Explorer Mikael Strandberg

Me, worth 2 000 000 dollars?

“I have put everything on hold” , Nasr told me with sadness, “My father wants me to get married. And since I am the oldest son, I am expected to stay around my family if I get married, so once I am married, I won´t be able to join you. I can´t hold off my father for much longer, I am already 25 years old!”

Another bit of a shocker since we arrived to Oman getting ready to leave in January! Not much has gone our way over here since arrival and I am trying to figure out what direction to take. It is of course just a case of patience and hard work, and since everything here is closed until tomorrow and have been for ten days, I will phone myself hoarse tomorrow…..Anyway, I have just returned back to Muscat after a trip back and forth to Ibra over the day to visit Nasr, one of the two Bedouins (or Bedu as they are called in the Arab World) who is expected to join us for the big overland trip to the Atlantic coast. It was one of the best, most informative and interesting days during this time of mine here in Oman. The reason: Well, just getting close to these great and gracious animals called camels, the flat silent desert and the peace it brings, just made me very happy! It affected all of us three who went there. I have a very good friend visiting me, the legendary coach of Swedens Ice Hockey Team, Bengt “Fisken” Ohlsson. He has done a one months tour of Iran, Dubai, Yemen and now Oman.

“Best day of my trip!” he said, “Fantastic people!”

Eating camel for lunch....From left: Nasr, Abdullah, P and me. Just before the shocking news!

Nasr works for Sultans Royal Guards and was off on leave over Eid and his brother Abdullah was home from his studies in India, which was perfect since his English is excellent. Finally we had the chance to sit down and have a good chat. Nasr is well trained physically, motivated and his family lives in a very nice home in village just outside Ibra. Since they are Bedouin, they’re extra-ordinary generous. We were served tender camel cooked in a hole in the ground for over 24 hours. We ate this great dish together with rice and lots of Arabic coffee and halwa.

“I don´t think we will be able to leave in January” , I told Nasr immediately after arrival whilst he looked at me with respect, “We have run into some problems with time, it just takes an enormous amount of time to get things moving here and we still haven´t found any camels good enough for this trip. So that is one reason we have come to visit you today. I heard your cousin had racing camels?”

“Yes he does” , Abdullah translated, “But they´re very expensive. Like a car. The best cost more than 2 000 000 dollars.”

The Wahiba Bedus way to carry equipment......puuuhh........

The cheapest camels are about 10 000 dollars and that is an extra-ordinary sum, but that is life in the Gulf countries. In Yemen of course, you could get one, as good, for a tenth of that price, but it would be impossible to transport them to Oman, the country where we want to start our journey from. We ain´t changing our plans, yet……but there´s no doubt, I want to leave as soon as possible! But January seems unlikely right now, which means if we don´t get started before the beginning of March, it will be impossible, due to the summer heat, to leave until Mid-August. Another bit of a shocker, realizing this. All of those worries left us, of course, as soon as we made it out in to the desert south of Ibra and meeting Rashad the cousin and his 50 racing camels, beautiful, but a little bit twitchy and nervous, like racing horses. We did a little tour around camp and loved it, but I doubt these can do a long trip.

“My best camel runs 8 km in less than 13 minutes!” Rashad said and than showed me how to pack 60 kg on a camel.

Didn´t look good at all. They don´t know, the Bedus of Oman today, about long distance travel. Rashad showed me a lot of techiques and skills how to take care of camels and I enjoyed his company immensely. Funny, street smart, knowledgeable about the camel, loved them, he had worked camels since he was seven and inspired us a lot. We need at least 1 month, maybe two, to live and train the camels we will bring. A time I look forward to a lot. We could easily have stayed at that camp for two months right now, it was that relaxed, silent and pleasant. And free from email, telephones and worries…..right now, am ready for tomorrow!

By the way, I had an email from a friend who said Geoffrey Moorhouse had died. He did an attempt to cross the Sahara in the 70´s and failed. He wrote a book well worth reading if you want to understand the difficulties and dangers involved in camel travel. I wrote this piece about him earlier http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2009/04/01/the-fear-factor/ Another worry for us is the development in the region, see this about Dubai and this about Yemen

Rashad -very helpful camel owner and Bedu

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Life at the souk just outside my flat in Old Sanaa at 3.30 a.m....

A few hours ago I woke when the muezzin called for another day of fasting, accompanied by warplanes heading for the Saada Province and realizing that the Yemeni government under Abdullah Ali Saleh was stepping up their attempt to stamp out the Al Houthi-rebellion in the north. At least 10 of them passed over the legendary Old City of Saana, the city which according to legend was placed here by Sem. After that experience, it is always frightening to hear the sounds of war just outside your own comfort zone, I couldn´t sleep even though I went to bed at 4 a.m, so I read an article about the 100 Yemenis (50% of all) detainees still locked up at Guatanamo Bay accused of terrorism. The rain was pounding down hard on the streets below and I remembered what my new friend A said just a few hours earlier:

A road most of the time, until heavy rains hit the city.......

“I think this is vital for the future of the country” , he said whilst sipping at the hubble-bubble (the water pipe which is called shisha here in Yemen) , “If we can´t destroy them now, in this the 6th war against the Houthis, we will not get any further and the country will probably fall apart. But I think this time we will win.”

A is one of the Yemen’s young brains and the future brain trust, a great fellow, who have been called back from abroad to use his know how to save the country. Ours was a business meeting, the first I have ever had at 1.30 a.m, but than again this is after all Yemen, this amazing country!

Ibn Battuta, the great Moroccan-Persian traveller......

“It is a fantastic feeling being back in Yemen after so many years abroad” , he said sucking the pipe, enjoying his taste of apple, “but it is not easy. I don´t know if you read this article published in Time Magazine just recently? About the Yemenis chewing kat and in that way killing the country? Well, it is true. They start thinking about chewing kat at 1 p.m, and loose their concentration. This is a problem.”

I have noticed this. It is everywhere, the kat chewing. People guarding the school, guarding government buildings, well, everywhere in San’a, but than again, it is part of life here and I guess, when there´s very little hope, a commodity many Yemenis lack right now, one just wants to forget about the negative aspects of life and think about the good ones! Which I did after waking up. I thought about one of the greatest travellers of all time, Ibn Battuta who describes his visit to Yemen in the year of 1329:

“We went on from there to the town of Ta’izz, the capital of the king of Yemen, and one of the finest and largest towns in that country. Its people are overbearing, insolent, and rude, as is generally the case in towns where kings reside.”

Unfriendly? Just chewing kat.....

Ibn Battuta is known amongst pretty much everyone here in Yemen. The same applies to Oman. It is sad that he isn´t better known in the West,where we highlight the travels of Marco Polo, who in comparison to Ibn Battuta is a mere tourist. In short, Ibn Battuta traveled for nearly 30 years, from Morocco to China and back and much more. I have written about him earlier, read more here and no matter to whom I talk about my journey, Ibn Battutas travels always comes up. Amazingly enough, the best scholar on Ibn Battuta is living here in San’a and I have met him once at a kat chew of course, Tim MacKintosh-Smith. He has lived here for as long as Ibn Battuta traveled and is more Yemeni than European. A great and very humble guy who have written two books on Ibn Battuta. And one on Yemen, which is a superb read. In this book he highlights a lot of the positive aspects of the Arab World and its Golden Era, about which I will write more next time!

By the way, Tim Mackintosh-Smith told me a joke, which is probably the oldest joke alive, especially in the Arab world. It is from the 12th Century and goes like this:

“A Christian decides to convert to Islam and is told that to be able to do this he has to say Allah Akbar and Mohamed is his prophet plus he has to get circumcised. Which he does. But after awhile he regrets his conversion and wants to leave the new religion, but is told he will get his head cut off if he does. Very upset he exclaims: What kind off a religion is this where you get your dick cut off when joining and your head  when leaving it!”

Anyway, time for me to go to class and hear Rashads stories from daily life in Yemen. As interesting as Ibn Battutas passage through Yemen! By the way, interesting analysis in the Yemen Times about the situation here!

Sanaa hiding from the heavy rains.

”Ramadan is the best time of the year!” said my teacher Rashad with passion and continued: “It is a time when you get closer to God, when you think about who you are, feel compassion with others and show your most generous side. And it is a time of big commercialism. The streets will be full of people in the middle of the night! You can buy absolutely anything!”

Working the belts.....

The opinions of the goodness of Ramadan is views of contradictions. Amongst the ex-pat (foreign Western workers) community in Sanaa, not a very big one, Ramadan is a time of complications when the country stands still and nothing happens. Even though it is officially said that people do work between 10-15, it is also said that nothing seems to happen. But, personally, I really look forward to the Ramadan, even though I am not a Muslim. It is no doubt a time of festivity and joy. But not all Muslims are happy regarding all the tough restrictions on normal life, which the rules of Ramadan sets.
“These people are savages!” whispered an Iraqi to me yesterday, when he like me, was fighting my way to reach the overwhelmingly packed cheese and lebne counter at the slightly upper-class Hodda Super Market yesterday an hour before iftar, the break of the fast, “These people are almost talibans in their religious strictness. I got smacked in the face this morning when I tried to smoke. I miss Iraq under Saddam Hussein so much. You could do anything under him as long as you didn´t interfere with his life. This country would need a strong man like Saddam Hussein! He would sort out these religious bastards.”

Sellling belts......

For you readers who might not know, Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam, where you, if you are a good and devout Muslim, fast from the sunset to the sunrise. At that means strictly no smoking, no drinking of water or other liquids, no love making, no food and no kat chewing. It is a fast who is supposed to make the believer understand and appreciate the harshness of life. Like being a Bedouin in the desert. Which is the origin of the Arab itself. So, Ramadan applied on modern life, it has its consequences. For me personally, what I have seen so far ( I am not fasting, that would be very dangerous with my blood sugar….anyway, I am totally against the concept of fasting anyway, it just does damage to the body unnecessarily) it has meant that the Internet here is irregular and almost impossible to use, which makes me extremely upset and I see that as a sign of a shitty government. Sorry lost my temper there a bit……on top of that, the day has moved forward 6 hours, so late breakfast and late dinner, which suits me perfectly. However, the gym is closed until 20.00 hours, and that is complicating things a bit. And, of course, I don´t drink or eat in public. It all takes a bit more planning, that´s all. And then, just enjoy this great month of Ramadan! Yesterday, I just walked the jambiyya souk (knife market) just after midnight in pouring rain and it was one of the highlights of my visit! It was like walking through a pre-medieval setting, 1000 of years back in time, everyone was getting ready for the big influx of buyers and electricity went on and off, and I tell you one thing, if I would walk all of the 40 or so souks which makes up the Old Souk of Sanaa, through all the winding and narrow alleys, it would take me years. I stopped and talked to one of the best known jambiyya and belt sales people, Abdullah Karim, and I sat with him an hour, listening to his stories and differences in quality regarding knives and belts of Sanaa.

Souk without electricty.....medieval!

“I do 90% of my sales in a year during Ramadan” , he told me with gusto, “This is one the rich people come and buy, but really, this is when everyone buys belts and knives.”
He showed me the cheap belts and knives, and than he opened a hidden door behind himself, whilst chewing an enormous load of kat, where he had his exclusives, knives for thousands of dollars and belts made with gold thread of the highest quality.
“I travel to China, Russia and India every year, when there´s no work. Which is the case 6 months of the year, when we basically only chew kat and wait for the prosperous times like the Ramadan.”
Ramadan Karim!

More stories from this great month to come!

See the pilot from the upcoming Expedition!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3GI-YeZP5E]

I do get a fair amount of questions from readers who wish to know the development of my Arabic…..well, the truth is that it is better than when I came! It is like life itself, it has gone up and down, but since the first term is almost over, one day to go, I am more than happy that I took the choice to come here.

View of the old city of Sanaa from a well placed mafrag.

There´s no doubt that I have had some of the best moments of my life here. Much of it is due to the people I have come across here. It has been such a busy month where I have had problems catching my breath in between lessons, meeting people, planning the Expedition and trying to handle all these, at times, unbelievable impressions that you continuously run into here in Sanaa. So, just to get a bit of a break,and meet my great friends in Oman, I will head for Yemen’s neighbor for a four day visits. I will keep you updated about the visit.

Learning anything new in life, you need a good setting -it couldn´t be better than Sanaa, due to that very few Yemenis speak English plus that they´re very happy to take their time to listen to you- and you need a well established school plus good teachers and if you like me, are in a group, inspiring fellow students.  I have very strong opinions on the subject of teachers, I firmly believe they have the most import work on earth, and therefore, you need good teachers -good humans with a mission- to get inspired to study. I have had one teacher which has inspired a lot, Rashad, during my first term studies.

Rashad - engaged teacher

Rashad´s life is like any other Yemeni teacher, meaning a lfe dominated by lot´s of preparations and patience mixed with how to handle and survive the pressures of normal life.  Take Rashad, he is married with kids, his wife studies, so he supports them both, plus two of his brothers who are studing at university plus his father who´s not in the best of shape in life and he dreams of an easier life with better payment and the possiblity to buy a car, a house and to gather enough money to be able to do a pilgrimage to Mecca. But the cost to do this is enormous.  Yesterday he was away from school due to an eye problem caused by stress. So, the same applies to modern people all over the world, life is plagued by stress to fulfill dreams of the many.

My visit to Yemen constantly reminds me what a privileged human being I am!

The future of Yemen with his dad