Back at the beginning

The first day I arrived here, about 10 months ago, I was taken out into Sana'a by Ahmed the driver. He's a really nice guy and no longer working at the school. As we headed down the street we met one of the students who was here last summer and she joined us for lunch. We ate faHsa near bab al-Yemen which I absolutely loved. It tasted somewhat similar to the Mexican fahitas I'd eaten back at Enchilatas in Brisbane. FaHsa is pieces of bull meat cooked at really high temperature over a gas flame in a black metal bowl which you eat from directly - just like fahitas. On top is a strongish kind of green and yellow spice broth which can be nice in small quantities or vile, depending on where you get it from. I've heard it's a mix fat and spice but it can taste a bit like a dry spice with a bit of a cheese-like taste.

So on that day I thought I was going to love Yemeni food. But since Ahmed left the school shortly after that day and I forgot how to get there I wasn't able to eat at that restaurant again for 10 months and the other faHsa I'd been eating was nowhere near as good. So since that day the other Yemeni food I was eating was

Fish
usually charcoal-grilled. Very nice in the beginning but I'm tired of it now

Chicken
Not bad too, it's either grilled on a rotisserie or boiled. Boiled is hideous I think - quite flavourless and dry whereas rotisserie cooked is pretty good. Again, after 10 months I'm a bit sick of both options.

Fasulya (beans)
Fasulya in Lebanon is long green beans. Fasulya in Yemen is a plate sized patty of round shaped bean innards and browny/boney in colour mixed with eggs. Fasulya is also a soupy type mix of the beans and juice which is similar to baked beans. Both are eaten with copious amounts of bread and I've never really liked either. Fasulya is served for breakfast and for dinner (for the staff) - I don't know how Yemenis can handle eating it so often.

Eggs
I like the eggs here if they're cooked on their own but usually tomatoes, eschallots, potatoes and other bits and pieces are added too. Most additions are ok but tomatoes make the eggs soggy and I don't like the mix of the flavours.

Bint AssaHan
This dish rocks. I think I've already mentioned this on here before

Salta/FaHsa
At the school neither of these taste very good but they are tasty if you find the right restaurant. The difference in quality is chalk and cheese.

There's also broast, sharwama and kebabs which are all decent cheap options. But personally I usually prefer Lebanese/Syrian food like meat grills, kibbeh, kofta, shish tawouk, tabouleh and so on.


The YLC has really transformed in this last week. We've gone from about 30 students to about 100 after one plane flight. It's pretty chaotic now but an interesting change. To help out I took a group of 8 or so students around Sana'a on a walking-tour a few days ago and on my trip I finally rediscovered the faHsa restaurant I loved on my first day here. It's called Al-Harazi and it's about 1 km from bab al-Yemen. The taxi driver who took me there said it was not bad and other teachers told me later there are better faHsa restaurants but until I try them I don't care. Hooray for Harazi.

Anyway, yesterday when I ate that faHsa I really felt like I'd met the other bookend for my time and Yemeni. I could look back and see my progress in Arabic through the conversation I was able to have with the taxi driver and the jokes we were able to share. At the end of my ride I offered the driver 300 riyals and he wouldn't accept anymore than 150.

Yesterday I felt ready to leave Yemen as it's been a successful time for me here and I've made realistic progress when taking into consideration the depth of the language and the time I've had available to study it while working 6 hours a day in addition to helping students out of my work hours if they have problem with their laptops. That's also taking into consideration the 30 or so lessons I've missed due to infantile excuses by my teachers and the administration at the school.

Aside from the food experience, I really felt like it was at the end of my time in Yemen because I'd reached the end of what I was able to put up with from the YLC management. The director here takes advantage of the desire of students to learn Arabic by offering them jobs on a one or two year contract and at very low cost to him in comparison to the work he requires. He pays workers like me and the American staff even less than he'd pay a Yemeni to do our jobs. My deal for example is

(all costs are what the director pays, not what he charges students)

plane ticket to and from Brisbane paid for --->$2800
accommodation at a staff house
$500 per month/5 staff ----------------------->$1200
classes
hard to equate as teachers are paid a salary
$5/hour * 10h/wk * 52 wks ------------------>$2600
food
generously I'll say about 800 riyals a day
$4/d * 5 d/wk * 52 wks ---------------------->$1040

All up ----------------------------------------> $7640

That 'grand' total is a fraction of what I could get in another countries and unlike the other staff I'm doing a job that requires more skills than general administration and spread sheets. But the boss is really thick when it comes to paying staff at a rate fitting with their value to the company and the hours they work. Staff on a 2 year contract get what I get in freebies plus a monthly stipend of $200US. Another member of staff has just got a raise from $200US a month to $1250US per month and there is nothing exceptional about the work he does. His is regular unskilled administration work. Yemenis are unfamiliar with offering bulk discounts for people because, generally speaking, they lack business skills and our boss has some good business skills but he's very tight fisted in paying his employees. He pays what the contract says and no more. He threatens staff with termination of employment to get them to do things rather than rewarding staff for good work with raises, bonuses or other sorts of incentives.

The boss is going to have a tough time finding a replacement for me when I leave in 2 months and he would really like me to take personal responsibility for finding a replacement. That's his problem though. I've put a job ad up for him and that's where my responsibility ends.

The whole reason I was ready to leave was that I'd missed another week and a half of classes because, according to the administration, it was in between terms and teachers were having a holiday. Every 5 weeks the teachers have a holiday of between 2 days and 10 days in between the terms. Meanwhile the boss still expects us to work without getting our classes. And I've run out of patience with that because classes are the whole reason I came here at great financial cost and other personal sacrifices, and basically the classes are my wages here. In the past I've had teachers take 2 weeks off from teaching me because they were taking a student's parents on a tour around Yemen. Other times my teachers have just said no class today, it's Wednesday and I want a long weekend.. Another time another student who shares my teacher arrived late and my teacher gave me half a lesson so he could give her half a lesson too. These situations have been repeating over and over again. There's never been mention of make-up classes. As staff we're seen as second rate students. Other loony students have even said to me, we pay for the classes so it's not fair when we miss them but for staff it's different. But in fact we are paying for our classes too in the wages we're not receiving. I started with a good teacher but after that I was given a teacher no student wanted and I put up with him and found out how to learn through him and then they took him away from me and gave me another teacher who's even worse and no students want that teacher as a teacher either.

In addition to all the above, the boss decreed we would start having only 3 classes a week instead of 5. Not because he's a mean man and he can't afford to pay the teachers.. No.. because he said, it was because he knew we'd be too busy with working for him to have time for 5 classes. This stipulation was in the contract but in light his weak (ie. false) explanation for it, and me having a teacher no other student wants, I couldn't see the problem with me continuing with 5 lessons a week. So I told him everything, told him how unhappy I was and didn't say (but he understood) that I was going to leave if the situation wasn't rectified. He refused my request and said there would only be 3 lessons a day. He told me it was my fault for not having classes because I hadn't brought it up with him earlier. And he went on to say I wasn't meeting my contract because I was late for work sometimes and he'd given me bonus holidays in addition to my allowance. He's given me about 3 holidays in addition to my allowance and although I sometimes sleep in and I'm late, I work more than the 6 hours per day, 5 days a week plus 4 hours on Thursday which I'm required to do. Compare that to the 30 lessons or so I've missed without replacement and I was not a happy taalib. But the day after he caved, and said I would have 5 classes at least until the next additional batch of students arrives.

All in all I was very unhappy with the situation and ready to move on but now I'm somewhat grateful for it because it's given me a good incentive to pursue my options more thoroughly now, 2 months ahead of when I'm to leave, so I have a better chance of finding an exciting next destination.