Some first impressions

2 October 1972

In Hajjah people still talk of the Imams, and some still have their watches set to "Islamic" time - the day starts for Muslims at sunset (ie about 6pm) when they set their watches at 12, so they are six hours different from what you would expect.  However, the Republic abolished Muslim time and imposed infidel time.

Hajjah is actually very pleasant - fairly well spaced out, with a hospital, a preparatory  school and two new schools (secondary level) under construction, one for the boys and the other, placed just by the main mosque in the Hawrah area, for the girls.  But although the town seems to be quite well organised - almost developed - there is no piped water, and no sewage system, but the long-drop toilets in the houses are probably a lot more hygeinic than flush toilets that don't work (as in the hotel in Hodeidah).  I hope that self-sterilising filter candles are OK - I lost all my water purifying tablets in my luggage. The German trained doctor has told me I can get some water tablets from the hospital tomorrow, in case the filter doesn't sterilise enough.

Men in Yemen mostly wear a footah (a sort of skirt) or a thowb which is full length, plus a jambiyah - a ceremonial curved dagger and, except in Sanaa and Hodeidah, a rifle or sub-machine gun, most of which are Russian.  The Governor also carries a pistol.  On their heads they wear a sort of fez, but made of straw or something like that, around which is wrapped cloth to make a nice headcovering.

Hajjah is hotter than Sanaa when the sun is out, but when the sun goes in we are actually in the cloud, so it is rather cold and damp.  This afternoon has been cold and cloudy, and it is thundery weather now - maybe it will rain.

My food and tea comes from a kitchen which is outside, on the ground floor, so everything is only half warm when it reaches me five floors up.  However, I have invested in a primus stove (called a "baramoos" here) to make tea for myself.  I'm looking forward to that.

Ramadan begins next Monday (a week today) - no food to be consumed between about 6am and 7.30 pm.  Then, about 6 or 7 November, is the 'Id al-Fitr, which means break-fast feast, and lasts for 5 days (officially - unofficially, most of two weeks). 

The start of the school term has been delayed for a week so that the new teachers can see round Hajjah and get settled in - nearly all of the Yemeni ones are here now.  There are some others expected from Egypt or Syria in about two weeks.

I understand that the Governor may be delayed for some time because of the war with south Yemen - he is a brigadier or something in the army.  If the country gets plunged into chaos I shall probably have to leave, but with all the weaponry available and the fact that there are Russians and Chinese on both sides of the border, I doubt if the fighting can spread significantly.

Hajjah - finding my way around

1 October 1972 (still)

Later on the day I arrived I was taken to the palace where I met the director of education and one of two doctors in Hajjah - he was trained in West Germany for two years, until relations were broken, and then in East Germany.  Later I was taken to my room at the top of the palace - it's a small room with a separate toilet room off a small hallway, and a walled veranda sort of thing round three sides.  Later on the electricity in the palace was turned on - especially for me, so they said - and during the evening I played chess with the doctor (he won).  Earlier on I met a teacher called Azzadin who I had met in Sanaa and the British Council director, Richard Jarvis, had told to look after me. We went out and had dinner at a local restaurant (of sorts).

In the evening the electricity failed twice about 10pm and then went off altogether having borrowed a torch from the German-trained doctor.  That was last night.

This morning one of the servants at the palace brought me some breakfast at about 7am.  I have no idea who is paying for this food, but I dare say I shall find out in the next week or so.  Then I went downstairs to a sort of general meeting room in the palace.  Hamud was there, and then a number of us went to see the governor's representative in another part of the palace.  There I met a man who had spent a year in Small Heath in Birmingham.  Then I met someone else about my age, called Ismail, who took me to see the school which is rather rough and ready, and then the Education Office which is in an old building on another hill in the town.  Then we went to see the hospital again, where the German-speaking doctor explained that they were rebuilding the hospital because it had all been destroyed in the civil war.

It seems that Hajjah was in the thick of the fighting for most of the time the war was going on but I haven't worked out yet whether it was a republican stronghold surrounded by royalists or the other way round.  They have only really started rebuilding in the last year, although the war ended 2 or 3 years ago.  Then Ismail and a friend of his and I went to see coffee trees in one of the wadis below Hajjah.  Most of the agriculture in Hajjah is millet or qat - less coffee now because qat pays better.  Then we went to Ismail's uncle's house where we had coffee, smoked a hubbly bubbly (called a madaah here) and ate toasted millet and some sort of beans.

When we got back to the palace I found that my trunk hadn't made its way from Hamud's house yet, so Ismail went off to see what had happened to it.  Shortly afterwards several people arrived pushing and shoving it up the stairs, so I was able to unpack some of the things I had bought in Sanaa.

A bit later, about 1.30, Azzidin came to say hello again.  He is rather hard work and his English is not too hot, although he has been studying it in Sanaa and is supposed to be able to teach it. Unfortunately he doesn't understand the local Arabic dialect well either, as he is from the south somewhere where the dialect is quite different.  In the afternoon Ismail came to take me to his house on the back side of the hill facing the town called Naaman.There we chewed qat with a whole group of friends, smoked a hubble bubble and (ahem) drank some whisky afterwards. 

Naaman hill facing Hajjah town. The Education Department is the large building on the right hand side.

When I got back to the palace at about 8pm there was a kerosene lamp for my room which hadn't been there the night before, when the electricity went off, so I had supper and sat down to write this letter, then probably I shall go to sleep.

Hajjah - getting there part 2

1 October 1972 - later

The second part of the journey here.

On Friday (29th) I didn't do much in the morning, and Hamud asked if I would like to see some of the town.  I thought that might be nice, and so he told the guard who was with us to give me a quick tour on foot.  The guard set off at enormous speed so that I was mainly rushing to keep up rather than sightseeing.


We were supposed to continue our journey to Hajjah at 4pm, but the car - another Toyota Landcruiser - didn't show up till nearly 5.  We stopped by at someone who I think is the governor's representative in Hodeida and gave him my baggage tickets in case my luggage turns up, so that he can send it on to me in Hajjah.

We set off northwards from Hodeida along a pretty good tarmacked road, making me wonder if the road system in Yemen was quite as undeveloped as Professor S had suggested.  But after a short distance we came to a roadblock on the road.  Straight ahead, along the nicely surfaced roadway, was  the port, I was told.  We weren't going that way.  Our route meant leaving the nice smooth way and turning on to a sort of track in the scrubby desert beside the road which, the guard said, was the way to Hajjah.  The first part of the journey was interesting - the villages on the coastal plain (called the Tihamah) are all grass huts, and the people are very black.  We stopped at one grass hut village for tea, and later, at another, for supper.

The journey was eventful - we were travelling now in a convoy with a GMC pick-up truck loaded with people and goods and at one point our Toyota seesawed as it was going over an agricultural embankment and got caught on its transmission shaft.  This is because the road isn't very distinct, and is about half a mile wide in some places and we were following the tracks of a lorry which obviously had been able to get over this packed earth embankment.  We all got out and some of the people scraped away the earth from under the car until the wheels were able to grip again - encountering a scorpions' nest in the process, whcih slowed things down for a short while.  Further along, the road got wetter and wetter and we had to manoeuvre around enormous muddy puddles.  At this pint we were ahead and we noticed that the GMC had come to a halt.  We drove back to discover it bogged up to its back axles in one of the puddles.

People worked away to free it for about half an hour (joined by travellers in other cars coming along the road to and from Hodeida) until someone decided I must be getting tired (I was) and took me to a nearby village about three quarters of a mile away and ordered tea and a bed for me.  The tea shops in the grass villages had a kind of beds made of wood and cord where people can sit or sleep in the open.  After another half an hour the cars turned up along with the GMC and after a short rest we set off on our way.

At the tea stop earlier I had borrowed someone's radio, and had tuned in to the BBC.  They had said that fighting had broken out between northern Yemen and southern Yemen, and I reported this in my Arabic, which isn't very good yet, to the others in our party.  They assumed that I had misheard or mistranslated, and told me that wasn't the case.  But at the supper stop they listened to one of the Arabic channels and heard the same news and admitted that I had been right.

From here the road was really rough, and I was half asleep, but constantly woken up by jolts and bumps.  At some stage we drove along a rocky river bed for a short distance with water running alongside us.  Then at 2 or 3am we started to climb into the mountains.  We finally arrived here at about 6am.  Thankfully I was set down, with the trunk, at Hamud's house and I fell into a deep sleep until early afternoon when I awoke and was brought something to eat - Yemeni lunch.  Tasty!

Before I set off for Lebanon and Yemen my brother, Dugald, gave me a set of Arab League booklets which he had got from somewhere.  I have the one of Yemen with meand there's a picture in it of Hajjah where I now am, and it shows the former Imam's palace which is apparently where I am going to be put up until they find somewhere else for me to stay!

Hajjah! - Part 1, getting there.

Hajjah, Sunday 1st October 1972

Part 1 - getting there: down to Hodeida

Well, I got here at last!  Khalid, the Minister of Education's son came round at 1.30 on 27th and told me that the Minister wanted to see me now! so I went along to his house (near where I was staing with the Boyds, near Zubairi Street which turns into the Hodeida road.  After a cup of coffee with the Minister Khalid hailed a taxi and we went by the Boyds' house to pick up my brightly painted metal trunk and took it round to the governor of Hajjah's house, also not far away.  I'd got some blankets and other essentials, like a teapot, to equip myself for the western highlands.  The governor is called Mujahid Abu Shawarib - the Abu Shawarib bit means "father of whiskers", but it is a family name.

The governor and I and a couple of soldiers and one or two others left Sanaa at about 3 pm in a Toyota equivalent of a Range Rover.  The soldiers sat in the back with my trunk between them - it was rather larger and harder than they were expecting, and I think they found it pretty uncomfortable.  We swept off on the road to Hodeida.  The temperature rose and rose as we descended to Hodeida.  I think I had already forgotten how hot it had been when I arrived earlier in the month.

We arrived in Hodeida after dark, about 7.30pm and went to a rather basic hotel, the Red Sea Hotel I think, which was apparently the best in town.  Rather oddly we had a shared room - the governor, me and an official from Hajjah called Hamud Siraj, with lots of gold teeth.

On Thursday (28th) we had an early start and set off after breakfast in our convoy in the direction of the airport.  I hadn't a clue what was going on at first - there were enormous crowds there, and wild confusion.  A military officer was telling his men to stand on one side of the road to the runway and then on the other and pushing the crowds this way and that.  Finally a plane landed and the crowd-pulling event turned out to be the arrival of the President of Yemen!  He came out of the plane and shook hands with everybody in the first 30 yards of the crowd lining the road to the airport building, including me.  The governor kindly took a moment to ask the airport customs about my missing luggage, but to no avail.

After that we raced out of Hodeida in the middle of a convoy headed by an armed truck with an anti-aircraft gun for about an hour, again with me having no idea what was in store until it turned out that we were going to a place called Bajil about 20 miles back along the road towards Sanaa, where the Prime Minister was going to open a cement factory built by the Russians.  We sat in the guests stand and listened to a number of speeches before being given a short tour round the factory.  After that, the governor and I went with our retinue to a rest house built by the Germans where we had lunch and a rest for a couple of hours.

Next we went to the Republican Palace in Hodeida, which is actually very nice.  Then, later in the afternoon, the governor told me that he had to go back to Sanaa for two days, but that I would go on to Hajjah with the rest of the party. Somewhat surprisingly, since I had been told I might not be paid promptly (and possibly not at all) the governor gave me 100 riyals (about £8.50) for anything I might need - that's a third of a month's salary up front!

In the evening a person called Dirham who works at the hotel and had studied for the GCE in Aden invited me to go along to see an Indian film.  The film was pretty tedious with Arabic and disastrous English subtitles but an interesting experience.

Once again we were a threesome in the room at the hotel, the governor's place being taken by a guard.

Revolution Day in Sanaa, 1972

Wednesday 27 September, 1972

I was told the Sunday before last that I would be heading off to Hajjah last weekend with the Governor, so I bought some supplies - some blankets (Chinese cotton-waste blankets - cheap and very warm), a towel, a thermos, a water filter (which I made out of a self sterilising filter candle in a plastic bucket - much cheaper than a commercial filter), sheets, a flag, tea, milk (dried), some basic dishes etc etc.  Also bought a shirt since the one I was wearing kept on getting dirty too quickly.
I took a bit of time to see what stamps were available, as my Dad collects them.  I found that they print much larger numbers than needed, but don't withdraw the old ones, so that it was possible to find stamps commemorating the first and ninth anniversaries of the Revolution, even though we were just about to have the tenth (yesterday).

A week ago, Richard Jarvis took me round to the Ministry of Education to find out if I would be going up to Hajjah that day, and to ask about my residence permit.  No news of either the Governor or the residence permit.  Later that same day I went to see Qadi Ismail the director of Monuments and Libraries.  Prof Serjeant had given me a letter of introduction to him.  The person who took me to see him was Mohammed al-Shami, the director of the university, who I bumped into.  On the same mission I also met up with  Dr Costa, a charming Italian who runs the museum.  Actually I had already given him his letter of introduction from the Prof when we went to the museum a few days previously.  Mohammed al-Shami also took me to see if the Governor of Hajjah had arrived in Sanaa, but he hadn't.

I also visited a missionary called Peter Dahlen of the Red Sea Mission - he is arranging for some nurses to be sent to Hajjah to open a clinic there, though he will not be living there himself.

In my last letter I mentioned that news of the Munich attack was just filtering through.  It wasn't mentioned in the official press until 23 September, and didn't even mention Germany.  Yemen has to be very careful about what it says, particularly as it is receiving aid simultaneously from the US, Red China, East and West Germany, Britain, and others besides.  Apparently Yemen is rated by the UN as the 2nd least developed nation in the world - mainly on the basis of its administration, which isn't in control of more than half the country, and has no machinery for collecting taxes from resistant areas.

Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the Revolution.

We had some power cuts in the run up to the Revolution anniversary - mainly, I think, because the illuminations for the 26th take up so much electricity that there is not enough to go round. I got up early and went out at about 7.45 to see the parades.  It was a bit of a struggle to make my way through the crowds to Tahrir Square ("Liberation Square") but I eventually found a good place to look from, helped by the fact that I am quite a bit taller than Yemenis and could see over their heads.  People around me were muttering "tawil, tawil" (tall, tall) and "tashuf tayyib" (you can see well), etc.  I was able to see the parade of soldiers (quite smart, in fact) followed by lorries and tanks etc.  A biplane flew over and dropped sweets on to the crowds.

For some reason I had not received an invitation for the celebrity stand where the diplomats etc were sitting, as were the foreign volunteers, so I went over and joined them after the crowds had started to disperse.  It was rather fun watching from inside the crowd, though, particularly as I didn't have any trouble seeing what was going on.

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On housekeeping matters, Cooks sent me a telegram telling me I could collect £50 refund for the missing travellers cheques in my luggage from the Yemen Bank for Reconstruction and Development but the bank said they knew nothing about it and wouldn't pay up.  However, a couple of days later the authorisation came through and I was finally able to collect my money.

While I was trying to track down my luggage (still) I tried to phone Aeroflot in Hodeidah a couple of Fridays ago to see if I could get the paperwork I would need for my insurance claim - only to find that there are no phone lines to Hodeidah open on Fridays.

I have to finish in haste as I have just learned that we are setting off for Hajjah today - more in my next one.  And I'll try to add a picture or two of the Revolution Day parade when I can.

Sanaa - still no luggage. Finding my way around.

Sanaa, Thursday 14 September 1972

On Saturday I went round to Yemen Airways to see if there was any news of my luggage.  There wasn't, but I arranged that when it turns up in Hodeidah Yemen Airways will bring it up to Sanaa.  It will cost a couple of pounds probably. 

I tried to buy some sheets of stamps for my father (avid stamp collector) at the post office, but they don't like selling them by the sheet, as they can sell sheets of stamps on the international market at a lot over face value - the highest denomination is 18 buqshas, which is just over 2 new pence, so a sheet wouldn't cost too much if they could be persuaded to sell it.

I went for a walk in the suq in the old town and some friendly Yemenis bought me a soft drink - they were really kind.  In the afternoon I thought that Mr Baldry was going to take me to see the museum, but it turned out later that the visit had been postponed till Monday.  Instead I spent the afternoon at a qat party given by the Boyds' servant, who was celebrating his birthday.

On Monday the term started at the International School, and I left the Boyds in a state of (semi-)organised chaos at 8.45 to go to the orientation course that was being run for the VSO volunteers.  In the afternoon there was a colloquial Arabic lesson given by a dynamic French priest cum engineer who apparently runs the power station.  He is called Pere Etienne Renaud.  Afterwards we were taken on a tour of the ethnographical section of the National Museum which has been set up (ie the ethnographical bit) by a French lady doctor called Madame Fayenne.

On Tuesday I went to the Yamaha dealership to enquire about buying a motorcycle to get around on.  Theoretically, as a foreigner,  I should be able to get one tax-free which would be about 1800 riyals instead of 2400, but apparently the governor of Hodeidah isn't quite under Sanaa's control and won't let any motorbikes out of Hodeidah without charging tax, even if the Sanaa authorities have signed a permit for it to be imported tax-free.

In the evening the VSO volunteers and I were invited round to drinks with the Ambassador.  He was very nice, and promised to make sure that I get looked after well in Hajjah.  I'd thought of seeing if there were any VSO vacancies in Sanaa, but I've given up on that idea, and discovered that people who know Hajjah are very envious that I am going to be there.  In the evening I went round to see Mr Jarvis, but he had just heard that theere was an English language film being shown that evening at the UN house (Viva Zapata, as it turned out)  and I went along to that.

Still no news about my luggage - I suppose it must still be in Cairo airport somewhere.  Clothes are rather difficult to get hold of here - especially as I am quite tall compared to Yemenis. 

News is filtering through here about the attack in Munich.  Most of the Yemenis population haven't heard about it, it seems - others think that it might make a profound impact on the Palestinian issue, but that West Germany was not the place to do it.

First days in Sanaa

Thursday 7 September 1972

When I met Mr Bird, who is one of the British Council team here, he took me around to meet a few people, but one of them wasn't in.  He is called John Baldry and he lives in a house in the old city.  Prof Serjeant and others think he is rather funny because he chooses to live in the suq, but Mr Bird brought him round to see me at Mr Jarvis's house yesterday and I have formed a completely different impression.  He has been teaching all over the Middle East for over 10 years now, and has been in Yemen for 10 months.  He is one of the two British Council people here who actually travels around the country and meets people.  Mr Jarvis does too, but to a lesser extent.  He (Baldry) has visited Hajjah quite recently and will be able to give me a lot of solid information before I go.  Apparently the water in Hajjah has bilharzia in it.

This is from the roof of the house I am staying in

Yesterday afternoon he took me to a qat chewing party - there were about 10 people there, including the director of Sanaa university and one or two high-up members of the government, who all promised to help me in every possible way.  Two of them were called Mohammed al-Shami which was confusing. We sat and chewed qat for about four hours (you have to chew it for at least that long to get any effect) until about 7 pm and then, because you get depressed when you start "coming down" they produced three bottles of smuggled Scotch whisky, then had something to eat.  All the time we had a most interesting discussion with one of the government ministers, about Yemen and its political and economic situation, and plans for its development.

The back of the British Embassy

Qat is a leaf which you chew and keep in the side of your mouth and just chew and chew more.  It is simultaneously stimulating and relaxing (so they say-I also found it slightly nauseating after 4 hours - and it turns your teeth green).  They told me about 10 pm that it also keeps you awake - quite right, as it turned out.  So today I woke with one of the best hangovers I have had in a long time. 

Abdul Mughni Street in Sanaa

Today I went to the Embassy to see if there was any post, but there wasn't, then John Baldry came and took me along to see some other minister (not sure which) but unfortunately he did not turn up as he was busy.  Afterwards we went to the passport office for me to register, but it was shut and doesn't open until Saturday.  While I was at the Embassy reading a seriously out of date Observer, Mr Bird (Norman Bird) came by and told me that Mr Jarvis (he is Richard) has sent a note saying that I was to stay with an American couple who teach at the new international school here.  They are called Mark and Jill Boyd, and after lunch I went round to their house with my luggage (such as it is- no news about the suitcases yet).  They have some rooms in the building that is being used for the International School which has been set up by an American called Jim Gilson.  It is very close to the British Embassy, and in the afternoon I walked around the centre of Sanaa.

Tomorrow I understand that the proper VSO volunteers are arriving, so I'm hoping that my luggage arrives with them.