YEMEN: A land of colliding dreams

"The Ministry of Information," the taxi driver pleads into the radio to his bosses and colleagues. "Does anyone know where the Ministry of Information is located?"

The dispatcher and other drivers ignore him. "Car 520? Where are you, car 520?" the dispatcher blares out, seemingly to someone else.

We are driving around in circles through streets reeking of raw sewage in Sana, the capital of Yemen, a troubled land of 23 million mostly poor people and daunting political problems, as described in a story published in the Los Angeles Times today.

But it's also a surreal postmodern place where the ancient and the modern jostle uneasily.

In Yemen, donkey-drawn carts share cramped roadways with late-model Mercedes. Vendors sell cheap Chinese plastic trinkets from stalls in stone marketplaces hundreds of years old. Women dressed in ink-black, all-covering niqabs curiously eye risque undergarments on display in shop windows.

The contradictions are dazzling and unsettling. Shopping for souvenirs, I found miniature replicas of the latticed traditional architecture (below) characteristic of Yemen. "Made in China," they said on the bottom.

 

Back on the road, and we still seem no closer to our destination.

"The Ministry of Information," the driver pleads to his colleagues, who ignore him.

A young kid on a motorcycle wearing a desert camouflage shirt like a jacket zooms past going the wrong direction down a one-way street. Then another drives by, a big lump of qat like a baseball stuffed into his cheek, a tribal dagger dangling from his waist, staring ahead, trance-like, into infinity.

Qat, a green plant with mild narcotic properties (above), is the country's national pastime. More than 90% of the country's men chew the plant, which grows only in high altitudes. After lunch, Yemeni men rush to the qat markets to buy the plant fresh -- it begins to lose its psychotropic qualities within hours of being harvested. They sit all afternoon in private homes or cafes (below), gabbing and chewing.

The endless drive through undending traffic continues, with still no response from dispatch.

A crumbling fortress looms above modern office and apartment towers. They are decorated with black and white bricks inlaid into balconies and the arches above windows, valiant gestures at maintaining the traditional style.

A cop makes a halfhearted attempt to tame gridlocked traffic at an intersection, but ultimately bows to an onrush of cars. They leave behind a trail of suffocating exhaust.

Finally, the dispatcher replies to his own employee, giving him directions to get to the Ministry of Information. We turn down a street, only to find that another car is coming from the other direction, blithely ignoring the one-way sign.

"There’s no one Yemeni dream for a nation to function and overcome obstacles," a Yemeni diplomat once told me. "In Yemen, there are hundreds of thousands of dreams."

— Borzou Daragahi in Sana, Yemen

Photos: From top, pedestrians clog the entrance to the old city in Sana; A Yemeni woman eyes clothes in the market; the old city of Sana boasts ancient archicture; a vendor of nuts and spices chews qat; a qat salesman shows off his product; men chew qat at a cafe; women shop for fruit; pedestrians fill a square in the old city. Credit: Borzou Daragahi / Los Angeles Times

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Comments

[Massimo Luriani]

The article is biased and unfairly publishes lies about life in Yemen. Politics and relevant stuff are corrupt, but socially, the people of Yemen are the most beautiful, generous and hospitable nation I have ever seen in this world. Unfortunately, you presented an unprofessional journalism.

[Caleb Hudson]

As a current resident of Sana'a I find this article to be somewhat misleading and unfair to the Yemeni people. The author is correct inasmuch as the country is a world full of the old and the new, social contradictions, and lot's of unrest. Yet, I personally find the people to be very pleasant in-spite of all the social handicaps they knowingly, and unknowingly, deal with. In fact, on a pragmatic level, there is a sense of "goodness" in the fabric of this culture that is rarely found in many western cultures. Things such as lifelong commitment to family and friends... showing sacrificial hospitality to friends and strangers at all times... a moral compass provided through the widespread belief in the ethics of Islam that keeps petty crimes such as robbery and thuggery at a very low rate. In addition, this land is full of geographical, historical, and cultural treasures that are simply amazing, and truly worth the visit to come see.

Yes, there are injustices all over the place here in Yemen. Yet, let's not be too hasty to draw such a harsh picture of a place that's full of so many beautiful things.