The Woman Who Fell from the Sky (20 page)

Faris stops by in the late afternoon with his friend Jalal. On their way to a
qat
chew, they’re clad in long white robes. “Faris,” I say with mock sternness, “you shouldn’t chew too much
qat
. It has pesticides and isn’t good for your teeth.”

“But I am Yemeni!” he says in defense. “Whereas
you
are soft and tender.”

“Soft?”
I flex a bicep.

Faris pinches my arm and agrees that there is nothing soft about it. “It’s just that when I see your face, I think of meditation and tranquility,” he says. “You’re like a calm angel.”

Luke laughs so hard he almost chokes. “Come back and see her at two in the morning.”

ON ELECTION DAY,
I walk to work, disregarding all warnings that it is unsafe for westerners to be outside. I just can’t get through such a busy day without a bit of exercise. If I don’t burn off some energy, I’ll need to be peeled off the ceiling by noon. The streets are deserted. All of the shops are dark and shut with steel gates, except for a few juice places. Even the big Huda supermarket is closed. To keep a low profile, I wear all black, plus sunglasses to hide my blue eyes, but I’m conspicuous no matter what I do. This is driven home when just a few blocks from my office, a filthy man I pass on the sidewalk invites me to suck his cock. Who taught him this English?

I arrive at work to find the gates locked and no one there. I pound on the doors, trying to wake the guard, to no avail. Dear god, does everyone think this is a holiday? Our biggest reporting day of the year? I mean, it
is
a holiday for the rest of the country, but we work for a
newspaper!
Surely my staff knows that they must show up? It hasn’t even occurred to me that this is something I needed to tell them.

Desperate, I ring al-Asaadi. He doesn’t have keys but makes a few phone calls to try to find someone to let me in. In vain. “You shouldn’t stand around in front of the newspaper,” he tells me. “It isn’t safe.”

“Al-Asaadi, there is nowhere else to
go!”
I am so frustrated that I kick the gate in frustration, and to my great surprise, it swings open. Now I am in the courtyard but still can’t get into the building. The welcome mat that usually hides the key is missing. So I pound on the door to the guard’s hut until I finally rouse him. Rubbing his eyes, he stumbles out to open the building.

I worry that no one will show up. It is unusual for the women reporters not to be here at this hour. Enass is also missing from the reception desk and there’s no sign of the Somali cleaning lady. So it is an enormous relief when I see Zuhra bustling into the courtyard. “Please call everyone else and tell them to get their butts to the office,” I say.

Noor and Najma say that their families won’t let them out of the house. “It’s too dangerous.” The usually reliable Hassan is spending the day working for the EU election observers. Talha, who has no phone, is MIA. We also have no secretary, Doctor, or drivers.

Trying not to panic, I send Zuhra out to the polls. As soon as she is gone, Farouq shows up. He promptly heads out to report from the Supreme Council for Elections and Referendum (SCER) and to visit other polling sites. Two reporters in action!

Jabr, the Missing Link, shows up an hour later, and I send him out to the polls as well. I hand him a notebook. “Don’t come back until you fill this,” I say. He looks terrified. I soften a bit. “Here, I will write you a list of questions to ask.”

Luke arrives next, followed by Qasim, who waves his dark purple thumb—proof that he has voted. I beg him to take me to the polling sites. I don’t want to sit in the office missing all of the action. He insists on calling Faris to get permission to take me out, and we finally head to the SCER. It’s housed in a massive building filled with scores of hustling and bustling Yemeni officials and local and international reporters dashing about looking important and typing up stories in a computer room. On the first floor, reporters run in and out of the smoky restaurant, holding glasses of
shaay haleeb
—tea with milk.

We head to the Ministry of Information to get my press ID. This is no simple task. Qasim asks me to lie and say that I am a reporter for
The Week
in the United States, because an international press pass apparently grants greater freedom. I don’t want to lie. I’m going to be living here for a year, and I will be found out sooner or later. But it’s illegal for a foreigner to be running a Yemeni paper, Qasim reminds me. We compromise and put both the
Observer
and
The Week
on my tag, which is pink for “international reporter.”

We hear rumors of election-related violence and killings in Ta’iz and other governorates, but most remain unconfirmed. It’s funny how fast the news of these alleged incidents spreads. I even hear from several people that a man was arrested with explosives in Tahrir Square, just down the street from me. Misinformation seems to move much faster than fact.

My pink tag dangling from my neck, I climb into Qasim’s car and we head to a nearby polling place. In the courtyard of the al-Quds School for Girls on Baghdad Street, a long black column of women stretches all the way down the hall leading to their voting rooms. Though it’s now noon, many of them have been standing there since the polls opened.

Across the courtyard, men do not have to wait in line. They dart in and out, completing their votes in five minutes or less.

“The women take longer to vote because they are not educated,” local election supervisor Ameen Amer explains. “Many are illiterate.”

To assist the illiterate, the presidential ballot has color photos of each candidate, as well as his party’s emblem, next to his name. A rearing horse symbolizes Saleh, while a rising sun is the sign of the Islah Party.

“Most of the women just registered this year and haven’t done this before,” says another election supervisor. “It’s a matter of education, and now, democracy is proceeding, day by day, and getting better and better.”

Others we speak to in the sunny courtyard suggest that men vote later in the day, after work, while most women vote in the morning. It’s a frustrating wait in the hot sun for the women, who grow restless and shout out their complaints. “We have a crisis!” one woman cries. “Nobody is moving!” Yet they admirably do not give up, and most wait patiently for their turn in the voting booth.

As voters file into each room, they are given one presidential ballot, two ballots for governorate councils, and two for district councils. They then secrete themselves behind the gray curtains of a small booth, where they mark their chosen candidates. As each emerges, she stuffs her papers into the plastic ballot boxes, before dipping her thumb into the well of purple ink that brands her as a voter.

A row of seated representatives from each party observes the voting, often erupting into arguments but not becoming violent.

“Nobody is cheating,” says observer Hanan al-Jahrani, who is representing the GPC (the ruling party to which President Saleh belongs). “We have had no problems.”

For the most part, the process is going smoothly, concurs Amer. But at least fifteen people have come to the polls wearing T-shirts or hats emblazoned with their favored candidates, which is against election law.

A businessman tells us that the voting process has improved. “We have seen the competition getting stronger, and each party is more nervous this year, which means we are getting closer to democracy. If a voter senses this, he will be more likely to vote.”

Outside each room stand two armed men in green camouflage and red berets. Despite the threat of violence, I don’t see any reason to feel uneasy. Things seem to be moving more or less smoothly and thankfully the guns remain unused.

Back at the office, I write up my notes. Zuhra and Jabr bring me their stories from other polling centers, and I tuck them into my reporting. Farouq runs around between the SCER and polling centers all day, so I don’t see him. Al-Asaadi is allegedly doing something similar.

Election results won’t come in until the next morning, so I am able to leave work by eight thirty
P.M
. The next day will be long; I had better escape while I can.

The results trickle in all the next day, with Saleh unsurprisingly winning 77.2 percent of the vote. It’s a disappointing anticlimax after the frenzy of the last few days. No serious election violence is reported, no riots, no major problems at the polls. And privately we had all hoped bin Shamlan would do a bit better.

On the upside, it’s a bizarrely calm day. I sketch out the issue on my dry-erase board and get al-Asaadi’s approval. He hasn’t eaten breakfast so I offer him some of my oat cookies. He takes four. “My food is your food,” I say.

“My office is your office,” he says, his mouth full of oats.

I am pleased that he’s so cheerful, and even more pleased that he gets his pages to me on time. So does everyone else. It’s not a perfect issue, but some of my ambitions for the paper will have to wait. When al-Asaadi leaves early to let me finish the issue on my own, I am downright astonished. Without his last-minute headline changes and layout shifting, we finish all the pages by midnight and I am out of the office by one
A.M.
Some nights, it feels good to be boss.

TEN
homemaking in the holy month

After a month in my little suite at Sabri’s, I still haven’t unpacked my suitcases
. My two rooms are certainly adequate, but they do not feel like home. I have made no attempt to decorate the walls, put up photos, or stock my kitchen. It seems a waste of effort when I know I am leaving. Living in a dormitory with Sabri’s young Arabic students has its perks, but I want a place of my own. Once I have a house, I can get myself sorted. I can unpack, decorate, invite people over for tea.
Then
I can truly begin my Yemeni life.

So far I have had no time to look. Faris found a house he thought I might like, but it was far away from everything—far from the Old City, shops, and my office. I want to be able to continue walking to work. Karim gives me the number of a Yemeni man he knows, Sami, who can find me a house in Old Sana’a. I tuck it in my purse and plan to call. Just as soon as I have a free minute.

Work is beginning to follow something of a schedule when Ramadan arrives abruptly. I am dining at Zorba’s with Shaima, my worldly World Bank friend, when she gets a text message from a friend telling her that Ramadan will begin the next morning. She immediately texts others to spread the news. I wonder how this was all done before cell phones.

No one is entirely sure when Ramadan will start until the evening before, as it depends on the first sighting of the crescent of the new moon. The Islamic calendar is lunar and shorter than our solar calendar. Islamic months thus rotate through the seasons, with Ramadan falling about eleven days earlier each year. Yemen turns upside down during this holy month. One of the Five Pillars of Islam is that Muslims must fast from sunup until sundown during Ramadan to burn away their sins. But in Yemen, after breaking their fast at sunset, everyone stays up until four
A.M
. binge eating and then sleeps half the day away. It seems a bit like cheating to me, to sleep until three
P.M.
when only three hours of fasting are left before sundown and
iftar
, the fast-breaking meal. But who am I to judge?

At the
Yemen Observer
, we don’t go completely nocturnal, but our hours change dramatically. I have only just begun to inch our deadlines earlier when our Ramadan hours throw everything off kilter again. Our official hours during the Holy Month are ten
A.M
. to three
P.M.
and then nine
P.M
. until one
A.M
. (except on closing nights, when we’re often there until five
A.M
.). But in reality, the men never straggle in before eleven and seem to find it a struggle to get back by nine, despite the six-hour break for
iftar
.

Unsurprisingly, everyone is much more productive in the evenings. During the day, they are cranky with hunger and thirst. My original impulse is to fast along with my staff. It seems like the right thing to do. I want to squeeze myself into as much of Yemeni life as possible. But at the moment, fasting is inconceivable. I am already losing weight and am constantly so tired I can barely stay upright. I often go days without eating meals—I have no time to cook or go out—but forgoing water just seems unhealthy. Fasting throughout Ramadan would indubitably weaken me too much to run this newspaper properly.

Al-Asaadi is quick to reassure me that no one will judge me. “We are open-minded,” he says. “We understand you are being true to your own culture.”

But I am careful not to eat or sip from my water bottle in front of my staff. Only when my office door is firmly shut do I delve into the secret stash of dried fruit, nuts, and oat biscuits I keep in my desk drawer for emergencies. Luke isn’t fasting either and comes into my office to sneak food. Occasionally, a reporter will burst in and catch us with our mouths full and our hands dirty with crumbs. Like guilty children, we hide our hands under our desks and swallow hard. But our reporters never seem to mind; we are not Muslim and are thus held to different standards.

Luke and I have grown much closer as a result of an intimate hour we spent in my office while closing the election issue. This was when he finally confessed to me that he is gay, which I had suspected all along (the
Will and Grace
videos on his laptop, his love of
Project Runway
, etc.). I am curious about what it is like for him to live here, in a country where homosexuality is punishable by death.

Yet homosexual acts between men are hardly rare in Yemen, he tells me. A large percentage of the male population has sex with men. Luke, for one, is propositioned regularly. This doesn’t surprise me; he is blond and blue eyed, attractive, and speaks charming Arabic.

“But how does it work?” I ask. “I mean, how do you know who it is safe to hit on?”

“Well, once in Aden a guy cruised me in an ice cream shop. When I left he chased me down, and I got his number and he came over later that night. Easy.”

“Very interesting.”

“Naturally, this does not leave this office.”

“I wouldn’t dream of saying anything.”

In return, I confess my past romantic relationships with men and women alike. This is an enormous relief. I hadn’t realized just how half-alive I was feeling, unable to be my full self with anyone here. Suddenly I can tell someone the truth about my sexuality and not risk punishment or judgment. I am so grateful for Luke I want to hug him. I feel lighter than I have in weeks.

ONE BENEFIT
of our Ramadan schedule is that I actually have free time during the evenings. On the first day, I head home a couple hours after my staff have fled and make myself dinner for the first time since arriving in Yemen nearly a month before. I boil water and cook whole-wheat pasta. This feels like a major achievement. I take my bowl of pasta into my bedroom and eat it while watching a DVD on my computer. This is the first truly relaxing, nonproductive, leisurely thing I can remember doing in weeks.

But this would be more satisfying if I could do it in a real home. Maybe if I bought some spices and flour, I might start cooking for myself. I could fill a corner of my kitchen with water bottles so I wouldn’t have to stop and buy water every day. I could make friends with my neighbors. I really have to ring Karim’s friend Sami soon. I’m tired of living in between places; I want to be
here
.

Salem comes to take me back to work at eight thirty. My reporters arrive enormously cheerful after their massive
iftars
. Ramadan fasts are traditionally broken with dates, with which the Prophet Mohammed broke his fasts. These are followed by deep-fried samosa-type potato dumplings called
sambosas
, yogurt drinks, fruit juice, a pale wheat porridge, and then meat, rice, and bread. Before sunrise, everyone eats again to store up for the day. Ironically, many people complain that they actually gain weight during Ramadan.

Final election results are declared on the first day of Ramadan. We knew them already, but now it’s official. The city goes wild with joy. Firecrackers explode the whole evening, and men on neighboring roofs empty rifles into the air. The country has been saved from a tricky transfer of power, saved from unpredictability.

I run out to go buy some gum and candy for the office, wanting to give the staff a treat after their day of fasting. Farouq stops me at the door. “Why don’t you send someone to the store?” he says. “You are the boss; you don’t have to go yourself.”

“Because it’s right there,” I say, pointing down the street. “I can walk.”

“But you don’t
have
to walk.”

“But I
want
to walk.”

“Send someone! Someone can go for you!”

“Farouq!
I like to walk!”

We both start laughing, and he finally moves aside and waves me down the steps. My days are filled with plenty of these small, happy moments with my staff, enough to keep me fond of them even when they are thwarting my deadlines or returning late from lunch.

One of the most striking things about Ramadan is how clearly it illustrates the cohesiveness of the culture. I have never in my life lived anywhere where everyone belonged to the same religion (although Yemen is divided between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and within these groups are scores of subgroups). I have never lived in a country where everyone is doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. For example, at sunset during Ramadan, every single Yemeni is eating a date. This alone is remarkable. At this time, there is no one,
no one
, on the streets. Every single Yemeni man, woman, and child is home breaking his or her fast. No stores are open and no taxis are on the streets.

I don’t find this out until the second day of Ramadan, when I go to the Sheraton in the afternoon, emerging from the hotel just before six
P.M
., in time to see a spectacular sunset over the city. The Sheraton is perched on a hill over the bowl of Sana’a, and the purples and pinks descending across the mountains above and valleys below take my breath away for a few moments as I stand on the totally abandoned street. But my awe is short-lived as I look up and down the hill. Not a car in sight. No taxis, no
dabaabs
, no trucks, nothing. How will I get home?

Fortunately, just as I am despairing of a ride, a Sheraton taxi driver who remembers me from June passes by and sees me standing in the empty road looking bewildered. He mimes eating gestures to explain where everyone is and drives me swiftly home. We make it from the Sheraton to Sabri’s house in about three minutes—without stopping once—a miracle! Sana’a is a ghost town. We do not pass a single car or person. My driver speeds away as soon as he drops me, no doubt late for his own feast.

ON SEPTEMBER
25, the kidnapped French tourists are finally released. Karim gets photographs of them as they disembark at Sana’a airport, and we run them on our front page. I’m relieved, although the Yemenis have all been predicting this outcome, so they didn’t worry. While I am upstairs with Karim, Faris stops by. I tell him again how much I need more staff and that I can’t hope to get the paper under control until I have an adequate number of reporters. I mention the hours I am working.