This is how it all started. We had no idea whether we would get out of Sanaa or not. I called Amin. He was late. And he didn´t answer. I was nervous. Maybe the government had turned off the mobile phone net again due to a possible escalation in the war. Amin called an hour late and said he had forgotten to recharge the batteries of his mobile. It was a unique call. He never called himself, only received. To expensive to call he said. And he didn´t want to waste his time, with small talk. He also said that the driver had problems starting his old jeep, but that they were on their way.

“Get ready!” he said.

I had been ready for many days. All packed. But I was unsure if it all would happen or not. It seemed almost impossible. Nobody got out of Sanaa. Not even our headmaster of the College of Middle Eastern Studies, Sabri Saleem, could make his way back to his home village of Manakhah, a stones throw from the capital. But Amin had said, Mikael, no need to worry. We had all permits. I quickly said goodbye to the girls, pushed in my gear in the cramped jeep and jumped into the front seat. And off we went down the busy road, whilst we heard mortars in the back ground.

“It must be a big wedding today” , Amin said seriously and than smiled.

I realised he was a joker half the day and very serious the other half. I preferred the joking part, before he started to chew khat.

“We need to buy khat” , he said about 2 minutes after we left the school, “This is the national hobby of Yemen. I divide my days in three parts. I work, I sleep and I chew khat.”

We must have passed at least a dozen check points, half belonging to the government, the rest to Ali Mohsen´s troops, before we left the war torn city and started to climb out of the valley, heading up north for Al Qabil, turning west before the impossible road to Amran, Huth and Sadaa. We passed Ahmed Ali Saleh´s, the powerful son of Abdullah Ali, big camp to the right before we got stopped and checked seriously. By which I mean, they took a copy of my permit and didn´t react. Our idea was to do a rec of our possible route and Amin reckoned a possible route would be Zabid and north to Sanaa via Al Mahwit, Shibam and Al Qabil. The Old Historical Tea Route.

The choice of our starting point in the historical city of Zabid, and not as earlier planned in Bayt Al Faqih, was due to the fact that we had found a ready to go camel there. A friend of Amin´s in the tourist business of old, Usama, used to have a business of hiring out a camel for the day to tourists to explore the desert area of Tihama. We had already understood, Amin and me, that due to the war and lack of time before my permit and visa ran out, we just didn´t have sufficient time –at least 5 weeks- to train 1-3 camels to bring on the long trip. Therefore, this was a good alternative, because he would send a cameleer with us and when we thought we could deal with the camel ourselves, he would leave us. He would therefore train us whilst walking. That was the idea. I did know, though, experienced as I am in these kind of situation, the truth could be slightly different.

Unfortunately I had already realised during the packing of gear that I, the old explorer, had lost a bit of the touch needed, which one has when doing Expeditions continuously. Once again I had forgotten to get malaria prophylaxes or any decent medicine by the way. I just brought pain killers and tiger balm. I had also forgotten to prepare my feet, which was down right stupid. So I just had to take the risk of ruining them. I had trained quite a lot the last year, walking with heavy gear. So to make myself feel better, I told myself that was more than enough. I also had punctures unfixed on my inflatable sleeping mattresses, and one torch didn´t work and I had no maps! Well, I had a road map as an outline, but that is it. And Amin said, he had everything under control. Which worried me. Because I should be the one who had it all under control…..There were no maps to be found In Yemen, I didn´t dare to bring any, but I reckoned we would get by. That is Yemen. A slog, but you get by. And don´t complain.

As regards to travelling with camels, I walk, not ride. This is due to the fact that I have learned throughout the years, that animals like camels and horses take too much damage on their backs on long trips. Especially camels. Even though cameleers can say that they can carry hundreds of kilos for years, they have no idea. They have never travelled more than two weeks at the most. And as important a fact, there’s no camels today, trained for these distances and this kind of hard work in this neighbourhood, so better take it easy and walk. Until one has trained them oneself. This is my firm belief. But I didn´t get much time to think about such issues, because as quick as we left Sanaa, I realised our driver, Abdul Aziz, wasn´t happy. Amin had warned me as quick as we had signed him up to do the job to drive us and the gear to Zabid, that it wouldn´t take long until he would start bothering me for more money than we had agreed upon.

“It is always the same” , Amin told me; “He says yes, because he needs the money, doesn´t calculate and than ends up begging. He is a scallywag. But he was the only one who would drive us.”

Amin is a very honest, straight forward person. He is that kind of guy who will tell you absolutely everything. Whether you want to hear it or not. And Abdul Aziz and his begging would bother us both for the rest of that. I didn´t give him anymore than we had agreed upon. If he chose to spend most of it on khat, that is his problem, not mine. And he spent a lot on khat whilst heading for Al Amhwit and the gravel road there after. And once he started to chew, he ended up in his own little world. Like Amin. Fortunately, they were still hanging in, when we ran into trouble of the big kind in a tribal check point!

Well, let me first say that the first serious check point, was actually when we got stopped by a group of tribal warriors who had set up a check point on the road just after the turn off at Thilla. An illegal one, of course. They checked our car carefully, looking for a fugitive who came from another tribe, a neighbour, who apparently had stolen some wheat from this tribe. An they wanted to punish him badly for this. We would be stopped by these armed tribes men on and off, they were never difficult to talk to. See this film below!

By which I mean, at least until an hour before we reached Al Mahwit on one of the most stunning routes on earth. This time they pulled their Kalashnikovs and pointed at us through the window and demanded 200 dollars. We said no. They demanded we pay.

“If you don´t pay, you will have to come with us to our village. You will have to stay there until you have paid!”

Amin demanded to see their sheikh. They said no. Suddenly, before things turned nasty and we possibly got kidnapped and held at ransom, a new American jeep turned up with the sheikh inside it. We complained, he laughed and set us free to leave.

“Hmmm” , Amin said; “Maybe we should find another route. This one is not safe.”

That aggressiveness was not a very common Yemeni behaviour. They must have been under great pressure. Just a few hundred metres ahead we stopped for me to take a photo over the great surrounding nature and its villages perched on every mountain ridge and top and people came by and congratulated us all for having left Sanaa to see the real Yemen. As always, they asked where we came from. Most people thought Amin was a foreigner, due to his bleak complexion, which probably shows that he has some Ottoman blood in himself. He stated with clarity that he came from Ibb, the most beautiful place in Yemen, with the kindest and most hospitable people. When I said I was Swedish, somebody said:

“Alfa Laval and Ericsson.”

Knowledge which surprised me! I don´t know why, but once we left Sanaa, it felt somehow that we entered a completely different world, centuries older and that big change was still to come. Once we left Al Mahwit, so used to tourist when there were tourists in this one of the most spectacular countries on earth, we headed down a dirt road. This was the old ancient Coffee Caravan Trail, where camels loaded with coffee, and other items, travelled from the coastal towns in Tihama to Sanaa and the cities beyond. There´s still watch towers and remnants of caravanserai on the route and I have to admit, I feel extremely privileged and happy that I might come this route a few hundred years later!

The dirt road slowly took us down the valleys and slowly temperatures became more humid, well, palm trees started to appear next to the road and people turned darker.

“This people used to be slaves” , Amin added as if he knew what I was thinking and finished by saying: “They still behave like slaves. They only sleep, eat and chew khat.”

Almost everyone we met along the dirt road begged for money or food. They were happy just getting a few cents. Everyone in the car except me gave. I felt bad. It is this Western thing, or I should say Lutheran upbringing, basically teaching that be fair, but only if you work, you get paid. So I started to share out all the change I carried. It felt much better. But nobody talked about the war here. It was, once again, like we had entered another world.

Tihama was hot, but the air so much less polluted than Sanaa. It was a relief. We arrived in Zabid in the car and went straight to Usama, who owned a small hotel just in front of the Old Fort, an impressive building even in the dark. They had no electricity but offered us, as usual, to sit down, relax and chew khat, before we started doing business. Hunger drew us instead downtown this old and charming town and we ended up at a wedding for an hour!

Back in the dark, we dealt with the business by candle and my torch and the camel and its handler with arrive next morning and I said we would leave immediately. I was told the cameleer was prepared to travel all the way to Sanaa, if needed.

”The shelling matches have resumed. Heavy explosions now shaking Taiz”

There´s definitely a great worry amongst the people I know in Sanaa, that the war will resume soon and the GCC agreement destroyed, since the battles in Taizz have escalated. According to the most believable news media it is tribal warriors against the government. It seems that one of them want the agreement dead. But as usual, the two sides don´t care about the inhabitants of this country, because loads of innocent people continues to get seriously injured and die. If the agreement dies, I will definitely NOT get out of Sanaa. The last week there have been rumours that foreigners once again have been able to get out of this embattled city. And getting in. I actually saw a tourist in Old Sanaa a few days ago. But it is an entirely different matter to get a permit to travel by camel from the Red Sea to Sanaa through some very troubled areas. However, it seems like I have been able to acquire the needed permits against all odds!

So right now, in between reading tweets and uploading photos on Facebook, whilst Eva is snoring and her mama studying, I am getting ready to leave for the Red Sea Coast by travelling on gravel roads, twisting their way through valleys and mountains to avoid security and get stopped. There’s so much to do. Preparing the cameras, buying loads of food, finding a transport willing to do this dangerous trip and finding out all facts about cost of camels and where to buy it. Right now, it seems like the Friday cattle market at the small village of Bayt Al Faqih is the best bet. A good camel goes for around 1-2000 dollars plus equipment. The main problem is the lack of time. Our visas run out the 28^th of December and we have to head home for Sweden again and I just don´t have appropriate time to train the camels I want, so I have decided to go for only one camel. I don´t have the money to buy more camels anyway. Another reason is the availability of food and water along the chosen route. I will try to persuade the owner of the camel I buy, to come with us for a few days so I can get to know the partner to be. I will leave it with friends in Sanaa after the trip, whilst I go back to Sweden and head for Ecuador, Peru, Galapagos, Yakutia and Barcelona, before I hopefully can return and finish the last stretch in mid-Spring. And continue with the same camel and acquire a few more along the way. That is the idea. But first I have to get out of Sanaa with my new partner, Amin Gazzam!

Amin wasn´t my first choice, but due to the security situation and my lack of time, he is the best choice right now. He is a police, speaks good English, are used to tourists, are very generous and kind, but he hasn´t done any hard work for years and have been quite a lot of kat lately since he like so many others within the tourist industry have been out of work since February. He was introduced to me by the General, so I trust him fully and he is right now working on getting transport for 120 US, buying loads of dates, garlic, qisr (local coffe brewed on the husks), chai, the permits and loads of more garlic. According to Amin, which will walk as a Sanaani, even though he is from Ibb, it cures and prevents malaria, snake bites and much more. He has lots of humour, at least before he starts chewing khat after lunch, an hour later he looses his humour and becomes very serious. His granddad was a cameleer. So he knows a bit. Especially the most important aspect, never treat a camel bad!

We haven´t been able to locate any maps, so we just have a roadmap over the country, so we just have to ask our way out of Bayt Al Faqih! A true adventure coming up no doubt! That is if….we get out of Sanaa!

Image supplied by David Goldberg

Forsskal’s last resting place

By

David Goldberg

One of the fascinations of place names is their different spellings. Forsskal did die in modern-day Yemen ( see here) on 11^th July 1763.

However, many renditions spell the name as “Jerim”. Why the difference is beyond this author to explain. One thing is known though: it was not a peaceful death; and the internment was not without its drama either.

Perforce, Forsskal’s own diary of the expedition* of which he was a member (commissioned by the Danish King Frederick V, it lasted from 1761- 1767 and the only survivor was CarstenNeibuhr) does not record any of the Jarim events. (*A JOURNEY TO ARABIA FELIX 1761-1763, English Translation by SILVESTER MAZZARELLA).

An authoritative source is Thorkild Hansen’s Arabia Felix.

In Taizz, having come from Mocha, and getting ready to depart for Sana (and then India), Forsskal  collapsed.  It was the 23^rd June 1763. He “…lay blue  in the face, his body racked by gallstone pains”, shivering with a fever. Without warning he had been struck down with malaria. Forsskal insisted on proceeding and he was carried to his donkey.  Four days later, after numerous halts and sheltering from downpours, thecaravan arrived in the village of Abb.  Forsskal became increasingly weak and racked by intense gallstone pains. After Baarken, they reached Mensil at the foot of Mount Summara.  Finding a well-appointed caravanserai there,  it was decided to rest there for some days to allow Forsskal (and also Niebuhr who was by now also ill) to rest. But, the camel drivers argued to move on to Jerim in order to replenish food supplies and on 5^th July they left Mensil for Jerim which necessitated traversing Mount Summara. Forsskal was so weak he had to be lashed to a camel’s back like a ‘half-empty sack…the remains of his vomit trickling down the dusty flanks of the beast’.

The Inn at Jerim did not have any private rooms, so after searching,  premises were rented ‘for an exorbitant rent…so that Forsskal might have a house to die in.’ No Muslim present ‘….could be persuaded to help carry the sick man from the inn to the house’ and he was borne there on his camp bed by his expedition colleagues(including the exhausted Neibuhr); they had to dodge a barrage of stones after some of the locals got jostled in the process.

Days passed; Niehbuhr drew a sketch of the town from the window of the room where Forsskal lay dying. Forsskal weakened and around 100pm on the 10^th July he fell into a coma; ‘The following morning at half-past nine Peter Forsskal died in the town of Jerim in Arabia Felix, aged thirty-one’.

Neibuhr had to find someone to report the death to and then buy a plot of land to bury the body. The deal fell through because it was near a ditch used to take water to irrigate the surrounding fields.  The seller called off the sale because he feared being held responsible if the water were to ever dry up or became spoilt ‘because of the Christian buried there.’  Niebuhr found another plot but it was less easy to find men to carry the body to the grave. Only on the following day did he contract with ‘six ragged coolies’. The burial was conducted in great haste in the dead of night so no one would see and the grave was dug ‘only a few spade-depths below ground.’ The next night, the body was  exhumed by grave robbers. The body’s shroud was unwrapped and it was left ‘naked on the ground.’ The dola was informed and he ‘ordered a Jew to rebury the body.’ As payment, the dola authorised the man to keep the coffin.

Thus ended the life of an extraordinary Finnish-Swede. He is globally known as one of Linnaeus’ apostles and a natural scientist and botanist of note. Less well known is that in 1756, whilst a student at the University of Gottigen, he published a dissertation attacking the prevailing rationalist philosophy of Christian Wolff (Forsskal was a pragmatic empiricist). Even less known, is his 1759 pamphlet, Thoughts on Civil Liberty which advocated freedom of expression and information; religious tolerance; and the abolition of aristocratic privileges. Considered to contain “dangerous ideas”, Uppsala University declined to approve it and it was published – in Swedish – commercially by Lars Salvius. On that day, 23^rd November 1759, the Swedish Chancellry banned it (although it had been approved by the censor,  Nils von Oelreich). None other than Linnaeus, the Rector of Uppsala University, was ordered to retrieve the 500 copies Forsskal had distributed that day (although only 79 were found).

The pamphlet is accessible in English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, Mandarin and Finnish (with Greek, Turkish, Romanian, Italian and Hindi to follow) at <http.peterforsskal.com>. The book (in Swedish and English) can be purchased via the website. Project Forsskal is directed by me, David Goldberg.

David Goldberg is an information rights advocate, consultant and academic, based in Glasgow, Scotland. He can be reached at this email at (davgoldberg@gmail.com)

Life after the signing haven´t changed anything dramatically, except, of course, no mortars, no shooting and, yes, people are more relaxed everywhere, especially the check points. That is a great difference! But we are still confined not to leaving Sanaa, and that is beginning to bother me. I don´t have a lot of time to get a camel and do the very steep and difficult ride and trek from the coast and up to Sanaa, crossing two mountains over 3 000 metres. I don´t sleep a lot now. It is hard to find people. Especially those individuals who can make a difference. My friend, the Self Made Man, is busy and involved in getting the new government on the feet. He is trying to find time to help me, but it is like asking Barack Hussein Obama if he can help me finding a camel and permits to do a trek through the US.

I need more hours a day. The Arabic takes a lot of energy, but I am getting better and better. That is a great joy, but still far to be fluent. Pamela is a step ahead, but I am at least better than Eva who still works on her few words like Pappa (abi in arabic) and Mamma (omi in arabic). In all languages! I have found six characters which will make a difference in the film, but filming still isn´t easy. Security is watching and military is touchy and everywhere, but it is coming together. For a price of some lack of quality sound and images. But not too bad I think. It can be salvaged by a good editor! But that is what has to be done, if you want to film anything during these circumstances.

So right now everything is loose and it seems hard to tie the knot. I don´t have all needed images for those characters I am following. I still don´t have the permits from everyone I need to do the trip. I don´t know exactly where yet, where to get at least one good camel. Zabid or Bayt Al Faqih. Prices seem to range from 1500-2500 dollars, though I have found a place where to leave them in Sanaa, namely at the zoo. Maps doesn´t seem to exist in this country, so I might need somebody who can come with me. I don´t want to travel on the main road, what a scare! But along the old coffe trail from Mocha to Sanaa, via Zabid, Bayt Al Faqih, Mahwiht and Sanaa. Does it still exist?

I have ten days, or say, nine, to get all this onboard. The girls are still sleeping, Time is 4 in the morning and the government have turned on the electricity, Internet doesn´t work, but I can write this piece of worry. I think I am just tired at the moment, because Yemen is still like a dream. These generous, hospitable and child loving people offer a never a boring second. And the Old Sanaa is an amazing world in itself.

Politically, we are all waiting to see what will happen. The Houthis and Salafis are still fighting in the north. And a separatist movement for a free Southern Yemen seems to get stronger in the south. But at least the Saleh Family, Ali Mohsen and Al Ahmars are resting their guns right now. It is actually really, really silent, almost dead here in Sanaa. If you readers want action and extreme problems, read the global newspapers or watch the news on TV. You will find all you need there from terrorism, kidnappings, big amounts of killed Yemenis and ongoing demonstrations.

Oh, yes, I almost forgot. I have started a weekly course of documentary filmmaking and dramaturgy together with a Swedish female journalist who lives and works here, Tanya Holm, for a group of young Yemeni girls. At least I will do two classes before I hopefully set off on a camel. It has really opened a little door to this unknown and exciting world of Yemeni women and I am really happy to be a little part of these motivated girls, who really know how to move between all worlds to be able to tell a story. I also want them to help me get in there, but this won´t happen until I get back in early March. I was given a visa of two months, so I have to get out, go to South-America as a guide, go to Yakutsk and Barcelona and lecture, before I can come back on a totally different visa which will allow me and my family to stay until I have done my trip. In shallah, I need three months at least to cross the country!

Woow, I have been sitting here for three hours figuring out what to write, what would be possible to film today and how to go about things. Eva just woke up, wants for the 547th time see parts of the Lion King and I need to do a nice porridge with banana and UNT milk for the family. On my petrol stove, since the school ran out of gas and diesel yesterday. Like most other Yemeni families. I really admire the average Yemeni for staying alive. I really don´t know how they do it with rising costs and wages the same or even lower than before.

I was at the home of our friend Baba Hussein, helping him with some garden pots, when two guys came running in, grabbed me, I tried to fight them off, Pamela, looking out of a window, was screaming at the top of her lungs:

“No, Mikael, no!”

They dragged me out to the narrow street, where a Mercedes Benz was waiting, I was pushed into the vehicle and we sat off with screeching wheels down the narrow lane of the Old City. 30 minutes later I was rescued, whilst sitting on a chair with both hands tied up behind my back, by a team of agents. A fight took place between the bad and good guys, but I was eventually saved and when I came out into the open, Pamela came running towards me happily and we cried and kissed!

The truth is, we were actors in a Yemeni movie for television!

That´s the thing with Yemen, you never know from one day to the other what is going to happen! It all started when Pamela was stopped by two guys a day earlier whilst strolling through the Old City, which is the base of her research and they asked her if she could be part of a news program about youth. She said yes, prepared meticulously as always, was even nervous and begged me to come with her for the interview, which we decided that Baba Hussein´s home would be perfect for. Once there, it all turned into an action movie!

The shelling, however, was a big scare. After the action movie, the actors drove us all the way to Hadda, where I wanted to met Jamal and Boushra, to persuade Jamal to see why I wanted Boushra to be a part in the documentary I am doing. She is a Yemeni photographer, a mother of four great girls and she has a foot in both the West and East. But Jamal is an extremely vital part of the government and was worried that Boushra´s part in the film would put him in danger with possible extremists in a future Yemeni government. This was also the day when President Abdullah Ali Saleh was supposed to sign the GCC agreement. According to Jamal that would happen next day and he was getting ready to set off to a meeting with the rest of the government. I had 30 minutes to get him onboard with my ideas. Jamal is a great human and I understood his worries, of course, but I was able to make him understand how important it was for me to get a woman’s view of life in Yemen in my film. Because, up until now, I have hardly seen a woman unveiled. I haven’t talked to more than a couple. The others have either been shooed away or kept out of my sight. Normally as quick as I enter a building, men accompanying me shout:

“Allah, Allah!”

Those shouts tell the women to get out of my sight. I am not judging here, just recording facts. Luckily Pamela has been able to get some good footage from one of the worlds of women, the kitchen. Otherwise I would possibly return back home with no female stories at all. That is how important Boushra is! Anyway, they´re both onboard the project, I am happy to say! This great family of 6 belongs to the brave one’s who stayed, when many left as the war broke out ten months ago. And I asked Jalal, what was the worst during this time and he answered:

“The shelling of the mortars. They’re terrifying!”

The next day after lunch I fully understood what he meant, when 6 mortars, viciously loud and scary, detonated above our heads, just a stone’s throw from our house. The shock when the first one detonated, it is hard to describe, I was on my way back with Eva from the play park near the Parliament when it detonated. I picked her up, quickly watched the surroundings, terrified grown ups, curious laughing almost expectant kids, and ran back to the house. Two more went off, Pam came back and than three others detonated so loud that it shook my bones.

“Don´t worry!” Patrick the American said, one of the students in the house, who has 4 trips as a soldier in Iraq in his backbone: “They´re just measuring for the next time, so they get it right. Mortars are not exact; you have to shoot off a few to get the exact position right. That is why they explode in the air like this. It is possibly general Ali Mohsen, who isn´t part of the peace agreement, who is measuring out the goals he wants to hit, if things doesn´t go his way.”

Patrick was thick with adrenalin. Eva just wanted to go out of the dark, enclosing building we live in and see what happened. Pamela was full of adrenalin. I just felt, kind of odd after awhile. I just wanted to show these freaks of nature, you don´t scare us. So we cooked dinner and ate it on the outside with a star filled sky above us. No more mortars in the evening. As this is Yemen, where the most amazing stories and hypothesis turn up daily, it is hard to know who it was setting the mortars off, but it seems as they came from the palace and where aimed at Hashaba. Which means it was the president’s son, Ali Ahmed, who was trying to get his mortars right and hit Al Ahmar´s in Hashaba.

This took place at the same time as the president was in Riyadh signing the peace agreement. Some say that maybe Ahmed Ali wasn´t happy and wanted to stage a coup de etát. All I know is that Saleh signed and that makes me very happy. As you know, I believe Yemen is so different from all other Arab states; they have a sort of democracy that they´ve had hundreds of years, they’re not extremist in any way and fundamentalists are not liked at all here. And most people want to keep them out of any government. I think that Yemen, no I believe Yemen, will set the course for the future for the rest of the Arab countries, as regards to how to run a country who is fair for as many inhabitants as possible. A role model to be. Even if there is so much work ahead!

I knew before most of the world that the signing would take place, since a very, very good friend of mine, is the guy the president, or former president right now, listens to more than any. He told me it would happen 10 days back and also told me that the main problem was that all attempts to get a deal so far, had been due to the involvement somehow with outsiders, e.g. non-Arabs and when Jamal Binomar turned up as the UN envoy, it was perfect, because he is from Morocco and everyone concerned and involved immediately talked the same language. It is just staggering to know that all this violence, tragedy and death has happened during such a long time, because the West demanded to be involved in the future solution! But, having been involved in this world of diplomacy and human beings to some degree, it doesn’t surprise me. It is the home of bureaucracy and far too much incompetence.

My friend pushed hard for this kind of a lighter, middle way solution based on his knowledge of Yemen and it worked out exactly as he hoped. As it is now, first of all stop the violence, get Yemen back on track for a more equal and functioning society, this, and I agree, is the only way. Of course the extreme sides of the matter, like the young demonstrators in Change Square and all over the country, without whom this important move probably wouldn´t have happened, and as the religious fundamentalists and Al Ahmars and Ali Mohsens followers, sure they are not to happy at all for this agreement, but it is a middle way and the issue is moving forward a bit. However, of course, I wonder about the future as well and what will happen. I mean Ali Mohsen and Al Ahmar´s are still in the country. So is quite a big part of the Saleh Family who are still in charge of many important posts within the military and the government, and the question is, how to get them out of the game as well? Because I have learned one very important thing in my all too brief time in this great country, Yemenis love their land and want to die here. It won’t be easy to kick anyone of them out. And to where? Saudi Arabia? As one friend said:

“Who wants to live with those extremely religious salafis?I rather die in Yemen!”

Oh, yes, there’s a lot of work ahead! As regards to my great friend, who has agreed to let me film his daily life and talk about the meaning of life, I honestly believe he will run the country in a not to far off future. He is also a man with a foot in both worlds, he has travelled a lot, fought his way up to where he is today, restarted his life three times and he has stayed put throughout these hard times, even though he has been threatened badly, he has been offered big money to leave, he has to have body guards, his family have been moved abroad and he got seriously injured in the bomb who almost killed Abdullah Ali Saleh back in June. The guy in between my friend and Saleh died. My friend felt like he was given a second chance to live. And want to get Yemen back on track. I wrote an article about him the last time I was here, where I amazingly enough predicted a bit of what has happened to him. He is extra ordinarily inspiring and meeting him and listening to his dedication to his people and country, is a humbling experience. He is also the only guy in the country which at this moment can help me get a permit to do the first stage of my trip to cross Yemen by camel from the west to east. Because, as it is right now, we cannot even leave Sanaa. We are imprisoned like everybody else here!

But, talking about kidnappings, last week we met Hussein, a taxi driver from that part of the country, which if you talk to other Yemenis, they almost scream:

“They´re dangerous, they kidnap people, extortion is part of their behaviour and they’re heavily armed and crazy!”

We are talking about Khawlan. I want to try to get there as soon as possible for some days. It belongs to the tribal area and to understand Yemen, you have to understand their tribalism of the north as well. And next week I will tell you about two more extremely inspiring people. Abdulghani Al-Iryani and Jamila “Guevera” at Change Square.

That is if nothing else gets in the way!

Do visit the photo gallery of Yemen!

“What did you do there without somebody who could help you! It is very, very dangerous and you could have been shot!”

It all began when I decided to join Rashad to film the last part of the story about him, the guy who´s village I went to visit in the last report, during Eid Al Adha. I knew he had told me he lived in a pretty rough area, where he a month and a half ago had to run zigzag over the street to catch a dahab (small mini van) to work, to avoid getting shot by snipers on the roof. But he said it was calm right now, so we caught a dahab at Tahrir Square and set of for his home. I should have realized as soon as the dahab turned right before going crossing the bridge over the battle ground over Zubairy Street and Kentucky, that I was in for a scare.

“You see how the buildings have been shelled” , Rashad suddenly pointed out and we came to a heavily guarded check point, where we were briefly stopped and checked amongst loads of sand sacks and Rashad said; “We are now entering Ali Mohsen´s area.”

Now General Ali Mohsen is president Ali Abdullah Saleh´s right hand who defected back in April when the demonstrators started getting targeted and shoot by what is said government thugs or soldiers. He together with the big tribal leader of the biggest clan Hashid, shejkh Al Ahmar, are the two biggest opponents to the president, these three have divided the city in between them one could say (we live in the Saleh part, dominated by Tahrir Square and pro-Saleh protesters)  and after another short stretch of bombarded buildings and soldiers covered by sand bags in pretty much every corner, Rashad pointed to a road ending with loads of piled up sand bags and a flag:

“That is Hashaba and Al Ahmar´s area”.

I guess I was excited on one hand to be there, but worried on the other and asked Rashad:

“Do you really think I can film here?”

We got off the loaded dahab and walked to the single man’s hostel where Rashad had recently moved together with his elder brother. It was a small room where 2-7 people shared a sleeping space and it was a stop over for the two until they knew about the future. Rashad had also lost his job at the Irianian Embassy since I last saw him, since they said he had taken a longer vacation over Eid than he should have. And since no labour laws exist, you can just kick people like that. His brother had been employed by a government agency since the troubles began in March and hadn´t been paid a Yemeni rial since he started. They employed 18 000 young men in a day, to get them off the streets demonstrating against the government. The filming in the room went fine. Than they all got hungry, 2 friends where there visiting, and we walked through some really busy streets, both with heavily armed soldiers, heavily armed tribes men from the Al Ahmar area and generally, many people screaming:

“Take a photo!” since I was filming Rashad and his friends walking, or:

“Get off the street and stop filming!”

I should have known already than, what was going to happen, but Rashad said:

“Don´t worry, just film!”

He and his brother got into at least one serious gruff and screaming game with two fellas saying they were security. And after a great Salta lunch (salta is a Turkish word for leftovers from the Ottoman times when Yemenis just to beg Turkish family´s for leftovers and everything they got they put in a bowl and cooked it) we walked back and for some unknown reason they brought me very close to the heavily armed dived between the Mohsen troops and Al Ahmar´s and the surrounding buildings had been heavily shelled. I aksed Rashad if I could take a photo and a few seconds later and soldier came running and accused me for taking a photo of his corner of sand sacks and a short argument followed where I was asked for papers, which I said i didn´t have, to show the photos i took, which i didn´t show and it ended up Rashad and his brother got us out of the problem.

“We go through this every day” , Rashad said.

We went back to the room, did some more filmed interviews and chewed khat. And than, according to my notes and had a final scene to film, well, one of the two last, him demonstrating at Change Square and him taking a dahab to work. So we went to his normal corner and after standing there 10 minutes waiting for the Tahrir Square dahab, a soldier came and said we had to come with him to his commander and explain what we were doing. I saw Rashad look worried and that scared me. I stopped a taxi and told Rashad:

“Get in and let us leave!”

That caused a lot of alarm and the taxi, of course, got stopped and we were forced to go to a group of heavily armed soldiers sitting in a street corner, covered by sand bags and they were really upset. I thought:

“How do I get out of this, since all my contacts are more or less pro-Saleh?”

Suddenly one soldier sitting next to the guy who was in charge, all ten of them sitting in a line chewing khat, and they seemed to sit in order of their rank, the boss best covered and the youngest at the end, in the open, easily hit by a sniper, well, the second in command started to speak some English and said:

“You are in serious, serious problem.”

Rashad was in the same time passionately defending us and I explained for the bloke who spoke English, that I loved Yemen and its people and was only filming Rashad who was a friend on his way to work, but the soldier, a sergeant, cut in and told me he had been at University for years, but the lack of money had forced him into the army and now the revolution was on, and he was fighting to free the country of Saleh. Suddenly he asked me:

“I have seen you on TV. You are a news anchor aren´t you? Well, welcome to Yemen and hope you show the world what an evil man Saleh is. By the way, do you have a family?”

“Yes I am and have a wonderful daughter named Belquis! And you?”

“Yes, I have three boys!” he said happily.

And that changed the outcome of our problem, we talked almost for half an hour until they said we could go and said the reason they stopped us, was that this was their job, which I could understand. Filled with adrenalin we got in a taxi and left the group continuing their khat chew.

“They were really I nice group of guys” , Rashad said after he said he had been very worried and thought they would let me go, but put him in a cell; “And I explained that I was out of work, had 8 years in University but no job, came from Taizz and than he said we started the revolution and he was grateful for that. Thank God he was an educated person and he understood!”

Back at Tahrir we sat down for a sweet tea and kind of laughed from relief. It had been a close call and I was as always filled with adrenalin and I felt happy being old and free of the hot temper of my youth. Nowadays I never even raise my voice, just listen and wait and try to be nice and friendly. Gee, it works so much better!

Eva and Pam suddenly showed up, heading for the Old Town and our friends Hussein and Mohammed, so I said goodbye to Rashad and joined the smiling ladies. Whilst Pam and Eva went to the females of a family to document their life, I sat down with Hussein and Mohammed, Hussein came with a glass of home made wine and told me in an upset voice how stupid I had been. Than he and Mohammed continued to chew khat, we watched Al Jazeera and predicted that Bashar Assad would go before Saleh.

And this story is really the least interesting that has happened this week. I have met a lot of really important people. One of the, a very good friend I named The Self Made Man the last time I was here. (Read the story I wrote about him here.) Amazingly enough the story holds still today and my last prediction could soon be true!

More of that next week and why the whole family is going to the home of Yemeni demonstrations, Change Square, today after noon!

Finally, it is hard not getting emotionally involved with everything which is going on here. There´s no doubt people in general are suffering, however, being here at this time, when history, possible slowly, is in the making, it is a very strong and profound feeling and wants me/us to be part of it. And as the Yemenis say, everything is politics here.

Photo of the Week, Spooky Sanaa or Spooks in Sanaa at http://500px.com/photo/3236775

Or see the professional gallery from Old Sanaa here!

I just got back to Sanaa from probably one of the most important excursions I have ever made!

I am bitten all over the body by bedbugs, I may have malaria, I am really, really tired and nobody in the city really believes that I was able to get the permit to leave the city, travel to Taizz which is the other serious flashpoint of the war in Yemen, as the locals call the battle between the Ali Abdullah Saleh and his opponents, and spend Eid al Adha in a village two hours south of the countries most populous city. And spend a week there as the first foreign visitor they had at least for the last 96 years and return without any problems to the city again. And get back with one kilo of smoked camel cheese from the covered bazaar of Taizz!

“There´s no way you will get a permission to leave the city as things are right now!” , I was told by pretty much everybody, when I tried to get a permit to go and visit my very good friend Rashad in his home village located in between two big mountains south of the country´s biggest city Taizz.

Rashad was my teacher last time I was in Yemen two years ago, preparing for my first major Expedition since Siberia, and I have been in touch with him since. He is, as most Yemenis today, going through some really, really hard times. He is working half time at the Iranian Embassy, since he speaks Persian and is a shia, but on his wage, about 300 euro a month, he supports 17 people. And the war forced him to send his wife, his studying brothers, and his 15 months old son back to the village. Because he lives on the border between an area dominated by the government and one of the main opponents, general Ali Mohsen. His neighbourhood have been badly shelled and he therefore sleeps in the hall of his apartment, to have as many walls in between himself and the outside world if hit by a rocket. A month ago it was so bad he had to run zigzag on the streets outside his house to catch a bus to work. He is an intellectual, 31 years of age, politically aware and one of the Yemenis around which a future middle class will, or should, be built. Once you get a big and influential middle class, in any country, than you have something of a safe base to build a country on. And he speaks fluent English, and as usual, when it comes to pretty much all analysis as regards to the situation in the country, it is based on people located in one of the three big cities, who never seems to venture outside these, because, if it is one thing I have learned from travelling, the heart of a country is NOT in the cities, it is in the villages. So, this would be a very important visit for anyone making political analysis! That is if I did get the permit to leave Sanaa. Which I did get after 4 days of hard work. The solution was me going personally to the so called tourist police myself and what happened is so much Yemen!

“No way, it is impossible!” the person in charge told me directly, “The Minister of Interior have personally told us not to give out any permits. The risk is to big.”

However, as always, you can discuss virtually any issue with the Yemenis. They’re amongst the most conversational people on earth. They love to talk and discuss pretty much any subject. So I just told him truthfully about my love to the country and its people and asked:

“What would the danger be if I travelled together with Rashad to his village? I know there was people killed in Taizz yesterday I said, but we would just pass through. And how can it be safe for Rashad but unsafe for me? It doesn´t make sense!”

He agreed and made a few phone calls and said, ok, if I fly there, I could go to Taizz. But I said, I want to see the scenery, which I have heard is amongst the best on earth on the road to Taizz. Plus that I wanted to see if it all was as dangerous as everybody seems to think. I have already realised after arriving in Sanaa, after all those incredibly overwhelming warning stories of the danger, that people tend to overdo things, especially if you are in media or in security professionally as many of our friends. Sanaa has been dead safe so far. And, I also wanted to see Yarim, the place where the Swede Peter Forsskål died on the first known Expedition exploring Yemen at the end of the 18^th Century, to so called Carsten Neighbur Expedition.

“Sorry, it is impossible than” , the person in charge said with a smile.

Me and my new teacher, Abdul Aziz, who was my translator, we left the office with a negative answer, but laughing, since everyone was so kind, funny and helpful. When we passed the gate, the young and heavily armed guard, asked what had happened and where we wanted to go, so we told him and he exclaimed:

“But Taizz isn´t dangerous at all. I am from there!”

So he took us upstairs to the real boss, a great old man, who smiled, joked and laughed and he said he understood I wanted to see his beautiful country close up, so he called the guy who had said no, who in an instant came running up and asked which village we wanted to do to and when Abdual Aziz told him, he said:

“I come from the next village!”

So that is how I got the permit!

Next morning I ran through Tahrir Square, which is occupied by Saleh supporters and their big tents, and ran next to the great walls of the walled city to Bab Al Yemen, where I met Rashad and boarded a bus to Taizz. The supposed 5 hours took almost 8 hours. All those vicious check points I had been warned about, by Rashad as well, who a month earlier had been stopped at one, been kicked out of the bus by the Republican Guards, a hardcore unit run by Salehs son Ahmed, and forced to walk all the night to get help. Just because he was a single man and these loners were thought to be amongst the protesters against the regime. Well, we weren’t stopped once. Once in Taizz we grabbed a taxi, passed through the area were 7 people had been killed two days earlier by shelling, avoided a heard of beggars who showed their children covered by serious wounds when first seen, but when checked more clear, they were all fakes, however, this specific area looked like a bombed out Beirut, and we there after passed through the city and headed out for the village. It took another two hours and we arrived on a really, really bad dirt road late at night in the darkness, but it was such a relief stepping out into the silence of the village and the fresh mountain air. Country life!

Now, Rashad had told me that as far as he had heard, based on the word of the oldest man in the village, a 96 year old, they have never had a foreign visitor. So there were some pressures on Rashad that I didn´t know beforehand. I was kind of the Ambassador for All Foreigners and my behaviour would be important. So, my visit could well determine whether more foreigners could visit the village in the future. And, for Rashad, it was important that I personally got a good opinion of the village and its inhabitants since he knew why I was there.

Rashad lived in a simple house built by stones, I think six rooms hosting 17 people, and built in stone on the outside but by clay on the inside. Easy to keep clean, low ceilings to keep cool and just a few windows to let through the wind. They did get electricity two years back and had running water and as the rest of Yemen, electricity a couple of hours a day. So the house was beautifully lit up by kerosene lamps. Simple but very comfortable. The family was extra ordinary hospitable and treated me like a King. We were served a great meal of mashed beans and giant pieces of home made bread plus uncounted cups of sweet tea. I fell a sleep immediately inside the meeting room, or mafrag as it is called in Yemen, on the floor. The beans made me release unknown amounts of air and when I woke up next morning I realised some of his 5 brothers had slept in the same room. Not a sound from them when I woke a few times in the complete darkness.

Rashad had returned to the village for Eid Al Adha, as most other men we met during my time there and he had brought loads of clothes and presents, which was expected, but which of course strained his economy badly. His elder brother had opted not to leave Sanaa, he didn´t have the money to buy presents. Or not even a ticket. He worked for a government agency, but hadn´t been payed a wage for seven months!

For me the visit in the village was not only a great time, but very important since I needed to know if my thoughts on the country was right or wrong! As I said earlier, the problem with the media today, is that all journalists and analytics base themselves in the cities and base their opinions on what goes around there. But the cities have never, and never will be, the heart of a community or country. What I learned during these four lovely days in the village gave me a very important perspective of the situation and its people.

Most discussions in the country are done by meeting in a mafrag, a meeting room, and chewing khat. And since this was Eid and the wedding season we pretty much immediately ending up in a mafrag belonging to a neighbour who was getting married. Now a wedding is really straining the economy for families of the groom. The dowry is at least 800 000 Yemeni rials, which is like 3000 US dollars. For this reason, today, most men can´t get married until say they´ve reached at least 35 years of age. Half of the dowry goes directly to the father of the bride. The rest is spent on gifts and food and, most of all, khat for all the guests. Rashad got married to his wife two years back and still is in debt. Most of the partners are picked by the mothers, sisters and the women of the groom’s family. So Rashad´s wife is his uncles daughter.

“What do you think about the issue of dowry?” I asked at one khat chew and they all said more or less the same: “It wouldn´t be a problem if we had work and good wages.”

There’s no doubt the khat is extremely important to most Yemenis. Due to a bad harvest season and the war, there was little khat around and most of the days of the village was kind of dominated by the urge to get more khat. I, of course, as a visitor, to be accepted, one has to eat and live like the locals, so I did of course chew khat. I have to admit, just as the last time I was here, it hardly affects me. It is more like the effects of a few cups of strong coffee, nothing else. But what I like though with the issue of khat chews is the meeting of all people in the mafrag and the discussions that take place. I literally spent a whole working day all together chewing khat and learned an enormous amount of things of great value. Everything from sufism to how the village buries there dead. We talked a lot about politics and there’s no doubt that the sitting, legally elected president of Abdullah Ali still has supporters. People who thinks he has done a lot of good to the country. Like building a functioning infrastructure, schools and so on, because this just didn´t exist properly before he came to power 30 years back. However, what I like the most with the kat chews is that it shows that Yemen really have a base for democracy, because in a kat chew, no matter what your opinions, you have a say without getting attacked to badly. Now of course, most kat chews I attended and took part in, is all male. Women have their own, as political as the men’s.

As regards to the women in the village; Most of the time in the village I just saw them running away in fear of the nasrani, the Christian, as was also the case initially in Rashad´s home. But after a few days the women of the house moved around freely as normal. It was just a case of the worries of the unknown. The older women of the village were dressed in very colourful clothes and were uncovered. And I saw them working hard throughout the visit. Very few of them had work outside the village and lived their traditional roles.

Everybody in the village was very happy, even honoured; that I was there and the dignity I was shown lacks most experiences I have gone through as a traveller…..

(I wrote this section between 5 and 7 in the morning and than the power cut arrived and it is now 6 p.m, and since it is Eid, Sanaa is dead. No people, no sounds of the war and nothing gets done, so I still need a few hours to reload all batteries. So the only written work I can do is a few hours every day. But Eva is in such a brilliant mood every day, so there´s not a dead second!)

…power is back….the village just to belong to the Jewish community which had been present in the country a long time before the arrival of the prophet and Islam, but most of them left the country when Israel was proclaimed 1949. An operation called the Magic Carpet. The village has a Jewish name and when they left, the land was shared between the inhabitants who’d lived their for a long time. Rashad´s father, a builder, moved in afterwards, which means they can’t own any land except where they’re house stands. They are also too poor to be able to vie any power. The area is still under the rule of a local sheikh, which I met and who was dressed as a sanaani, with the belt and jambiyya (see attached photo) and really nice, but it is an inherited power on which a lot of Abdullah Ali Saleh has built his governance.

The wedding started very early one morning with professional drummers showing up banging incessantly throughout the day and since the groom were a neighbour to Rashad we went over there first as guests and than Rashad was their to meet the other guests coming from the villages. Lots of kisses and dancing started and around lunch we were all invited to a big meal of meat, rice and sweets in the mafrag and than we all started a long session of khat chewing, 6 hours, and it was so interesting so we missed joining the other men who set of in a long caravan to the home village of the bride accompanied by the drummers! In dark they returned with the bride and when she reached the house of the man she had never met, his sister, mother and their female friends were there to make her feel welcome. Loads of fireworks exploded when she arrived.

The Eid Al Adha celebrations followed the next day with the family slaughtering a sheep as a sign that God intervened when Abraham felt forced to sacrifice his son Ismail. A big lunch followed where we all, like hungry vultures, ate from a big plate of all what the sheep could offer, rice, sweets and other delicious plates. Another khat session followed after a long walk through the village together with one of Rashads best friends, who showed us his khat farm, a real money maker, and he told me that the school had one teacher on 120 pupils and that was a serious problem they were facing. The village survived on people like Rashad, who was working outside the village, sending money back. Even though it was beautifully tucked in by two mountain rages, the farmed land wasn´t offering enough to the fast growing population. The growing number of people had also virtually taken all burnable trees in the niegbourhood and a bad erosion didn´t look to far away. Before I left I asked Rashad if he would like to live forever in the village he loved, gained weight every time he returned and he knew inside out:

“The future lies in Sanaa” , he answered; “And I am used to what the city has to offer in intellectual challenges and they just doesn´t exist in the village, if you have big ambitions as I have!”

I returned the long arduous way next day, met a really dirty, polluted and run down Taizz, ran into an armoured vehicle pointing its barrel on me, very nasty indeed and took the bus back to Sanaa and only got stopped at the last check point before entering the city by a very improper soldier from the Republican Guard, but my permit was enough to cool him down that I wasn´t carrying any cameras…

Summary: Great trip! I did learn a lot, got some of the best footage I have ever filmed and 5 minutes of the documentary done, BUT, I also did get a major tip where to get good camels for a reasonable fee, Bait Al Faqih! And being a country boy myself of a meagre background with a dad being a builder, is very helpful. Most people thought I was a scientist or a doctor and when learning that my background was simple, teared down some unnecessary walls of communication.

Back in Sanaa. It is very silent, no movement, according to local media, there might be some major developments soon on the political scene, like Saleh signing the GCC agreement. And Eva?

We don´t regret a second bringing her! She has acclimatized quickly, put on fat, met and sees the most extra ordinary things every day and she is in a better mood than I have ever seen before. We move around pretty much everywhere and it all feels very safe. I have seen the Lion King quite few times though…only way to put her to sleep….Pamelas research is moving forward according to plan.

By the way, the other week I took the best shot I ever have, see http://500px.com/photo/2985344

For more images, go to this photo gallery!

I don´t think I ever have been as nervous as getting on the plane in Copenhagen, since I had spent weeks researching the possibility to get any camera equipment inside this war torn city. Most people said;

“No way you will get it in!”

I was hoping my contacts at high level I had nurtured the first time I was here back in 2009 would do the work for me, but the closer our departure, the more unlikely that seemed, that somebody would tell the security at the airport to let these guys through. When the three of us arrived at the counter in Dubai, we didn´t have a visa and weren´t allowed on board, so we were told that we had to get one in a few hours otherwise we would be put on a plane back to Copenhagen. Now, that would have been the same as economic ruin for the family, since we have invested everything we have in this venture. So we called our friends in Sanaa and as usual, nothing is impossible, so amazingly enough, one of them, Sabri Saleem, were flying out to Dubai a couple of hours later, with his new wife. The wedding we were aiming for, was already over!

So, a few hours later, we were woken by an announcement that the plane from Sanaa had arrived and our friend not only turned up with his new beautiful wife, our visas but also managed to argue in the typical Sanaa fashion, that it wasn´t our fault we didn´t have visas, but the airlines. So we ended up staying in a hotel with a free all you can eat in Dubai and next morning we caught the plane to Sanaa.

Sanaas Airport is a bit like a shack, but we were still worried whether we would get in or not and when I got stopped by a meticulous security officer who was in a bad mood, our friend with connections turned up and helped us through just like that! Can you imagine that happening in Sweden or the US?

It felt great being back in Sanaa! We did immediately see that areas were cut off, heavily guarded by armed police, there were a lot of armed tribes men in the city and things looked more run down than before, but otherwise it was still Sanaa and people cheered, greeted us and they all loved Eva!

So right now, we are studying Arabic again and my lessons starts in an hour and a half. Birds are singing outside the flat or big room that we have at the school and the girls are still sleeping. We have heard a lot of gunfire, some heavy bombs, since we arrived, but we are moving around pretty much as before. We live in a pro-Saleh area for good and bad, just a few hundred metres for Tahrir Square were his supporters are camping. If things change dramatically and Saleh will be removed, that isn´t the best for us at the moment, but probably the best for the people!

But of course the war has affected everything negatively. I have cried twice when meeting our old friends. They´re so thin, they´ve aged a lot and look really haunted by these new experiences. One has lost his brother, who got shot by a sniper whilst they demonstrated. Our friend walked next to him. One runs sick sack every morning and evening when going to and from work avoiding to get hit and he sleeps in his hall, like most other people who are caught between the warring groups, or tribal fighting which it really is. It is like a big cockfight between the president Abduallah Ali Saleh and his two former friends and now deadly enemies (same tribe, the Hashid) who is strongest. Nobody will give away and they just don´t seem to care a bit about their own people, which is really a disaster.

The smell of urine and all kinds of shit is heavy everywhere, since a lot of the infrastructure has come apart, but things still seems to work and it is actually far better than I imagined. No matter what, it feels great being back! But how I am going to get a camel or two, or maybe even a horse or two, or a donkey or two and start travelling, that seems impossible right now. I haven´t taken a photo or done any filming yet, just connecting, meeting people and assessing the situation.

Pamela and Eva are doing fine. Eva is adjusting to the day heat, which is high, even though Sanaa is located on 2200 metres above sea level, days a re warm and nights crisp. We are moving slowly with her and her mother is the greatest of mothers and breast feed her all the time now, since food is dodgy. Pamela is doing her Arabic, otherwise her research hasn´t moved forward yet. We are all adjusting. Feels great being back, one feels alive here, not dead and bored like in Malmö!

For photos, see the gallery!

“You won´t even get into the country, most of them said”.

I just love proving people wrong! Everything is possible if you put your whole heart into it and you have the right backing of people who love you. And with a family like mine, that was easy. My wife Pamela is the one who have pushed the hardest for us to go here and try to make a difference. By which she meant, to show the world the overwhelmingly positive sides of this great country. Not the one portrayed in the media, both in the West and the Arab World. A very negative and destructive one. So far from the truth.

Eva´s preparing for The expedition at home in Malmö

So when the war was at its worst, we did get a visa with the help of our friend Sabri, and decided to go all of us, the whole family. Which of course we didn´t tell to anyone, since most people just wouldn´t understand it. A student visa, since Pamela first of all came here to Sanaa to do her Master Thesis. And I needed to better my terrible Arabic. And all of us, that means me, Pam and our little 16 months old daughter Eva boarded a plane in Copenhagen and eventually ended up in a Sanaa, which pretty much looked exactly the same as it did when we met here back in the summer of 2009. At this moment, we have been here for almost two and a half months and we are ready to return home. We have loved every moment here!

We met Sabri and his wife at the airport in Dubai and he helped us with the visa problems.

The idea about travelling the Arab World By Camel began developing many years back when I realized how we in the West almost unnoticed once again have started to build up a wall against people who come from especially Muslim countries. The scary propaganda against Islam, Muslims and especially the Arab world is growing by the day. It is all based on lack of proper education and knowledge. So I decided to do an Expedition On Camel, covering the whole Arab World, see the pilot below, but excuse me for to much bragging and nonsense on my behalf, my self confidence was at an all time low at that moment! I managed during two years to get most of the funds together, but than two major things happened!

First of all, I met Pamela in Yemen, fell in love with both and than Pamela got pregnant with Eva Belquis.

Secondly, the Arab spring happened which made it all impossible for the moment.

But we never forgot Yemen and followed everything which happened politically very closely and than we decided, time to go and make a difference, no matter how small it is!

So that is what we did! And in backsight, that is, for all three of us, the best desicion we have ever taken!

So, dear readers, this is the first report in a series of at least 15 articles that I will publish about our time in Sanaa and the expedition. An article twice a week. Don´t miss the drama and love of life!

To see photos from the Expedition, please visit https://picasaweb.google.com/explorermikaelstrandberg/ExpeditionYemen?authuser=0&feat=directlink

An involuntary adventurer in Yemen

by

Tanya Holm

“Dear adventurous daughter!”

That is how my dad begins his letters to me. He and friends say that I’m an adventurer. I disagree. An adventurer seeks adventures just as babies seek comfort and I seek only the latter. Adventures, however, seek me. That is as true as it is a cliché. I look for something far less exciting than things out of the ordinary. Thus I came to Yemen.

An autumn afternoon, two years ago, I changed the North European periphery for South Arabia. Here was no uprising, no thousands of wounded and shot dead protestors bleeding out on the asphalt and failed GCC signatures were no headlines. There was al-Qaeda, civil war and there were kidnappings, most of which did not end in execution and mutilation. Yemen, like any country, had its share of problems. But we live in a time where we better say the glass is half full. So I packed my bag and said Yemen has houses of gingerbread and the world’s kindest people. I had heard that Muhammad, the prophet, had said, “kindness belongs to the Yemenis” and I found it still stands. The three words all Yemenis know in English are:

I love you!

And they practice them with every bypassing foreigner.

As foreigners in Yemen we like to compliment the people, the way I just did.

- Yemenis are kind, we say.
– Very kind.
– They are generous.
– And they like to joke.
– Indeed they are funny!

Our compliments are sometimes insulting to the Yemenis. What did we expect to find in Yemen, rudeness? Most are kind here, sure. Others are not. Many joke, but some are horribly boring. They don’t laugh even when one is extraordinarily funny, and instead they share their own dull stories.

“A man asked to be taken to the angry imam who ruled the city. He promised to make the imam laugh. When he stood in front of the imam he pinched him. The imam did not laugh, he sent the man to his death.”

Yemenis are kind and funny, kind and funny, more or less all of them we say – also as to make amends for the negative and simplified image the Occident so often spreads. But, that is not the only bad joke in Yemen. The image of Saleh riding a donkey to the giant neighbor Saudi Arabia is not very funny. Yet I have seen hundreds of protestors laugh at it all through the Arab spring. And speaking of kindness I know a Yemeni who says, “fuck you” when he sees me. I tell him to fuck himself, and there is nothing pleasant over that conversation, yet it takes place every now and then in the ancient alleys of Sana’a.

I have nothing intelligent to say when speaking of Yemen. I have been a freelance correspondent for Swedish media for a bit more than two years. I have learnt only the following. Whatever one reports on Yemen, one must be sure to announce the opposite soon enough. My own country, I can hold her in my hands and say it is Sweden, but Yemen slips away. It is a much-complicated society.

Yemen is a country, but not yet a state. It is tribal, but has people who claim to be its citizens. Yemen has a few young men with dynamite anger and people who refuse to kill a bee.

- Haraam, they say when I, despite my vegetarianism, suggest they crush annoying bees with my plastic plate.

Yemen has youth within the age range between 15 and 60.

- We are all youth, an old man explained.

He spoke of the importance to get a chance in society and life. A chance that is just as necessary to the 75 percent that are under 25 as to the rest of the people.

Yemen has poverty.

- But we are the richest people in the world, Yemenis say.

They argue that one must also look to what people have in their hearts.

Yemeni women have this year been louder and more disobedient than anywhere, yet in Yemen women are silenced and held back in the most awful ways, according to gender gap studies.

Yemen has an ongoing uprising and yet the way it has been seems to be the way it shall be, at least for some time ahead.

Yemen has an awful luck.

Yemen has patience and eager. And no matter on which side of the political spectrum people are, they promise to continue the struggle for a New, Better and More Dignified society. But, with that said one must add that there are also people that gave up long ago here.

- Can I get a visa?, they ask.

No they cannot.

Yemen has blue skies and deserts. And leopards, dolphins and women unions.

Yemen has an electricity minister and electricity bills but no electricity. So why are the government buildings still lit up?

Yemen has Yemenis and kind foreigners and rude foreigners and those that are a bit of both.

Islams, traditions, debates on secularism and Yemen has garbage. Although foreign journalists are not allowed to film it. Yemenis are ashamed of their country. And they are also very proud of it.

In a multicolored society life does not get dull, but rather adventurous and even so I am still here. Because apart from the I love yous, and fuck yous, the recent protests aside, along with the violence and death that looks just like in the movies, and all the things that can not be mentioned without appearing insensitive, without seeming like entertainment when they really are about injustices – lived by people who exist in their own damn right – Yemen has the ordinary life. It has days and nights and stray cats. And that is what I choose to write in my letters back home, the ones I sign “an involuntary adventurer”.

Dear,

Today I woke up before the first prayer call. The muezzin did a sound check.

– Allah, Allah, Allah, he called before he was ready to declare that God is great.

I’m fine, but this winter is cold to the Sana’anis. They complain and I too would catch a cold in their worn down plastic flip-flops and light clothes.

Today I will meet a prominent Yemeni Feminist. She will talk about boyhood, mother work, and the art of pushing for equal rights on the Arabian Peninsula. It is for an interview in a feminist newspaper.

These days many speak of violence. “There is a war in Taiz”, they say. It looks frightening. Do you hear any of it back home?

In Sana’a much still goes on the way it always has. People collect water in the mornings. The old women opposite my house sit in the sun. They wave to me to join. They ask me a thousand and one questions. It makes me uncomfortable that they walk around knowing what I had for breakfast. The children play and sing songs to me. Men chew qat.

– Yemeni Viagra, one guy said, to try to convince me to start chewing.

By the way, if there are any good movies running back home, tell me which. There are still no cinemas in the country, but we download movies illegally. There is no need to worry as the drones aren’t aimed at pirates.

Now I must be quick to send this, we have had electricity for about an hour, it will cut and return earliest after another twelve hours.

Jalla!

Tanya Holm is a Swedish freelance journalist based in Sanaa.