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.