Doctoring in Zingubar

The sun was already strong as we set off at 8:30am on the road to Zingubar. It was only 15 minutes to the first army check point at the border between the 2 governorates (Aden and Abyan) and as always the armed guard motioned for us to pull over and wait. Thankfully the Minister of Health in Abyan had written an official letter of travel permission for me to travel between Aden and Zingubar and Peter also had a special card with permission, so after a few minutes and discussions about where we were going and how long we'd be, we were allowed to continue on our journey. The second police checkpoint just before Zingubar was a similar scenario and we were allowed to pass without a police escort, which they sometimes insist we have.

Dr Sayeed in Clinic

Doctor Happy

I spent my morning in clinic with Dr Sayeed - Dr Happy by name and nature! He had a good manner with the patients and was truly interested in helping them as well as explaining about medicines that he was prescribing and general health promotion. However, as with many doctors here, he very rarely examined the patients and preferred to send them for lab tests. This may partly be due to pressure from the manager, as the clinic receives money for each test that a patient has done.

Outside the clinic

Rugby Scrum

The clinic operates from 9am – 12pm, with 2 doctors consulting patients on a first come first served basis. Although that is only in theory, as the scene can be more of a rugby scrum, as patients push their way into the consulting rooms and often there will be 2 or 3 patients all trying to talk to the doctor at once! There are a number of nurses who try to organise the patients and prevent them from doing this but it can be a losing battle. The idea of queuing is very foreign in this culture!

Koronkah!

It sounds like something you don't want to catch – koronkah – which is Arabic for mumps. We saw a girl of 8 years with the tale telling signs of mumps. I asked about the MMR vaccine but it is not routinely given here and so doctors see a number of cases of Measles, Mumps or Rubella. I spent quite a lot of the morning learning Arabic words for medical terms which was really helpful. We saw other cases of patients with diarrhoeal diseases, diabetes, pneumonia and high blood pressure.

Kate in clinic

The rain came down and the floods came up

Parts of Yemen have been severely affected by heavy rain causing sudden flooding over the past week. In Zingubar the main bus station was flooded as were parts of the main street. The houses and roads have not been designed with good drainage for rain water and so quickly become affected, with mud houses being washed away. The Eastern areas of the Hadramut have been most affected with over 20,000 left homeless. There has been some rain fall but no flooding where we live.

A night in the life of -Returning to Yemen

Having finished our visit to England, we set off for the overnight flight back to Yemen, hoping that there would be no problems on the journey with Yemenia -aka Yimkinia (Yimkin is Arabic for maybe). We left only an hour late, which is good going for Yemenia

We’re off to see the Kaaba

The passengers on either side of us were very friendly and were telling us that they were on their way to Mecca for a pilgrimage to the Kaaba at the end of Ramadan. Arab passengers are usually much more friendly on planes than Westerners, who usually just sit next to each other in silence. When we were not talking to them, they were reading their Qur’ans

Pilgrims marching around the Kaaba in Mecca

Dodgy plane

Paul usually cannot sleep on planes unless he’s trying to watch an interesting film. They were showing Prince Caspian but all the headphone sockets on the plane were broken. The back of the plane was very smelly because the toilet was blocked. One of the toilets at the front was also blocked but they had managed to stop it being used before it got smelly. Thankfully the plane was only half full, so we managed with two loos between everyone

Breakfast at 4am

After giving us dinner, the air hostesses showed no inclination to switch the lights off- probably due to Ramadan when Yemeni people tend to sleep in the day and are awake all night. Kate asked them to turn the lights off so that Kira could sleep, which they did so but then turned them on again half an hour later for breakfast at 4am- before the start of Ramadan fasting. Kira managed about 4 hours sleep on the 7 hour flight with some, but not too much screaming in between

Not too hot

We landed in Aden and successfully got through immigration & customs and were pleased to find that the weather was not as hot as expected. Apparently, September has been a bit cooler than normal – high-thirties instead of mid-forties. When we got to our house Kira went straight to sleep. We were glad that we had moved all our stuff in and put up curtains just before going to England

Our house in Aden

Competition

Well done to Stuart for winning last month's competition. For this month's competition, you need to find Aden on Google maps, switch to satellite mode and find Aden Airport. Set the scale to 1km (bottom left of map) and then find the name of the area to the north-west of the airport. This is the area where we live. First correct answer emailed to us will win an offroad driving experience in Yemen -flight not included

Day in the life -Trip to Zingibar

Last week, we had a visit from our friends Phil & Sarah so, on Thursday, we took them on a day trip to Zinjibar, where we will be working after we come back from England in September. Phil and Sarah are water engineers who are friends of ours from Cambridge. Zinjibar is about 45 minutes up the coast from Aden, where we will be living from September.

Bored policemen

There are two police checkpoints on the route and on previous trips we have been made to wait for a long time before being allowed to proceed on our journey, but this time it was only a couple of minutes. The checkpoints are a bit more relaxed these days since there have not been any incidents for the last few months except for the ongoing conflicts in the north. At the second checkpoint, the policemen looked very bored and they decided to escort us on our journey, probably just for something to do.

Beans for breakfast

We stopped at a restaurant for breakfast –fasoulia (mainly made of beans) and rashesh (delicious soft flat bread with many layers in the middle). Beats corn flakes any day! Also a bargain since it cost £1.75 for 5 of us.

Leaky waterworks

We went from there to show Phil & Sarah the clinic building which we have been given to use as our headquarters and also to visit the water works offices where Phil & Sarah found out lots of facts about the water situation in Abyan. Amazingly, about three quarters of the water which is piped around the province is completely unnacounted for through a combination of leaks and theft from the system. Of the rest, they have not got around to setting up water meters for most people so they probably only get paid for about 10% of their water output. The water supply in the province is plenty to supply everyone’s needs if the problems are sorted out.

Aden Old City

Drilling holes for curtain poles

After we returned to Aden, Paul spent a few hours drilling holes and affixing the curtain poles for our new house in Aden. Kate made some adjustments to the curtains we had brought from Taiz and we put curtains up in three of the rooms. On our last trip to Aden we installed the air-conditioning –a big help for sleeping well at night.

Aden coastal view

£40 a bottle

We went to a hotel restaurant in the evening and Paul was very happy to find, for the first time in Yemen, a chef who can cook rare steak –a very foreign concept here since it is forbidden for Muslims to eat meat with any blood in it. Another forbidden item was on offer –wine at £40 a bottle! We decided to give that a miss.

Homework

We thought it'd be good to encourage you to get to know a little bit more about the country so a little bit of "homework" for you to find out....
"What's the average temperature in Aden in the winter and summer?"

Competition

Find Aden and Zinjibar on Google maps (or another online map), estimate the distance using the scale and calculate the cost of the return journey if fuel here costs 60 rials per litre (400 rials = £1) and our car’s fuel consumption is 6 km/litre. Compare this with the cost of the same length journey in Britain and calculate the percentage difference. First correct answer to reach us will win a free night in our Aden guest apartment -flight not included.

Trip to Aden

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It was our first long journey in our new (8 year old) car. It is a white Landcruiser which is in very good condition and took a long time to find. Most of the cars here go around in a state of unroadworthiness. We had just about managed to get it serviced in time for the trip and left the none-urgent jobs till later- such as replacing the silly huge exhaust system which had been installed to make it sound like a racing car. Paul's parents and sister & brother-in-law were visiting us and for the last three days we were going for a holiday at the beach in Aden. Our Landcruiser has a third row of seats but to fit everyone's luggage in we put a big strong roofrack on top.

Gaffa tape saves the day

After a couple of minutes Kate, who was sitting on the back row, complained of a big draught coming through the rubber seal on the back window. I pulled over to have a look and just happened to stop right outside a hardware store. "Gaffa tape is what I need.", I thought to myself but then realised I didn't know the Arabic word for gaffa tape. "Tape" got me Cellotape, "tape, but like material" got me a roll of material but, third time lucky, "really, really strong tape" got me a roll of Gaffa Tape.

In-car refreshment

Having temporarily solved that problem, we carried on to Aden. Our new car has various electronic gadgets which don't work anymore -such as DVD player, multi-CD changer & SATNAV, but thankfully the aircon works really well and so does the drinks fridge! Feeling cool and having a cold drink while you drive makes the long journeys a lot less tiring in Yemen as it starts to get really hot.

Elephant bay

We arrived in Aden after about two and a half hours and went to our hotel -The Elephant Bay Beach Resort. It's called Elephant Bay because there's a rock formation that looks like an elephant (see attached picture). The hotel was right on the beach and was obviously not in such a good state of repair as it used to be in the old days of the British Empire! But we really enjoyed swimming in the sea and playing with Kira on the beach. She loved running into the sea at full speed and then running out again. On a couple of occasions we had to fish her out of the water to save her from drowning!

Never travel anywhere without Gaffa Tape

Aden is much hotter and more humid than Taiz so good aircon is essential for a good night's sleep. My mum & dad's aircon did not work very well and neither did the aircon in my sister & bro-in-law's room. Our aircon was effective but incredibly noisy because the casing was loose and rattled. A few strips of carefully placed Gaffa Tape solved that problem. Later we found flying ants coming out of a hole in the bathroom floor but solved that problem with Gaffa Tape as well. We woke up in the night because the aircon was working too well and we were freezing cold. .

April Fool's Day

I woke up today, not thinking much of the fact that it was April Fool's Day. After all, we are in Yemen. I went to school as normal and our first lesson was about holidays and celebrations in our countries so I tried to talk in Arabic about Bonfire Night, Pancake Day, and Bank holidays, since the Americans in the class had already explained about Christmas and Easter. If our teacher had known about April Fool's Day, maybe she would have had her doubts about my stories about a special day for pancakes and about how everyone burns Guy Fawkes on a bonfire every year and have done so for the last 400 years!

"You failed your exam!"

During break time, one of our Yemeni teachers, Fatima, having heard about April Fool's Day, decided to play a joke on one of our classmates, Nicola, who was at home today. She phoned her and told her that she had failed her oral exam from the previous day.

"What will happen now?", asked Nicola. She then overheard giggling in the background and realised it was a joke.

"Where is the real exam?"

In the next lesson, we decided to play a trick on Fatima by changing all the clocks and our watches to one hour before and sitting in our previous lesson's classroom to make her think she'd got the time wrong, but she was not fooled. She just walked in and gave us our exam. She had made us an eight page doubled sided exam which is twice the normal length and a couple of the other students began to look through it in horror. I put my hand up and asked, "Fein al ikhtibar al haqeeqa", (Where is the real exam?). Fatima had indeed produced a double length exam just because it was April Fool's Day, in addition to the real exam.

The exam was not too difficult and I could have done better if I had not been so adventurous with some of my sentences but I think that it's best to test yourself to your limits in an exam rather than to keep it simple to get full marks.

Car search continues

After lunch, Kate went to visit the neighbours with Kira, while I went out with a Yemeni friend to look at second hand cars. I have been going out a lot recently, a couple of times with a South African friend, Scott, who is a very good mechanic. With the budget we have, we are looking at getting a Toyota Prado which is about 6 or 7 years old, but most of the second hand cars have been mistreated badly over the years and aren't worth considering.

"They must realise that it's April Fool's Day"

We returned to a dealer where we had seen a Prado before which Scott had said was mechanically very sound, but it had two problems- the air-conditioning made a terrible noise and there we lots of bits of white plastic on the bonnet which were the leftovers of the plastic sticky stuff which is put on the car when it is made at the factory. Yemenis like to keep this plastic on the car for a long time so that everyone thinks the car is still new but then the sun bakes the plastic and makes it very difficult to remove, which looks ugly and could devalue the car later. We found today that they had fixed the aircon problem and told me that if I gave a deposit and committed to buying it, they would clean all the white plastic off. "They must realise that it's April Fool's Day", I thought to myself, and told them that I would not make a decision on the car until after they had done their best to remove the white plastic.

Special prices for foreigners

We then went to another dealer which had phoned my friend saying that they had a Prado for sale. When they saw that I was a foreigner, they started telling me that the price was $3000 more than they had told my friend on the phone. Maybe they knew it was April Fool's Day too. I will resume the car search tomorrow, when it's not April Fool's Day!

Driving from Sanaa to Taiz

Having picked up Kate's parents in Sanaa and visited a few of the sites there, we started the six hour journey back to Taiz. The journey is only 150 miles but there are a lot of mountains on the way with steep, windy roads and slow, difficult-to-overtake trucks. Apparently a Beegot (Peugeot Taxi) can do the journey in 3 hours but they are very crazy drivers. In a recent Arabic lesson we learnt the phrase for "The road of death" and agreed that catching a Beegot to Sanaa falls into this category.

As we left, we were just thinking that it was surprising that we hadn't seen any accidents despite all the crazy road activity we had witnessed in Sanaa including driving the wrong way down dual carriageways, sudden U-turns in front of us and pedestrians standing in the road oblivious of impending danger. Driving in Yemen requires a lot of concentration and prayer.

What happens after the accident can be more dangerous than the accident itself

Just as we were leaving Sanaa, Kate's mum noted that the roads were much clearer and easier to drive along at 8.00 in the morning. No sooner had she made this comment when we drove by the aftermath of 2 crashes within a few hundred metres of each other. There were many onlookers and police just standing in the road watching what was going on. In Yemen the person to blame for an accident is usually related to which driver is the most well-connected person, or which driver gives the biggest bribe to the policeman. It rarely has anything to do with what actually happened. An English friend of ours recently had a car accident which left a pedestrian with minor injuries. The police impounded his car until that man had been treated in hospital and our friend had paid for it. They would have put him in jail if an influential local friend of his had not signed a letter guaranteeing that the hospital costs would be paid.

As we drove past the second accident Paul glanced briefly at what was happening and then had to swerve to avoid an oblivious pedestrian crossing the road.

No roadworks signs

Another hazard on the roads of Yemen is roadworks, which appear suddenly without any warning signs and sometimes even send you onto the opposite carriageway without warning drivers coming in the other direction. This happened to us on the way into Sanaa the previous week and we had to move over to avoid hitting oncoming vehicles which were driving down our carriageway. Kate instructed Paul to do likewise on the return journey, thinking that it was the only way to get from the roadworks onto the road to Taiz. It turned out that there was a side road we could have taken to avoid this, but how could we have known this without any diversion signs to tell us.

Roast and Bakery Tourism

About halfway through the journey we had a break at a restaurant, which is one of the few places on the route with decent toilets. Opposite the restaurant was another restaurant called the "Al Khaleeg Restaurant Roast and Bakery Tourism" (see attached photo) and wondered what is involved in "Roast and Bakery Tourism".

You never know what is coming around the corner

As we continued through the mountains Paul had to concentrate hard to avoid hitting vehicles overtaking on blind corners or where there was no gap to overtake in. He pondered that driving in Yemen is like life because you never know what is coming around the corner.

Kate's Mum & Dad enjoyed all the spectacular views through the mountains of Yemen despite the slightly murky day. About three quarters of the way through the journey, we stopped for lunch with a family who are friends of ours and then we continued and arrived in Taiz at about 4 pm. Driving in Yemen can be a bit hazardous but thankfully we have a legion of angels surrounding us.

10 rules for safe driving in Yemen

1. Never assume you have the right of way
2. Never assume that anyone has seen you
3. Never assume that traffic only goes in one direction in your lane
4. Never assume that other drivers will obey the traffic lights
5. Always beep while overtaking or passing pedestrians
6. Always look in all directions for cars passing on either side and for pedestrians or animals running into the road
7. Always flash your lights at oncoming vehicles overtaking to let them know that they ought to pull in before they hit you.
8. Always be prepared to perform any manoeuvre necessary to negotiate roadworks
9. Always pray at the start of a long journey
10. Always make sure you are accompanied by several guardian angels.

Mountain Wedding

For the first time since we arrived here, we were invited to a wedding. It was the wedding of the sister of Ahmed (not his real name) who, along with his wife Alia (not her real name), are friends of ours here. It was to be held in a village near the top of the big mountain behind us at an altitude of about 9500 ft.

Picking up the bride?

We were scheduled to pick up Ahmed & Alia at about 12pm but they asked us if we’d come at 1pm so that we could pick up Ahmed’s sister after she had had her hair done. We drove to another place in town to wait for her but she was not ready because she also wanted to go to the photographer. Ahmed decided to leave her behind and make our way up the mountain so that we would not be waiting too long for our lunch.

4WD’s only past this point

After about 40 mins of the tarmac mountain road we turned off onto a rocky road which was very slow and narrow. If anything was to come the other way, you would have to reverse a long way. After about 15 mins on this road we arrived at Ahmed’s family home.

Weddings here are conducted almost entirely in a segregated fashion, so we must write separate accounts from this point forward…..

Paul with the men

Ahmed’s father greeted us very warmly and then took me off to the men’s room. It was a typically huge family and I was very confused about who was who when introduced to millions of brothers, cousins & nephews. Soon after arriving I ate lunch together with Ahmed’s father and all the brothers. The food was all on the floor and we sat in a big circle. They kept complaining that I wasn’t eating fast enough and put food aside for me so that I would have enough to eat after they had devoured it all at 100 mph! I guess you have to learn to eat fast when there are so many brothers sharing from the same food.

Afterwards, the men’s part of the wedding consisted mainly of sitting and talking (or attempting to talk in Arabic in my case) but I did enjoy being shown around the father’s land and the views were amazing. This time of year is the most popular for weddings and we could see and hear about 6 weddings going on in the valley.

The only part of the wedding ceremony that I saw was the part where the wedding party marched from the bride’s house to the groom’s house. This involves lots of playing drums and throwing dangerous firecrackers around and sometimes (though thankfully not this time) lots of gunfire. We watched them leaving but did not join them on account of the difficulty of navigating steep mountain paths while holding a baby.

Kate with the women

I was taken into the house and was greeted by lots of different female relations, which involved lots of cheek or hand kissing. Then lunch was served on the floor in the middle of the hallway and about 14 of us crammed round and tucked into rice, meat (not sure if it was goat or sheep!) and bread. Halfway through the meal, the bride arrived to lots of ululating from the women, and she dashed into the back room to put her wedding dress on. She emerged looking lovely in a sparkly white wedding dress with tiara and veil just like in UK, but she had lots of henna along her bare arms. She sat in the front room on a big chair covered in a rug and all the female relations and neighbours came to greet her - there were over 30 of us in a little room! Lots of photos were taken of the bride and family, whilst loud music played from a stereo. Kira was a bit overwhelmed with all the noise and people, especially when strange women tried to take her off me! It did not seem very long until the drummers could be heard signalling that they were ready to take the bride to the groom’s house. So the bride quickly got changed again into her normal clothes and face covering so that she could walk down the mountain. One of the women was assigned the task of bringing the white wedding dress in a big bag. Once most people had left, the house seemed very peaceful and those of us with young children and the old women sat around chatting. Then more food was brought along with small glasses of hot sweet tea.

Leaving at dusk

After they all went down the mountain towards the groom’s house, we stayed around for a while to stay goodbye and then managed to get going before dark so that we would be able to see where the edge of the road was on the rocky section. It was great to meet the family, who were so warm and hospitable and we would love to go up there and visit them again sometime.