Yemen is a meditation on verticality. Viewed from the air, the landscape rises out of the sand sea of the Arabian peninsula like something angry and unresolved — jagged black peaks and tiered plateaus cartoonishly outlined like topographical map. On the ground, these peaks turn land travel into a harrowing succession of hairpin turns, but ensure that almost every house has a breathtaking view.
The country’s otherworldly architecture seems like the envious response of earthbound creatures to their mountainous surroundings. Again, and again, from the inland capital of Sana’a to the ancient university town of Zabid near the Red Sea, the same arresting shape emerges: Tall, rectangular buildings of brick and clay, rising six to eight stories, with heavy wooden doors and wooden-shuttered windows topped by semicircles of stained glass. The white plaster lattice-like decorations near the roofline give the cities the look of being made of iced gingerbread. Most of this handiwork was done by Jews before most of them emigrated to Israel in the 1940s.
Inside, each building, whether 2,000 years old or brand new, has two things in common: an seemingly endless series of giant stairs requiring great bounds between steps, especially for the relatively short population, and a window-lined or open mafraj on the top floor specifically designed for taking in the view and the breeze while enjoying the daily ritual of chewing qat.
These buildings are everywhere, but Sana’a’s old city is the best example, a cluster of gingerbread houses spiked by octagonal, domed minarets that has been protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984. A few hours after deboarding the plane, we stood on a rooftop and heard the evening call to prayer from these minarets echo through the valley, and felt like we were truly in Arabia for the first time since moving to the Arabian peninsula nearly two years ago.
Like Fez, Sana’a is a living ancient city, filled with donkeys and blacksmiths. But unlike Fez the souq gives no hints of menace or black magic, only friendly faces asking “Where are you from?” and appearing to be pleased, at least from a commercial perspective, with the answer “Amreeka”.
Nevertheless, reports of tourist kidnappings had convinced us to take a more cautious route than we normally would, so we hired a driver and translator to accompany us for the five-day trip. Dhiyab, our 24-year-old Yemeni translator and guide, was given to curious Americanisms like “take a sneak peak” and “that guy is creepy” that, along with his improbably flawless smile suggesting a teenage brush with braces, gave away his upbringing in Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest Yemeni community in the United States. Most other Yemenis, including our wild-eyed, piratesque driver, Mohammed, obviously did not have the luxury of dental work, let alone orthodontics.
Dhiyab and Mohammed seemed collegial, though they spent a great deal of time arguing in Arabic about what we assumed were directions. Each morning, Mohammed would brag to us in sign language about how much qat he had chewed the night before, and how many days it had been since he slept. This usually occurred as we were zooming around a particularly stomach-turning hairpin turn only inches from certain death.
But Mohammed also brought us home to meet his wife and five children, who, once lunch was over, abducted me into their quarters while the men chewed qat in the majlis. They were used to entertaining guests, since Mohammed worked for a tourism company, but as most of his jobs were ferrying Ismaili pilgrims* to the holy sites of the Haraz Mountains, Westerners were still a novelty. They gave me jewelry, sprayed me with perfume, smeared my lips with thick coral-colored lipstick. His wife spoke to me passionately in confessional tones, though I understood none of what she said, and showed me photos of their wedding and a glamor shot of herself, maybe a few children earlier, dressed in spandex and pouting her bright red lips for the camera. Outside the home, most Yemeni women let only their eyes show.
*The Ismaili are a sect of Shiite Muslims with followers all over the world led by Prince Karim Aga Khan, believed to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. Each year, they come by the thousands to the tiny Yemeni village of Hoteib to visit the 6th century tomb of Ismaili scholar Hattem bin Ibrahim bin al Hussein al Hamadi, which just happens to be built on top of a mountain with one of the most sublime views you will ever see. We climbed the 200 stairs to the top, but it was locked, so we just gazed out into the abyss as falcons circled below us, understanding the actual communion with the divine that the pilgrims were seeking was as likely to be found outside the tomb as in, and that all those donations from the Bombay Ismailis to pave the roads in the town below had to be, at least in part, for the privilege of truly experiencing Yemen’s dizzying verticality.
December 4, 2009
- Morocco and Algeria
- Syria
- Home for the holidays