nuns.

dana, after mass, back in black hijab and abaya
nun: oh, you look like a nun!
dana: um...
a little later
different nun: oh, you look like a Carmelite!
(now i'm trying to figure out if that's better or worse than "oh, you look like a Yemeni" except you can see my face! I'm going with better)

dana, in the street, in black hijab & abaya, surrounded by children
Edward: you remind me of a school nun, you know, with the all black and children flocking to you....
dana: i am now seriously freaked out.

from the BCP

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name; through Christ our Lord. Amen. ~Book of Common Prayer, 323 (Holy Eucharist Rite I)

gat

I chewed gat yesterday with Morgan, John and Bryan, (though Bryan didn't actually chew) on the roof. The process was something like : I walk around the corner with Noah (the American gat addict), who picks our gat out for us. Gat is basically leaves. no. it really just is leaves of this plant, that is supposed to be a mild stimulant.

So, you chew these leaves and then hold them in your cheek, basically all afternoon. and it's not like tobacco that you spit out. so this wad forms in your cheek. and it's kinda gross, really. more so when it's evening and time to spit the wad out. NA-STY.

and after like four hours of chewing this stuff, nothing. no high, no extra energy, nothing.

And then I smoked shisha with the same group. the end.
~dana.

camera update

I broke down and bought a new camera yesterday. So there will be new pictures sometime. (sony, cybershot or something)

sad times, yo.

my camera broke. i'm figure i'll try some "home remedies" i found on the internet, and when they don't work, i'll ask my teacher or someone who's been here a long time about camera repair places in sana'a. here's to hoping.

Catholicism.

Before I came here, I thought a lot about the church/jesus situation. I was very sad to leave my church. I had basically just found it, was finally opening up to people and then, the opportunity came up to come over here. I looked into it and I thought yeah, I can do the Catholic Church, it's basically the same thing, right? and nuns, surely the opportunity to be with saving-the-world nuns will make up for the theological/liturgical/accepting differences between the Catholic church and my amazingly-beautiful-in-oh-so-many-ways Episcopal Church (both particular and world-wide)

And now, now I'm not so sure. Let me start with: I can be extremely shallow when it comes to church. I went to four Episcopal churches in Des Moines during the three months I was there (not counting the Anglican/TAC that I attended pre-moving). I attended all of them twice, except the one I decided was good enough, which I attended thrice.

I really don't have any other (liturgical) options, though I heard about this ultra-protestant one that my mom would probably rather have me go to, but the stories, they scare me. But in some ways, the liturgical route just makes me realize what I'm missing. I miss the "subtitles" I miss the Nicene Creed (they use the Apostle's). I miss a hymnal - words on a screen, not the same. I miss the organ - guitar, not the same. I miss the confession of sins, [especially now that St. Stephen's is using the "most merciful god" (which is my favorite) or at least they were for Easter. Now, I don't know.] I miss hearing things Mother Kathy says. Acutally, I REALLY miss hearing things Mother Kathy says. And the cadence of the prayers is all wrong. (one of the churches in des moines, I decided not to go there because i hated how the priest ran through the Eucharist (rite d) as fast as he possibly could. (I personally don't like rite d, but doing it faster makes it even worse, not better.)

That's probably enough. I'll probably get used to it, I don't really want to, but I do want to continue to go.

And that's that. I swear I'm not miserable all the time, just some times.

Yay for meeting random Americans in Yemen.

Yesterday I went out to eat at this Indian restaurant with Isaac and we took a debab over to the street it was on (which incidentally runs right by the MT house, so I just cut at 40 min walk into ... a whole lot less than 30 min.) But I sat next to this girl, before we got on, I was totally checking out her balto, it was very nice. Afterwards though, I wasn't wanting to move my head because I just knew my hijab was going to fall off, so I didn't even realize that she wasn't wearing the niqaab until she started talking to me in English. Anyway, we hated on the men here and then exchanged numbers. Sweet. Also, the indian food was good. Not spicy, because I just can't take that.

finishing the day

1. run errands with Jennifer
2. curse a lot about stupid yemeni boys
2. walk, walk, blah: CELLPHONE!
3. yemeni boy tries to rip me off. bastard.
3. wash abaya. it's dirty.
4. decide to finally eat something todayt
5. run outside to get beverages
6. come back home, find huge loogie on abaya
7. restart/continue to curse stupid yemeni boys.
8. wash abaya again. g-d-m-f.
9. cook/eat/curse.

that's pretty much it.

if you honk at me i will not get in your taxi.

today i have:
1. gone to the bank and set up an account
2. got lost
3. backtracked to tahreer
4. took a taxi to the blood bank
5. been utterly confused by some girls
6. had blood drawn for a test
7. got so lost i couldn't backtrack
6. finally caved and took a little bus to tahreer
7. was very confused about where in tahreer i was
8. miraculously ended up on a very familiar street.
9. made it home
10. checked my email.

and it's only 12:30. too bad i still have stuff i need to do today.

The mosquitos like me here.

Now, I just need to work on evening out the days. Less sucky ones, more generally okay ones. The past couple have been amazing/generally okay.

I made it out to Mass last night, with a German guy. The priest is Indian, and I think by the time I leave we will have had some very interesting conversations. The nuns were there and they are like "come over any time except between 12-3, we don't receive visitors then", so on Wednesday (insha'allah) I will go after class and find out what all is up with that. I'm very excited.

Today I headed over to the US Embassy to get a letter of no objection to stay in Yemen. The cab driver on the way over ripped me off, and I walked home, which I was intending to do anyway, but it took about an hour. Then to the supermarket (which is quite another walk) with Jennifer, my flatmate. I'm pretty sure I have a sunburn now. I'm so totally not diligent in sunblock application (or vocabulary memorization, or food consumption).

I'm exhausted now, so I should probably go.

i'm still not muslim

So class today was pretty much awful. I am unsure if it's depression, stress (unlikely) or just normal cultural adjustment. Things are a bit better now, but I'm hopeful that by the grace of God tomorrow will be better. Or if nothing else, it will take the wrath of god to make things worse -- which I don't think is upon me. In Surat al-Fatiha (the opening sura to the koran, recited at every prayer, I believe) there is a line, "Show us your straight path, not the path of those upon whom is your wrath" or something similar (this is my memory of a translation or of a conglomeration of translations)

prayer

"put this over your face" "oh, anti jameela"

So I went and played with Yemeni children again today. This time, towards the end, I definitely was asked if I wanted to convert to Islam, (I was asked yesterday as well, but today I was all alone with my 12 words of Arabic-- none of them particularly religious) then why not, then what's this crossing oneself thing, then something about when I, or Christians, or something pray. That one is harder because how do you say, "no, we don't pray five times a day," when, maybe this communal motion is not your concept of prayer. Definitely communal prayer is not five times a day (unless you're a NUN). But for many Muslims (though maybe not here), they go to the mosque once a week, as we go to church. I don't know. I definitely don't know the Arabic for it either.

totally inappropriate punctuation ahead

today: class: colors. sweet.
after class: no eating. because sometimes i'm retarded.
after class: psalters and random updates via computer
after class: "do you want to go play with some children?" "uh, yeah" little children teach me their names and are probably hopeful that i will remember them. poor children. i will try, but names (asma') have never been my strong point. throw in vocabulary...
after class: television and raining.
the end.

Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated.

So, apparently I haven't been writing about class. I assure you that I have class and I go to class, but let me explain a minute. Class is class. About every other day is completely craptastic and every other day is fine. Today, Grammar. sweet-tastic, let me tell you. I actually like it, at least I like it a lot more than vegetables and speaking in a restaurant. I can get by now with the foods, min fadlek, shokran, and bikam? really. If I tried to use some of the vocabulary they are teaching me, I would get strange looks, and by that I mean even stranger than the looks I get for being a chick in a restaurant.

My teacher is really nice, very patient and always tells me I did or said something "mumtaz" and I don't really believe her ever. Today she was like "and now I will show you how to tell the difference between the dual and the plural because sometimes they look the same but they sound different" "awesome" "what is this?" "mumtaz" "oh, you will get used to it." (flashbacks to math "In mathematics, you don't understand things. You just get used to them.")

Um... other than that, I'm living off of Dejaj and Biskrem which are, respectively, Chicken and this brand of chocolate filled cookies, along with the occasional packet of chips, or uh... fries

As I stated before, I have found some nuns and in the process, I have arrangements to meet with someone on Sunday and go to Mass with him. I haven't decided what I'm going to do about communion yet. I guess I'll feel that out when I get there, like everything else here.

today (suked)

i bought a balto and hijab today. (that didn't suck) (the end)

revision (aka, not the end): I FOUND THE NUNS! THE NUNS, THEY WORK WITH OLD PEOPLE! NUNS AND OLD PEOPLE! (now, the end)

Chuck Norris can blow bubbles with beef jerky.

okay, i really don't know what it is with the chuck norris facts, but at least they're better than dead baby jokes...

So, it's Pentecost, and I've been missing St. Stephen's. Like, everything. The people, the building, the jesus. And today, a red day. Anyway, I miss you all.

I think I really need to find the nuns. I think they work with old people. nuns and old people! Seriously, people! need. to. find. them.

maybe that's all.

you're beautiful, it's true.

Today, this Noah was in the internet mafraj chewing gat, and so I chewed a bit with him. Damn, that stuff is nasty. I could only take that chunk of leaves in my cheek for like an hour. They say you need to do it several times for two hours, at least (the yemenis do it for much longer, but maybe I'll pass. I'm already freaking out about money. and then I'm like "chill, dana" because really, if it ends up being that big of a deal, I can go home in December, or as many have suggested, teach English. (along with going home, or leaving in some way because apparently, you just need the break)

One of the teachers asked how my course was going. Apparently, it is possible to add more hours if I so desire. However, I think I'm going to take this month at least with just two hours a day. I'll think about adding more hours later.

Learning veggies (gag me with a wooden spoon) fruits (much better) and numbers (much needed!) so far in class this week. (given today is day one of the week, assabt)

Pictures up of a local fruit juice shop, whose love for sadam is apparent in the posters plastered over it. Sana'a is covered in posters of the President, Saleh and Sadam. The due was sure to point out the one of Sadam with his bint, daughter.

I'm meeting some very interesting, nice, cool people. The institute is overrun with Americans right now. Though there is a good European population as well, I honestly have no idea how many people are here now, though.

helen keller's favorite color is chuck norris

So, maybe tonight I was incredibly rude, but maybe I wasn't. I walked around old Sana'a with a girl living on my floor and intended to be all touristic (a word I picked up in Morocco) with the picture taking and then wasn't particularly, but I did get in and ask a couple of shops in the souq to take pictures of their cloth. This stuff is in-sane. It's wildly colorful and be-fuckin-dazzled, yet all you see when people are walking around is black, black, black. Though the cloth seen on flickr is probably more for wedding dresses (where women can be as revealing as they want because men and women have separate wedding parties.) than every day wear.

On second thought, about the touristic thing, maybe I wasn't particularly tonight, but throughout the day, I got quite a few really good pictures. (check it)

Apparently, the other day, I was talking about my old people from work and the girl I was talking (American) with asked about the dialect in Missouri, because apparently I switched to "Ozark" without meaning to or any thought involved. And... that kinda made me happy.

Today, I had class to make up for the missed class earlier this week, then I met this girl headed to lunch with some other people and went with them. Salta again, it is quite good. We went to lunch with two of the professors at the institute, and we were driving back, and then they left and there were three of us girls sitting in the car and a BUS HITS the car. Oh yeah. None of use were able to speak Arabic well enough to this guy (who has a sizable wad of gat in his cheek) to be like "yo, this isn't our car, he said he'd be back in five minutes, but maybe it's been longer than that already" but, he hung around and Lucy went of to find the teacher. In the end, the two shook hands, looked at the scratch and were like "it's okay" shook hands and we went our ways. Really, you should see the cars here, maybe they all look a bit like farm trucks.

random stuff.

seriously, what is this current obsession with Psalters? Thanks Roommate.

oh, jesus conversations, how i love thee. which transitions (somehow) to "you haven't seen ask a ninja ?!? i'm going to make you now. it's like five minutes. and by five minutes i mean a minute and a half"

speaking the president's english among the brits.

(i knew regaining my accent would be beneficial)

Yesterday, as I was walking along the Wadi (paved water-way going through the city, right now it's a road) these boys started yelling "thank you! thank you!" I think it was the only English they knew. Anyway, I was doing a pretty good job of just ignoring them, but finally I turned around and was like "me?" and they were like "sura, sura" and I was like "of you two? aren't you a little old for that?" honestly. So, look for the picture of the two "way-too-old-to-be-asking-for-a-sura" boys on flickr. (though, honestly, they were holding hands & wearing traditional dress, including jambia so it was a good excuse to get a nice picture of something I wanted anyway without me having to ask.)

Then, last night, Henry and Adil and I walked to Tahreer square and then took a bus to Haddha Street where we walked around. Mumtaza. Theoretically, that's where the Catholic Church is. Practically, I don't think there is an Catholic Church building, but that they meet in someone's house. I have a lead on how to find them now. "Just ask any Filipino" mmm-hmm... So, back to Haddha, we walked down this street for a while, it's kinda crazy. We end up drinking some mango juice (uh-mazing) and later stop for a little bit of dinner, some okay kebabs. I'm pretty sure the guy directly in front of me was ... flirting, of sorts. I mean, looking at me and tearing his bread with both hands in this "look at me" way. It was quite amusing.

There is not much harassment on the streets, as maybe I've said before. A lot of "Hello, where are you from" Probably because this is the little English they know. Occasionally some whistling, where I instinctively have to grit my teeth and clench my hands because I really want to throw the bird and be like "fuck off" But I've been very good so far.

Today, I bought Islamic prayer beads. Afterwards, I was asked if I was Muslim, and at this point, my head wasn't even covered. Whatever. I think they will go well with my rosary. (shhh, don't tell my mom.)