Spent the last 3 weeks on a trip to
Yemen, a journey which in the first week seemed like watching a film and not fully realizing being there, the last few days seemed already quite familiar (even though I could never get used to such huge differentiation between behavior towards a man and a woman), and when I got back home, civilization seemed irreal.
Similar feelings as when I got back from
Tibet (and China in general) about 2 years ago. I remember I did not want to go back to the reality at least in my mind, I wanted to keep my memories of the different people, cultures and landscapes even in my bones for as long as possible. This time it was very similar. I closed my eyes and could see yellow and brown everywhere - sand, ground, dry fields and dusty roads. Sun and warmth on my skin. Rural places with such strong feelings of being in a forgotten land and in a far-away century. People crowding and smiling in bustling markets, full of pulsing life and vitality. So strong emotions from these pictures in my mind. One could think in poor countries people are just sad and there is not much going on, but on the contrary, with the relatively little they have (seen through my eyes), they have busy and rich lives. Could not forget going to bed at 7pm (5pm Czech time!) as there was no light and nothing much to do when camped in Socotra or Haraz mountains, and getting up at 5am with first beams of light or with the singing/shouting of muezzins in the cities. I remember wanting to stay awake the whole night and just stare at the millions of stars I could see in the sky. Having wishes when I saw a star falling down...
My two pieces of experience which I see now as most influential:
- for the first time in Arab world, encounter of the very different behavior towards women, the position of women in Arab world (black veil, black clothes, you can see just their beautiful eyes, minimum of women in the streets, just in markets but never in restaurants, tea houses, or never just hanging around like men... this was supposedly very different e.g. 20 years ago or when Yemen was divided)
- felt like a trip to middle ages or as my friends pointed out, in some cases to neolit.. very rural, people living from simple things, village life surrounded by goats, donkeys, hens, cows, camels, wild dogs demanding food, everyday pasture, crop yelding, sports, kat chewing by men, cow dry excrement collecting etc. Need to say, also a very different political system...
Also one inspiration - in
Zabid town in
Tihama region, we went to a female workshop where girls were restauring wooden doors or they were wood carving windows, painting etc., this workshop was run by a German development organization called
GTZ.de and they have quite many projects in developing countries. I would like to get in touch with them and find out more how to set up something similar, e.g. to help women to develop their skills and get a profession.
I browsed for some Yemen info on the internet and found
this blog by an Australian who travelled this region and around. From his page, there is also the
picture below, from
Sudan, quite stunning (firstly I thought it was from
Ethiopia which was just a stone's throw away from Yemen and it was quite tempting... so at least we went for a real Ethiopian coffee serverd by Eritreans in Sana'a..).
Yemen pictures perhaps another time...
