Arabian Holiday I: Yemeni Christmas

For the most part I didn’t think about Christmas on Christmas. After all, I was in Yemen, six time zones away from my brother Chad in Japan and ten time zones away from my parents in Salt Lake City. My celebration of the holiday consisted of finding the only 24 hour Internet café in all of Yemen to participate in our 6 way teleconference Christmas call. It was a miracle that a 6 way teleconference call that included participants in Fukouka, Nashville, Washington DC, Salt Lake City, and then myself in 4000 year old Sanaa was even conceivable. It was a miracle that I found a 24 hour internet café in Yemen. It was a miracle that it worked. It was a great way to wake up on Christmas morning, better than any present.

The call ended around 7 AM, and at 8 our driver picked us up. We had scheduled a 2 day trip to a remote mountain village known as Shaharah, which had not been conquered by any military power ever until the 1960s when they could use air power. Perched atop a 3000 meter peak (9000-10000 feet), the village was only accessible via very steep dirt roads. As it was sympathetic to the rebel cause in the on again off again Yemeni civil war, tourists were only allowed to visit with a military escort. On this day, we were the only tourists. Our caravan consisted of the Land Rover with myself, my companions Aatif, Raha, and Khulood, and our driver Ali. Behind us was a cannon mounted jeep with five rifle armed soldiers. The soldiers and our guide didn’t seem to think it was strange: they did this everyday. The only thing unusual about the trip today was that the tourists spoke Arabic and 3 of them were Muslim. When I told them my name was Abu Saifayn (a nickname meaning “Pappy Two Swords”), they assumed I was Muslim too. I did not try to dispel them of the notion.

Off we went, 3 hours on pavement, then 2 hours off roading until we got to base camp, at the foot of the mountain. At the top we could vaguely make out the buildings that made up Shaharah village. Here we had to switch vehicles and leave behind our cannon and our guide Ali. A new guide, Yahyah, and one of the soldiers, got into the pickup truck that would take us up the steep switchback trail that led to the village. We rode in the back.

Amidst the stunning views and hairpin turns and cliffs that took our breath away, I was struck by how much this reminded me of Utah. Except in Utah there aren’t villages at the top of the 10000 foot mountains, just the little house thinger that marks the top of the ski lift. There aren’t centuries-old stone bridges built across gigantic chasms that make you think of the scene in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf fights the balrog. There was such a stone bridge in this village, built to connect two villages that, though just a few hundred meters from each other, were completely isolated from each other until the bridge was built.

Also, the entire mountain was terraced. Terraced and landscaped to allow crops to grow on the entire mountain. Or rather, to make one crop grow: qat trees.

Qat is a drug that is indigenous to Yemen and Ethiopia. As far as I know it is also only legal in those two countries, though it may also be legal in the UK and Amsterdam. It is illegal in Saudi Arabia and the United States as it is mildly addictive. It is consumed by simply popping the qat tree leaves into ones mouth and chewing. Much like chewing tobacco except you don’t spit until the end. All Yemenis chew qat. All of them. Everywhere you go the Yemeni men carry two pouches of qat: one in a plastic bag beneath their jacket, and one in their mouth, stuffed away like nuts in the mouth of a squirrel. The average Yemeni is very easy to caricature: a galabiyya (white robe), a traditional dagger in his belt, a pair of sandals, a western style suit jacket or sports coat, and a huge protruding cheek full of qat.

It’s a national pastime, this qat-chewing. Yemenis purportedly spend 20% of their family income on it. Millions of man hours are wasted daily because of time spent putting the leaves in their mouths (they don’t take time off work to chew, they just put so many leaves in their mouths while they work). 55% of the nation’s water supply (in a desert country that rains only a couple of months a year) are used in watering the qat trees. Entire mountains, including the one we were climbing, are devoted to growing the plant. We asked the guide if they grew anything else on the mountain, since every part of the mountain seemed to be terraced to grow something. “Nope. We used to grow food. Now we just grow qat.”

At least, in addition to being a caffeine like stimulant, it is also an appetite suppressant.

Anyway, back to the qat-terraced cliffs. We finally reached the town just before sunset, and checked into our little hotel. We were served dinner, given a brief moonlit tour of the area, and went to sleep.

“Merry Christmas,” I said to Aatif.

“Merry Christmas.”