kamaran

Headed to the island of Kamaran, leaving from the port of Saleef.

Outdoor bar, perfect for sunsets and bota box wine smuggled in from the states.

Splashing around in the Red Sea.

Boat tour to a mangrove forest, nate with his new army b.f.f.

And finally, Nate gets to shoot an ak-47.

the family has arrived!

father-in-law and son, chewing the qat

dressing up uncle boyd

for the fashionable yet conservative swimmer

bikini + burkha = burkini.

fashion in yemen?

Burkhas and fashion you ask? Why, yes. Check out this new Burberry number, the "burkhaberry".

twenty-six

Today I am twenty-six, and feeling pretty old. Nate arranged a fantastic celebration for me yesterday, which started and ended at the embassy. We spent all morning by the marines' pool with guacamole (Sana'a just got a shipment of avocados!) and bloody marys. We then had Thai food for dinner with a group of friends, along with an amazing carrot cake Nate whipped up, and ended the night back at the embassy with a marine house party. The best part of my birthday celebration, however, will be arriving in one week (my parents and uncle Boyd); I'm not sure of a better birthday present than a visit from the family.

The Month of Love

Hey all. We've been inexcusably bad about posting recently, sorry, but this is partly due to the fact that our internet line was hijacked and is now shared with about 20 other students. We've also been really busy--me (Nate) with food poisoning, and both us with school (in addition to our regular classes, we started taking a dialect class at night and are learning lots of great slang). This month has been pretty exciting though. We bought a new hookah, had a nice qat chew, spent Valentine's day at a 4-star (by Yemeni standards) hotel, checked out some local art galleries, and I took to wearing a skirt.

There's our new hookah at our qat party. In attendance were a handful of teachers and administrators from our school, and a few male students. Also of interest: see the massive monitor in the back left-hand corner of the room? Yeah, that's because the monitor to our brand new laptop died and Sony refuses to honor the warranty (reason # 932 Macs are better than PCs!)

Qat Lovers!!!! Pretty impressive wads we have going, for non-Yemenis at least.

Our good buddy Isam

Local art. It's pretty impressive since representational art is frowned upon here.

the old city

Valentines Day, celebrated at the Sana'a Sheraton with $10 mugs of Heineken. We pretty much hung around the pool and napped all day.

As promised: Nate in a skirt!

zoo adventures

After class yesterday, along with a small group of students, we navigated the bus system to the Sana'a Zoo. Quite an interesting experience. They have about 20 lions, a few hyenas, a cage full of monkeys, goats and sheep (although these, we think, were actually food for the big cats and not really meant to be on display), pigeons, and my favorite, about 100 guinea pigs. The zoo was surprisingly clean, the cages sturdy (in Ethiopia we saw a lion in a cage made from chain link fence, and were expecting something more along these lines), and the entrance fee was only $0.25.

This sign reads: "The zoo is not a souq (market) for the buying or selling of animals." Good to know.

But isn't this behavior discouraged? Well, no, incidentally. The zoo actually encourages and facilitates feeding the monkeys by cutting out holes in the fence and selling bags of popcorn and seeds. There were a couple Yemenis yesterday who were so excited by this feeding process that they started tossing in soda cans, in addition to the standard corn and nuts. (Click on photo to enlarge and check out the monkey's expression and chompers up close.)

Haram!