Explorer Mikael Strandberg

In a few days I will be leaving Sana`a and return to Sweden. It feels exactly like when the woman you love more than anything has just left you. Your heart aches, you feel empty, you look at pictures of her, you worry what will the future  be like, you miss her profoundly and you ask yourself:

I will miss cruising the Old City passing places like this....a workshop....

“Will I ever see her again?”

Well, if the longing and ache is big enough, you will see her again, so YES! I will see Sanaa soon again. In shallah!

The war planes are still leaving Sana`a, it seems like there is no end to the war, it just continuous and people have almost stopped talking about it. It has become part of the daily chores. Global media still writes about it, though, but still seems to lack profound insight and it seems just to be second hand reports. (Read this and a local point of view, this.) Ramadan is moving into its last week and soon the Eid festivities will begin, the same day I return to Sweden. I guess it is the right time to return, before the festivities. Why indeed enjoy life to its fullest….

Well, I have had many questions about my studies….how have they fared?

This is the house where I had my apartment in the Old City, see the lights...that is the mafrag....

Hmmm, I set out to become a scholar and ended up loving Yemen, but I guess, I have a good base when it will be time to set off on the Big Expedition! Problem is that most of the local Yemenis I have hanged out with have spoken English and that the plans for the big Expedition has taken most of my energy and time, trying to get the right contacts here in this lovely country. Which I believe I have. So, as it is right now, I do know a lot more Arabic than when I came here and the school where I have done my studies have been excellent in every way. Good program, excellent teachers and great staff! One thing is for sure, however, my choice to come to Yemen ahead of Egypt or Syria, was the best of choices!

The reason for this is many. First of all, if one wants to experience the real Arabia, Yemen is the place. If you come here to learn Arabic, the same applies, and this is due to that you learn so much more than just Arabic. Very few Yemenis do speak English. You really dwell into the Moslem world in every way! And you get this really important perspective on Islam and Moslems, which for me has been as important, since my upcoming Expedition has all to do with education and understanding.

How to read the Quran....not at all easy...is kat forbidden, haram, or not?

So, I will try to give you readers some of this new perspective I have acquired. Let me first just state though exactly the same as my good friend, the worlds foremost female camel traveller, Aritha Baiijens, who´s spent many years travelling the Arab World, told me when I asked her:

“Are you a Moslem?”

“Are you joking? I am a free spirit!”

The same applies to me. I believe, but do not belong. So, let me continue, when you dive into the Quran you realise after awhile, that this religion in reality is a very just, fair, down to earth and that many of those holy words written in the Suras, Hadiths, well, they can after all be easily misinterpreted to suit people with conservative, non-educated and down right evil minds. Take for example the word Jihad, which in the West is interpreted Holy War and for most Westerners means armed fanatics either blowing themselves up in crowds of innocent people or cutting heads of Western hostages, well, in reality it means effort. Which means that it in the beginning of Islam stood for a spiritual meaning, that the believer withstood all evil which surrounded him and instead fought the nasty thoughts of oneself. A war against oneself.

Terreced fields outside Thilla....

Another discovery when reading the Quran is that is far from as anti-woman is we in the west believe, it is just again, once more, conservative men who has translated the words of the Quran to suit their own means to keep power…but, yes, there are many anti-woman quotations, as in the Bible and I think one has to try to see the Quran, and the Bible, also in its historical perspective and understand that one has to change with time and apply life to what the world looks like right now. To quote the Quran itself, in Sura 13:11 it states that Allah will not change the possibilities of humans, until they change themselves!

Yemeni women rushing through the souk during Ramadan....

So true! Have a changed myself during these ten weeks in San`a?

Indeed, I have regained hope, joy of life, freed myself of a lot of worries and I am set for the Big Expedition!

However, as always, life is just not filled with joy, I am off back to Sweden to sort things out…..in shallah, it will work out will.

From now on, all my blog work will be at http://preparingforthenextexpedition.blogspot.com/

But, please, do see this little slideshow from my Yemeni visit!

I almost love the research before an Expedition as much as the journey itself. And I know, it has to be thorough, professional and open-minded, because a lot of the success of any serious Expedition has to do with the amount of good research an explorer puts in. For me who love books, maps and since the Internet appeared as a research tool, unfortunately meaning the death of the libraries, this period is a big journey in itself. You almost have to become a scholar. Even though I will only remember a few percent of what I learn now and put into use on the expedition in itself, it will, still, most of it, be there in the back of my head, when the Expedition is over and it is time to do something with all the collected material. Like writing a book, doing a film or preparing for lectures. And it will put you in the right frame of mind already now, even though I am in reality holed up in a small, dusty little apartment in a dark and boring suburb to Stockholm. But already now, I will for example remember, knowledge gained from just the couple of days of research that I have done now, whilst doing research on Westerners Travelling in Rub Al-Khali or The Empty Quarter -well, the Bedu have travelled there for thousand of years of course, something the white West tends to forget, but they have no written material left behind, unfortunately- that one of the legends of the area is Bertram Thomas.

The Empty Quarter, or Rub Al-Khali, was often referred to in the first part of the 20th Century as one of the few remaining genuinely unexplored regions of the world, on the same scale as the South and North Pole. Therefore many explorers wanted to do the first crossing of this vast sandy desert, 650 000 square kilometres in size, like putting Belgium, Holland and France together, but first of all gold digging explorers to catch this price -forgetting the local Bedu who lived here- turned out to be a simple civil servant from Bristol in the UK, Bertram Thomas. He crossed the Empty Quarter together with local Bedu 1930-31 and wrote an excellent book called Arabia Fenix. Amazingly enough his book can be read on the Internet!

At this stage when I have decided on where to go, understanding the objective of the expedition, all effort has to be put into finding the right contacts and background material. Both tasks filled with joy. Communicating with experts on the area is half the fun. And so far almost everyone I have contacted have been very helpful, showing a camaraderie unknown between people in the same business as me here in grey Sweden. One of them is the Grand Old Dame of desert and Camel travel, Arita Baijeens. And as always, you come across people associated with other things and other dreams you have had. Today, by pure coincidence during my research, I came across an old acquaintance of mine, Dan Mazur, and remembered that I had told him a few years ago, that I of pure interest after reading Hillary´s account of his conquest of Everest, wanted to make an attempt on Hillary´s and Tenzing´s original route. Dan Mazur, like me using Facebook, so I contact him and said, I am still interested. He advised me to go for it, if prepared, april 2010. Why not then….life is short.

Second task is to put an enormous effort into getting a picture as big and broad as possible regarding the area. What I have to learn and try to understand in a very short time, 10 months or so, is a gigantic task. Even though I have already had quite a lot of insight into Islam, Arabs, the Middle East and desert travel from earlier travels, I know almost nothing about the Gulf, camels or, most important, their original inhabitants, the Bedu. And I need to learn Arabic, in shallah.

At the same time I have to try to support myself, find sponsors, set up the media kit, keep extremely fit, eat the right food, be relatively happy, have a social life, but still spend most of the time studying, no easy thing. Gee, there is some sacrifice indeed! It is at the same time, one of the best moments of an explorers life, but also the worst in some ways, because you love it more than other parts of your life. But it is the same thing before every Expedition. Most people who are close to you, genuinely fear and hate it! This is what a true explorer want to do more than anything else in life! travel, be it through books or in reality. I do look forward to this Expedition more than ever before!