lost

i woke up soooo tired today 'cause i was up late last night chatting with my dorm mates. the other dorm mate's name is lauren. she's also from the states but i forget which city. so i was yawning in class in the morning and in my afternoon class, i was completely out of it. i think having not eaten any breakfast made it worse. ustadh abdullah was also going over complex grammar stuff that i had studied in the past and forgot. i felt so lost in class. i think he could tell by my face. he let me leave 10 minutes early from class.

it was 3 pm and i was really hungry and tired but i just couldn't get myself to go out and get a falafel sandwich 'cause i didn't wanna climb up 5 flights of stairs to get back to my room. i just decided to go to sleep. kyla, God bless her, was kind enough to go out and get food for me. she brought back a falafel sandwich with fries in it too. yummy. i felt so much better after eating that. i rested a little bit before going out.

we had planned to meet kyle by bab al yemen around 5 pm 'cause he wanted to see the souq in the old city. i told him i'd show him around but really, i don't know the souq myself. but it's fun getting lost in the souq...that's how you discover new places. well, we did get lost and ended up close to my dorm so i showed kyle my tower house. there are a bunch of men who sit outside the school and i was a little nervous about what they'd think of me and kyla with a random white guy. whatever. kyla decided she would go back to the dorm to study so i took kyle back into the souq. we actually went outside bab al yemen to see the sailah which is a dry river bed. it's used as a road now but when it rains, all the water drains into sana'a into that river bed and the water level rises so that it actually becomes like a flowing river. it's pretty cool to imagine it.

afterwards, we decided to get something to eat in the old city. there was an open place with tables and chairs surrounded by men grilling kababs on what looked like a grill. there were other men selling bread with falafel, bread with mashed potatoes and i don't know what else was served 'cause none of these places ever have a menu. we sat down but no one came to us for a long time. a server said something to kyle from behind me and kyle just said 'two'. i asked kyle what he ordered and he said, 'i don't know. we'll find out.' hahaha. that's the thing with these places. it's always a surprise what you'll end up getting. the server returned with bread and a dish full of yemeni salsa called sahaawaq and left. i thought that was what kyle had ordered and i scolded him. but then the server returned again with a dish full of tiny little kababs. they were delicious. i was happy. afterwards, kyle said he wanted mango juice. two yemeni guys sitting close by heard him say that and told us there was a juice place outside bab al yemen. they spoke english. they thought i was kyle's translator. hahaha. i told them he spoke a little arabic. it's true...he knows more about ordering food than i do. i told them i was from india studying here. one guy asked, 'hyderabad?' and i was like 'yeah!' they said they were planning on going to india to study. they were nice and said if we needed anything, they'd help us. i just asked for directions, thanked them and left.

after getting fresh juice, i told kyle he could leave and that i'd return back to my dorm. it was 8:30 pm and women don't really stay out that late here. i said it'd only take me 10 minutes to get back to the dorm from bab al yemen if i didn't get lost. kyle decided he'd walk me back. probably a good idea since i'm notorious for getting lost. i get disoriented very easily and am bad with directions. i told him to keep an eye out for landmarks so he could find his way back to bab al yemen. well, unfortunately, we did get lost. once we passed the main souq, it just got dark and quiet. all the other little shops closed for the night and that really threw me off. we asked people for directions to the thawra hospital 'cause i definitely knew my way back from there but i think they were directing us to the main hospital outside of bab al yemen. so then i started asking people for az-zumar street 'cause that was close to my dorm. i was thinking to myself if i really did have a mukhadaraat following me, why he couldn't just give me directions?! by the time we got to my dorm, it was 9:20 pm! 50 minutes! poor kyle, he had absolutely no idea how to get back to bab al yemen. i was willing to walk him back to bab al yemen but i think that would have turned into a vicious circle of getting lost so i just told him to go straight and ask people.

i have 6 keys for my dorm...the main door, another 2nd main door, women's quarter, mafraj, bedroom and kitchen. i couldn't figure out which key was for the main door. once i did get the right key, i couldn't push the door open. like i mentioned before, there are usually men sitting around outside. i was looking for muhammad 'cause he always appears in time of need but he wasn't around. i was disappointed i was about to call kyla to come down and open the door when this man appeared out of nowhere and helped me open the door. i knew who he was because i had seen him outside our place a lot and the other girls from the school had informed me about him. i also read about him on someone's blog. he was known as 'majnoon' (crazy). he said his name was muhammad and welcomed me to yemen. i'm sure i'll have more stories about him.