention.”)
With much cajoling and limping up and down the stairs, I manage to squeeze all the photos I need out of the often-elusive Mas. He complains, but cheerfully. Noor surprises me by turning around a quick story on Eid al-Fitr, which she reports and writes in one day. It is a miraculous night all around. Perhaps I do better when I am not relying on al-Asaadi to do anything for me. We finish laying out the last page of the night at two forty-five A.M.—our earliest Ramadan close