Bringing Yemen Closer

This separation from The Man is a little harder to take than the others. Maybe knowing the absence is for six months makes me anxious. Maybe it's because I don't have a new routine yet. But I feel better now that I have talked to The Man on the phone for almost two hours today.

It was Wednesday night there, he had just finished work. He's been invited to a dinner party tonight at the home of the chief regional security coordinator, who lives across from the British Embassy. This is why he is in Yemen, to get dinner invitations like this. Tomorrow, a co-worker will go with him to look at apartments in an area called Al-Hal. He may rent there because it's a newer area and the apartments are cleaner. Most foreigners live in this area. It is supposed to be safer.

Weekends in the Middle East are Thursdays and Fridays. The work week starts Saturday. To conduct business between North America and the Middle East, Thursdays to Sundays are basically out. That leaves Monday to Wednesday to communicate. But you have to coordinate the time so that both sides are still operating during business hours.

That's almost impossible. Our work day is 9 to 5 (4 to midnight their time). Their work day is 7:30 to 3:30 (12:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. our time). Unless you are keen to communicate outside of business hours on both sides, there is no opportunity to talk. No wonder such a wide gulf of misunderstanding exists between North America and the Middle East. What was that appointment George Bush made where the head of intelligence services in the Middle East speaks no Arabic?

Well, The Man is not going to be like that. He and a co-worker have enrolled in Arabic classes.

UNICEF occupies at least three floors of a building where The Man works. On his floor, he believes he may be the only white person. Two-thirds of the staff are local Yemeni. All the women have their heads veiled, some are even in burqa. The day is dotted with prayer sessions. He went into someone's office to ask for something and saw her in prayer, so he tiptoed back out.

He's not found the food at the hotel comforting. It's the month of Ramadan there. No one at the office eats during the day so it's not like he can say, Let's go grab a sandwich, at lunch.

The most disconcerting fact is that all Yemeni men carry guns as a status symbol. He often hears gun shots during the day. During the day, he concentration is broken by calls to prayer. At night, his sleep is punctured by rattling gunfire. He has been told to stay away from the window when he hears gunfire. And Yemen is a safe country. All his co-workers say so. Ah that's just someone shooting off a gun, just ignore it and stay away from the window.

He takes a cab to and from work. The cost is about $2 a ride. He does this so he won't get lost. The walk might take an hour. He's met a driver who loves Kenny Rogers and plays him in his car. The driver was glad to learn from The Man that Neil Young is Canadian.

On the work front, he is preparing his first deliverable - a timeline of what he will do. He will be conducting interviews with various people. Later, he will go into rural areas to conduct more interviews. He thinks once he gets going, the six months will go fast.

As for me, time drags right now. I had no idea how much I structured my day around The Man. Quite a revelation really. But I will take it easy, do the things that nurture me and come up with some goals of what I will do over the next phase of my life.