Hajjah - late November

 Saturday 18 November

One of my 2nd-year pupils, Muhammad Hussein Sharaf al-Din insisted that I have lunch at his house - he is actually one of the brightest of my pupils.  His father is dead, so his brother, aged 15, is head of the household.  We had bread - cooked by his mother, delicious - and hilbah (green and slightly slimy, but very nice), and a little meat.  

On Sunday another of my pupils, Mohammed Adbullah al-Madani, the first Mohammed's best friend, invited me to lunch.  Mohammed Sharaf al-Din came along.  The al-Madanis are obviously quite well off, and they had lots of meat.  Mohammed S's father died a year ago of cancer, so they are rather poor. Mohammed al-Madani's father earns 300YR per month and is something in the administration.  He had to leave because the governor, Mujahid Abu Shawarib, has come back at last.  The house that the al-Madanis live in is quite large, relatively speaking, and costs 15YR a month, which seems quite a bargain to me.

After lunch Mohammed Ali al-'Urbah (another 2nd year Mohammed) came round, and also a Yahya.  However he was soon followed by a first-year Yahya, so once again I became unique.

One of the palace staff came to tell me that the Egyptians were calling on Mujahid, and so I went across to join them.  The governor is here for two days, but will then need to go back to Sanaa.

On Wednesday 22nd I went up to Dhahrain to call on the nurses and had a cup of coffee and a chat.  They were glad to see me - a whole group of local women showed up shortly after I did, but wouldn't stay because there was a male loose in the house.  They had only really come to check up that the nurses' house was not a house of ill repute - once they had peeped at me sitting drinking coffee from behind a cupboard they didn't really want to stay anyway.  From my point of view it's rather difficult to escape from people's hospitality.  One advantage of calling on the nurses is that I can at least leave when I want, and I can help to keep scores of Yemeni women away, wo would otherwise come and "chat" all afternoon - and, apparently make things disappear - bandages, a tea strainer, biscuits, some rat-poison for example  (the woman they suspect of having removed the rat poison hasn't been seen for some time, which is a worry).

Friday 24 November 1972

Dr Walker arrived with some post from Sanaa.  I'm still wondering where my other suitcase has got to.

I took a walk to a place called al-Qutab.  I was surprised to find that the women dress quite differently from here.  Here they have black trousers under a long sort of skirt, but in Al Qutab they wear a sort of trousers, baggy down to the knees with embroidered gaiters of a sort between the knees and their feet - they are unveiled.

Monday 27th

Lunch today started with jehin bread and cheese.  Jehin is made of millet and is a brown, circular flat bread  about 9" in diameter.  Delicious.  Later went up to the fort - called al-Qahirah - and took some good photos looking down on Hajjah.

You never know when you will need a niddle.

Back to Hajjah

 Saturday 11 November 1972

With the end of Ramadan and the Id the journey back here, on Wednesday-Thursday was uneventful.  I was travelling with Peter Dahlen and Ewan, the Australian dentist (highly incompetent but inanely cheerful at the wheel of a Land Rover).  School has restarted.

When I arrived I discovered to my intense irritation that someone has been drinking my whisky - and, worse, topping up the bottle with dirty water.  I think I know who did it, but difficult for me to do anything about it, though.  Needless to say, the missionaries were highly amused by my adulterated whisky and glad that I was being led away from the evil of alcohol.  I can't say I am entirely sympathetic to their point of view.

My father sent me a valve to inflate footballs which I could use with my trusty bicycle pump.  I was able to inflate a football and a whole lot of us played football this afternoon.

A car fell off the road in one of the villages around Hajjah today - two people were killed.

Sunday 12 November

Sunday is a luxury I shall be glad to rediscover when I get back to England.  Friday cannot really match up to Sunday without bacon and eggs and Sunday papers.

A nice thing happened today - I bought some biscuits in a little shop and the woman behind what passed for a counter, who was feeding her baby at the time, charged me one riyal.  This afternoon, as I was going to the palace, she stopped me and said she had overcharged me and owed me 10 buqshas.  It was rather wonderful to see such honesty.

I made a tasty egg and vegetable curry for dinner.

Monday 13

There is a shortage of meat in Hajjah at the moment because all but two of the butchers are in prison for giving short weight.

Lunchtime - galloping diarrhoea.  Probably the liquorice allsorts I bought in Hodeidah on the way here. I'm dosing myself with Sulfamagna..

Evening -  strong enough to buy a tin of tinned mackerel and peas for dinner.

Tuesday 14 November

Bought some meat and onions and made a delicious Irish stew.  Rain in the evening

Wednesday 15th

Ahmed the palace guard has been very sick the past few days.  Today I overheard him saying to a friend that it was because of whisky.  So it was him.

Thursday 16th

Between lessons at the school I went to the market and bought some beef (1/2 a rutl, or about 3/4lb) for 1 riyal (8p, more or less).  I cooked the meat for a bit back at my room in the palace.  After school, and a lunch of egg and beans followed by tinned pears, I cooked the meat some more.  Also I had bought a metal bucket to replace the plastic one that I had used to rig up a water filter, but which had cracked, and took it along to a blacksmith to put a hole in the bottom to screw the filter candle into.  Working well.

Also in the afternoon I gave an English lesson to one shopkeeper, and another asked me to give his two incurably stupid sons English tuition for 20YR a month.  Later I pumped up a third football and a group of teachers and pupils played volleyball for a while.

One of the teachers has got bilharzia.  I'm wondering what I should do if I get it - it seems to be endemic here.

For dinner I cooked the meats some more, but it was still gristly and hard.  More cooking required for the leftovers, which will make a curry.

During the morning the truck which had fallen off the road about a month ago was recovered and brought back into town - rather bent and covered in blood, but it will probably be patched up again.  Did I mention earlier that I had taken a picture from one of the palace windows of men threshing millet below?

The Red Sea Mission nurses, Vera and Anitra, tell me that it might be possible to send things out to me via Dr Gurney who is based in London.  I will send details.

Friday 17th

In the morning I walked downhill to a small village - almost part of the town - called al-Qala'ah, just below Dhahrain.  On my way back up the hill a pupil, whose name I don't recall, took me to his house for coffee.  The house was very clean and beautiful, and not smelly although they have a goat living in the hallway.

In the afternoon I decided to go for a longish walk with some of the school pupils to a village called Bayt Zuhair, about a mile and a half from the town.  I was taken to the house of one of my students, Hussein Hamid al-Shubati, and was given qishr coffe (made with the husks of the coffee beans, and had a puff on his father's hubbly bubbly (called a madaa'ah here).    I was given a gift of six eggs too! 

They told me that this was the last republican village on the line between the republicans, who held Hajjah, and the royalists.  Next Friday I shall set of earlier and see if I can get to the next village, Himlan, which was royalist.

One thing I noticed today was the use of hand gestures to supplement - or even replace - speech.  The index finger of the right hand, pointing upwards  at elbow height and rotated in a small circle means "where are you going?"

Still in Sanaa

 Monday November 6 1972

Still staying at Richard Jarvis's.  Yesterday saw a succession of dramas.  Mrs Bird (British Council) came round wanting to see Richard.  Her landlord was demanding more money, which put Richard into a sort of seething rage all morning.  Then at lunchtime Richard sacked his cook; and I heard that John B's cook, Hassan, had gone off at 3am to seek vengeance on a shaikh who had put his brother in prison  Apparently Richard and John had been to a place called Mahwit, where Hassan is from, a month ago, and a sub-shaikh reported to the main shaikh that the Europeans had been kissing the women.  Hassan's brother was flung into prison and chains put round his ankles, and a military guard was put on the village.  Hassan's brother was released two days ago and arrived in Sanaa late last Saturday.  Hassan went bonkers and set out at 3am to seek vengeance, leaving his wife and new child crying and John's house in total disarray.

More surprises followed.  Richard's cook, Sayyid, didn't accept his dismissal and came back to make supper, which I had at 8.15, though Richard was still out.  When he returned we went to John B's as the cannons for the end of Ramadan had started firing.  At about 11.30, just after we arrived, it started raining, apparently the heaviest rain they had had for the last 3 years.  Hassan hadn't after all been able to get a taxi to Mahwit because of the end of Ramadan and was settled behind the bar, drinking twice as much as everyone else.

After we had been at John's for a while Richard decided we should leave because he and JB and two others have been a rather compulsory invitation to visit someone at a place called Kawkaban for the next few days.  I shall stay at Richard's house until I leave Sanaa, whenever that is.

When we left JB's it was still raining, and the wadi that runs through the middle of Sanaa, where Richard had parked the Land Rover, was filling with water, flowing quite fast.  We paddled our way to the Rover and set off up the wadi into the cenbtree of Sanaa - but after about 1/4 mile the engine conked out in mid stream with water in the distributor.  It was too dark to do anything and too wet to walk home so we slept for a while.  Fortunately, after about 45 minutes it had dried enough for uys to resume our journey, and we got in at about 1.30.  It was a strange experience to be shipwrecked in the middle of Sanaa!

A trip to Sanaa

 Monday 30 October 1972

We left Hajjah shortly after 11am.  From the town it was a long, slow grind down to the bottom off the mountains at little more than walking pace for 2 or 3 hours, until we reached Suq al-Aman where we bought petrol (sold in jerry-cans).  From there to Qanawis which had the sophistication of a real petrol pump in the middle of a grass-hut village.  We continued on to Bajil, on the main road between Hodeidah and Sanaa.  The lowlands are now much cooler than a month ago.  There has been a lot of rain and some of the desert tracks have been washed away in the week since the Mission team came up to Hajjah.

1 November

We arrived in Sanaa at 2.15 in the morning of 31 October and I kipped down at Peter Dahlen's house.  The next day I was able to meet up with some VSO volunteers and the co-ordinator, Paddy Coulter, who gave me a run-down on who was in town - Richard Jarvis is away at the moment, and John Baldry has one of the VSO volunteers staying with him while his housing is being sorted out, but Paddy has offered to put me up for a day or two.

I was planning to go to the Cold Store to buy some goodies to take back to the hills, but first of all tried to get hold of some cash that my parents had sent out via the Midland Bank and the Yemen Bank for Reconstruction, rather than the United Bank.  Then I couldn't do my shopping because the Cold Store was shut, so I went by the International School, where I had a bite to eat.  I left the food at the Boyds and then went back to Paddy's via the Yemen Bank (shut) and a shop where I bought some shoelaces.  

Paddy's house is out of water, so no chance of a decent shower there - I shall have to ask if I can stay at the Boyds again as Paddy and his wife Angela are off to Taizz.

Hajjah is about the same size as Ferrette in Alsace, I guess, but there are several villages all very close.  Sanaa can't be bigger than 500,000 or so,but there are no accurate figures.  I shall try to get a lift to the hills above Sanaa so I can take a picture or two to give an idea of the size.  

Now we are into November it gets very cold at night in Sanaa - bitter, in fact.

I'm still trying to track down the £80 I was sent, and worrying that the pound is about to be devalued to $2.25.  After visiting the bank I went by the Ministry of Education to see Richard Jarvis (now back), and will be able to stay at his house for a couple of nights.

2 November

Visited the Higher College and met John Baldry and another British Council teacher.

Postcard to my brother, dated 2 November

3 November

Richard Jarvis offered to take a small group of us - John B, Mervyn (a volunteer) and Daniel (staying at John's) on an outing to a valley some distance from Sanaa called Wadi Dahr.  It was some miles away, along a rough track, but with spectacular views from the rim.

I've now tracked down the money from home, and now have about £180 in the bank here.  However, I'm wondering whether I should send some of it back - there are anti-governments rumblings here and rumours of a period of disturbance, if not of civil war.  The "Voice of the Free South" - a radio station in Saudi - is trying to get Royalist tribes west of  Sanaa to overthrow the government for agreeing to unite with the South.

Sunday 22 October

Tuesday 24 October, 1972

It's almost a week since the first of my cases turned up - just as well, as the weather is turning cold and windy.  If the other one doesn't turn up by next Wednesday I'll make a revised list for the insurance.  How the first one got here is a complete mystery - someone mentioned that after it had been found in London it had been sent London-Cairo-Taizz so how it was intercepted and retrieved by the Governor's man in Hodeidah, goodness knows.

Last Friday six Egyptian teachers arrived in Hajjah.  Apparently all the Yemeni teachers will be sent elsewhere, except for Munabbih, since there isn't a trained Arabic teacher among the Egyptians.  There is an English teacher in the Egyptian group, but the director of education said he wanted to keep his English English teacher.  The Egyptian English teacher wasn't complaining anyway, as he will go back to Sanaa.  It is quite amazing how alarmed the Egyptians get at the prospect of bilharzia and no electricity. 

What with the loss of my luggage, and the disappearance of most of the postcards I sent from Cairo, I'm not altogether impressed with Egypt and Egyptians at the moment. 

Last night the Yemeni teachers went to the education director with an ultimatum - either they stay in Hajjah or they return to Sanaa.  They refused to be sent out to some of the village schools in the governorate.  The director has therefore decided to let them stay to teach in the primary school, while the Egyptians, Munabbih and myself will teach in the prep school.

Thursday 26 October

Today I was supposed to be moving to the teachers' house.  However, no-one showed up to move my things.  Peter Dahlen of the Red Sea Mission arrived with the long-promised nurses.  He is going back to Sanaa on Monday, so if I can I shall go back with him and see if I can pop in to Aeroflot in Hodeidah and ask about the case.

Saturday 28 October

Yesterday I helped the nurses to move stuff into their new house, in the upper part of the town called Dhahrain.  There were one or two problems due to the fact that, although the Mission had been paying rent on the house for four months there are some women living in the house whose husbands are in different parts of the country and they have had to be "moved".

This afternoon it rained a lot in the afternoon.  I have taken a set of rainy and misty pictures .  I helped the nurses again with their move - I have been offered a free lift to Sanaa, so it is worth it!)

There was no electricity in the palace last night or tonight.  I went over to the post office radio office (where the generator is) to find out what has happened.  Apparently the post office has run out of petrol until the end of the month. One of the radio operators has offered to teach me the Morse code in Arabic.

Sunday 29 October

The nurses' housing sage continues - Peter Dahlen went to find the house owner to pay the rent, but he was nowhere to be found, so Peter decided to leave the money with the village governor.  But when he met him, it transpired that the governor had had the house owner thrown into prison for being obstructive about evicting the local women (though the medical team had not complained).  Eventually the owner was released and matters cooled down.  It seems that in this area anyone who won't co-operate in any way is thrown into priison.  I was told that when the men hired to carry the luggage from the Red Sea Mission's car to the house (about a quarter of a mile) refused to work on a Friday a warrant for their arrest was issued.  In no time at all they were friendly and co-operative.