Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [8]
And I had to wonder if there wasn’t also a bit of vanity involved. I didn’t know how to be me without my face. I suddenly felt terribly shallow. I wanted people to know what I looked like. It mattered to me. Perhaps these Yemeni women were simply more evolved than I was, not needing to flaunt their features. Imagine, though, going years on end without anyone outside of your nuclear family telling you that you looked pretty!
VIEWING SANA’A from above is a wholly different (and much quieter) experience from living it on the ground. After we climbed down from the roof, Sabri announced that he wanted to prepare a special lunch to welcome me, and we set out on a shopping expedition. We couldn’t head for the markets before two P.M., he said, or people would ask him why he wasn’t at mosque on a Friday. So, just after two P.M., we went downstairs and stood in front of his black Mercedes as the two skinny boys who guarded the house opened the car doors. Inside, Sabri placed his thumb on the gearshift and the car thrummed to life.
As Sabri maneuvered through the crowded, labyrinthine streets toward the souqs (Arabian markets), I clung to my door handle. Yemenis are worse drivers than Bostonians. It doesn’t seem to matter what side of the street one drives on, and traffic lights are mere suggestions. No one wears seat belts (except me, on the rare occasions they’re available), although Sabri finally put his on when his car wouldn’t stop beeping to remind him.
The honking was incessant. Yemenis, I noted, drive with one hand on the horn and the other on the wheel. In New York, drivers honk to warn of danger. In Vermont, they honk as a friendly greeting. In Yemen, people honk simply because they are driving.
The majority of the white-and-yellow taxis and other cars passing us appeared to be held together with duct tape and a prayer, belching clouds of black smoke. The absence of any semblance of emissions testing in Yemen has turned Sana’a’s air into a soup of particulate matter.
The streets teemed with people, mostly men in white robes, hurrying home for the afternoon meal. Many carried long bunches of shiny green leaves tucked under their arms, which Sabri told me was qat, a plant whose stimulating leaves Yemenis chew for hours every day. I’d read about qat and was eager to try it, despite the fact that drugs don’t usually interest me. But most of Yemen’s social and political life revolves around ritualistic qat chews, and so if I were really going to learn about Yemeni culture, a chew was de rigueur.
As we hurtled on, I tried to decipher the Arabic writing scrawled on storefronts and mosques. I had taught myself the alphabet and a few phrases, and it was rather thrilling to see the graceful Arabic letters everywhere. On every sign! On every restaurant! I desperately desired to learn how to decode them. So far, I only recognized the occasional S sound and an article meaning “the.”
We drove first to the fish markets in the old Jewish quarter, where rows of one-story buildings crowded around small squares packed with men pushing wheelbarrows of prickly palm fruits or cucumbers. Peddlers swiftly pared the skin away from their wares so that their customers could eat them right on the spot, dripping juice into the wheelbarrow. Men waiting at the fish stalls jostled and pushed each other to get to the front. There was no discernible line. Stepping over pools of water and fish blood, Sabri and I walked up two steps into a tiny, grimy storefront, where heaps of bloodied fish lay on the stone counter. A wall of smells accosted me: brine and decay and fishiness. My empty stomach began to seize, and I backed out into the street to wait for Sabri. Passing men turned to stare at me, wide-eyed. “Welcome to Yemen!” some said. How did they know I had just arrived? I wondered. (More than a year later, men would still be welcoming me to Yemen. While it was nice to feel wanted, the