day of feast

i woke up today excited about the food we were gonna eat. we had an invitation for both breakfast and lunch. at around 8 am, we went to the ADRA office which is the organization that kyle works for. met nagi again and he welcomed us. i also met another worker who is cousins with alia. apparently, she was supposed to come to breakfast too but she couldn't. what a small world. we were taken downstairs where the men and women were sitting around a long rectangular table. newspapers were spread out along the table and plates of food...pancake, fasoolia, chicken, eggs, ful, other bean dishes and bread. a man read a surah from the quran and nagi gave little talk welcoming us and others. then it was time to eat. we weren't given plates or utensils to eat with. everyone just got up, broke some bread and huddled around plates of food eating together. they even spread syrup on the pancake and ate it with their hands. it was interesting to eat that way. they all tried to make us eat a lot and would put plates of food in front of us. i was stuffed to the max. kyla and i had to go back to the old city 'cause we had class. we were gonna take a taxi but nagi got one of the drivers of the organization to drive us back to bab al yemen. so nice of him.

i thought i had class today with ustadha ahlam since we didn't have class yesterday but i was wrong. i was free. ustadh abdullah had told me the day before to meet him at 12 noon with kyla because he wanted to take us and another one of his students to his house for lunch. the other student was a girl from pakistan who studies in the states. we took a taxi to ustadh abdullah's house. met his wife and 3 little kids. his wife was so sweet and it was really cute to see ustadh abduallah interact with his wife and kids. they joked around and teased each other. i totally had a different impression of how i thought the men would interact with their wives. it was a pleasant surprise.

his wife cooked so much food for us...salad, fish, fries, potatoe balls, shafoot (it looks like injera--ethiopian bread--with yogurt and other stuff....kinda tastes like dahi bara), chicken with rice....looked like biryani, freshly squeezed mango juice and for dessert...bint as-sahn which is a very famous yemeni dish. its a bread like cake with honey and very delicious. again, the food was presented on plates but none of us were given plates to eat on. we were, however, given spoons to eat with. so we all just dug in...my teacher, his wife, kids and us 3 students. it's kinda nice to eat that way. i think i'm gonna try that when i return to the states. it brings people closer together. anyway, after dessert, we were served chai. ustadh abdullah left after a bit and we all went to his wife's parent's house down the street. there, we met her sisters and friends and their children. we sat in the mafraj and just chatted. it was good practice for our arabic. we stayed there till 5 pm. i wanted to leave earlier but they insisted we stay.

we went back to the old city and walked around the souq. we went to an art gallery where if you stand on the top floor, you can get a great view of the old city.

back in the dorm, we tried to plan a trip for tomorrow. alia said she spoke to muhammad also known as 'majnoon' and he was willing to take us to wadi dhahr but we had to meet him and discuss the plan. so we went downstairs and saw him sitting with the guards to our building. muhammad said he would take us to wadi dhahr, shibam, kowkabaan and al-ahjar. i'll explain what's so great about these places in my next post, insha'Allah. we discussed everything and had to pay him a little bit upfront so that he could bribe the police to get us permission to leave the city. anytime you wanna go anywhere, you have to get clearance from the police like a day before. it was already late so the only way he could get a clearance was to bribe them by buying them qat.

anyway, i was happy that i was finally gonna go on a trip. an adventure with muhammad the majnoon. how exciting...