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  Sanaa, Yemen
Thursday, August 23, 2007

Yesterday was brilliant. My teacher, Adil, invited me to a luch of 'selta' - a sizzling hot dish of meat, vegetables, cereals and stock, spiced with the interesting and piquante fenugreek. We were joined by Andreas (from Spain, another current student) and Patrice, a Frenchman from Perpignan who studied with Adil nearly ten years ago. Patrice's wife is a draughtswoman and works with a team of Venetian restoration workers on some of Yemen's mosques. This association allows him to look inside the buidlings, which are normally out of bounds here to non-Muslims.

After the meal, we went to Adil's house and chewed qat for several hours, discussing everything from religion to politics. Adil is extremely wise, and was very open-minded to our views, though firm in his own convictions. Generous, courteous and wise, he really does typify the virtues that Arabs are famous for and is a brilliant teacher to boot.

After this, I met Abdullah at the Bab al-Yemen and dined with him. As a result of yesterday, my view of Yemeni food has altered greatly - in the home, or in a good eatery, it is really really good.

Abdullah was the first ever student at Lydbury, and had loads of photos of his stay there (when I was only a few months old). Just as in Kenya four years ago, when friends of Mum and Dad in Nairobi showed me pictures of them in am dram productions back in the late seventies, it is a lovely feeling to be following in their footsteps and experiencing another part of our family history.

I'm really settling in in Sana'a now. Before, I couldn;t help comparing it with Damascus, where I spent several amazing weeks last year. It is fair to say that Yemen is a lot poorer than Syria, and Sanaa lacks Damscus' coffee shops and nargileh bars, and general chicness. However, it is of course a very different city, populated with extraordinarily generous people and filled with a culture all of its own.

As I walked back from the Bab al-Yemen I was engaged in conversation (as one frequently is) by a few guys gathering nearby. Before we'd exchanged any information about oursleves, one of them told me I had a sound Syrian accent. No doubt he was being over-complinetary, but that said I was pretty chuffed nonetheless, as Syrian Arabic is considered (at least by the Syrians) be fairly close to fus'ha. That said, Yemeni Arabic is definately closer to what I'd been learning at uni.

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