Other views on Yemen

The most negative views on Yemen are expressed by people from the MENA region... Most of the bad jokes are from here: Sana'a is the only city that Allah recognised when he recently went back to the region... It is as if the Arabs thought that they dont deserve to have such a traditional and "left behind" country among them... In fact it is the most authentical place in the region, and eventually in the world. People stick to values that may seem archaic and completely different from what the Western world is promoting... It makes me think of the big confusion between tradition and religion in Afghanistan, with or without the Talibans! The country is moving slowly to the same situation I found in Botswana: Very basic houses in the middle of nowhere but the inhabitants access to all the satTV international channels and eventually commmunicate through mobile phones or even Thurayas... Very soon they will access to the internet when staying in the desert! But still women may not be allowed to go out alone and children will continue to be malnourished and die at an early age... How to get people address the right priorities? What kind of vision could be promoted in such an environment? It brings back to the antagonism between the Westerners and the rest of the world. The sense of victimization you feel in the Islamic countries should also be addressed in one way or the other: Who should do that? When are we going to stop hearing from remote rural people in Yemen that "they hate Americans"? Why should we still have so many countries where you are banned from coming if you have a Israeli stamp on your passport? We used to have that ban when South Africa was still under the apartheid regime.

The funny story of the day: Najla told me that when she was an adolescentl girl she was told that if any man seeing her in the street fell in love with her she could immediately fall pregnant... That is worse that the common story from home where adolescent girls convinced their parents that they got pregnant after swimming in a pool (My dear, you cant imagine what nasty men can do in a pool: masturbation in a pool can lead to pregnant girls!) ...