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Pictures from my rooftop.

During my three months in Yemen, I rented a flat on the top three floors of an old city house. It was a large enough flat, with a kitchen (very VERY basic!), bedroom, a small hammam, a lounge and a qat chewing room (mafraj), as well as a rooftop for drying clothes. I had to be careful, though, as my house looked directly into my neighbours' houses, and the house is the only place which guarantees enough privacy for a woman to remove her veil and headscarf. This meant that I had to keep the net curtains closed at all times, and when I was on the roof, I couldn't look down in case I happened to see a woman uncovered in her house or courtyard.
I could have found a modern flat with washing machine and other Western conveniences quite easily if I had wanted to, but living in the old city was a much more attractive idea, despite the two-day-a-week water shortages, the frequent power cuts, the leaking roof, the muezzins' call to prayer just outside my window at dawn, and the noisy goats being transferred between gardens...but it was a beautiful building and all went well....until the landlord fell out with his wife and decided to move in with me!!!
This brought more cultural problems into the household, as his daughters kept visiting him in my flat, which meant that I had to disappear. Even though they were fairly young, they were old enough to be veiled, and up until this point I had not seen them at all. Following the landlord's unexpected arrival, there were several embarrassing moments when I had entered my flat to find his daughters unveiled watching my TV, and causing shrieks and mass embarrassment all round! After that, I had to get used to shouting "Allah, Allah" as I climbed the stone stairs to my flat, warning any women inside that I was coming!
None of the photos I took inside my flat came out, so unfortunately I only have pictures taken from my rooftop.

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as-Sa'ila

The Sa'ila cuts the old city in two, and from the picture it looks like a road, but is in fact a river. During the rainy season (usually July and August), the Sa'ila fills extremely quickly after the daily evening rains. After very heavy rain, the river sometimes floods a rubbish dump in a southern suburb, sending garbage flowing through the city - when I was there, two street children who had been playing in the rising waters were knocked out by passing debris and drowned.
Every day during the rains, the local drivers seem to think that they can drive through deep water without any problems, and of course get stuck...when the river dries up, the Sa'ila is littered with broken-down cars!

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Bustan as-sultan

Bustan as-Sultan (the Sultan's Garden) is, for me, the most beautiful of the old city's many patches of greenery. My house was just behind these buildings.

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More views of Old Sana'a

These three photos were taken from the roof of the Taj Telha Hotel, where I stayed until I found my flat.

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The Suq al-Milh

From the roof of an art gallery in a converted old house, you can see the low roofs of the market. The large "castle-type" building is, I think, a samsara, where money used to be kept overnight once the market stalls had closed. There are many of these dotted around, most of them now used as houses or warehouses, and one or two of them restored and filled with craftshops.

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Typical street

My teacher Osama on a "walkabout" in the old city. This is one of the few paved streets in the old city, most of them still with mud surfaces. Many are being paved, with funding from the EU, which was causing no end of chaos while I was there!
The mud streets were fine for walking on, as long as there hadn't been much rain, but when cars drove down them, they produced huge dustclouds....a good argument for banning cars in the old city!

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My teacher, Osama

This is a picture of my teacher Osama on the roof of the Sana'a Institute for Arabic Language, where I studied for three months.

(For more information about this institute, and about studying Arabic, please visit my "Middle East" page.)

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Osama's House

Osama lives in Sharia' Ha'il, sometimes called Sharia' Riyadh, in the modern part of Sana'a. He lives with four of his brothers, his mother, wife, and two of his sisters. His father and three other wives and more brothers and sisters live next door

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A Yemeni Wedding

One day, Osama told me he was going to the wedding of a friend of a friend of a friend's distant cousin, so of course I was invited too! He made me dress in traditional Yemeni clothes bought especially for the occasion, and lent me his brother's jambiyya. As we set off to buy qat for the wedding, I felt very self-conscious - everybody was staring at me, as I was obviously a foreigner, wondering what the hell I was doing chewing qat and wearing Yemeni clothes! Even worse was entering the huge room hired for the pre-marriage qat chew, which was packed full of chewers. I think I got more attention to begin with than the two bridegrooms, but once word spread that I spoke Arabic and was a "veteran qat chewer" (Osama's words, not mine!), everybody welcomed me, and I felt at ease.
The wedding went on for hours, culminating in a loud procession/dance to the bride's house, finishing when the bridegroom took a running leap over the threshold into his new wife's house. This was the first time that he had properly been introduced to his wife. Osama is pictured in the centre of the photo, between the two bridegrooms.

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This was where the noisy goats were transported to and from every morning at some unearthly hour.....on my days off, I was particularly unimpressed!!!

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My House!

It is impossible to get a good photo of my house from the outside, and all the photos of the inside were ruined by airport x-ray machines, so I'm left with just this view of the alleyway by my front door.

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Yemeni Windows (Qamariyyah)

Any house worth its salt will have beautiful stained glass windows like this one...they are especially beautiful when the sun shines directly through them, particularly when chewing qat.

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Bab al-Yemen

Bab al-Yemen is the gateway to the Suq al-Milh, the "Salt Market" which sells everything but salt! The gate was built by the Turks, and seems somewhat out of place, especially since the area has been "tidied up" and makeshift stalls are no longer allowed to spill outside the gate. Bab al-Yemen is so-called because it is the southern entrance to the old city.

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I had been very wary about taking pictures of Yemenis....wasn't sure how it would go down, and also felt slightly embarrassed and very self-conscious taking photos of people. But one day, my teacher accompanied me ona "photo-shoot" in the old city, took hold of my camera and began pointing it at stallholders in the Suq al-Milh....well, they were delighted, and all of them were arguing over who should have their photo taken with me in their stall...this man won!