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| tihama |
The Tihama is the flat coastal strip located between the mountains and the red sea. The landscape changes from small sand dunes to thornbush savannah and cultivated areas with large date palm forests, mango, banana and so on. Though there's rain all year around, the cultivation requires exploitation of ground water deep under the sandy soil.
With a few exceptions, the cities cannot compete with those in the mountains on the architectural level, most consist only of ugly concrete buildings along the main road, without any side road. One of the exceptions is called Zabid. Almost all houses are made of white-painted bricks with beautiful decorations. Little seems to have changed since the city's most prosperous era, when algebra was discovered in it's university, which is only a quranic school today. The narrow dust roads are unsuitable for car driving, the most usual transport is by motorcycle.
On the countryside one can find a lot of variations of buildings, mainly huts, however they look very african. Also the women's wide, colourful dresses are something I'd refer to the black continent. The men's clothes don't differ from the yemenite one's , with the exception that they don't wear a djambia. The absence of kalashnikows is also remarkable.
Most tourists who visit Yemen experience something like a cultural shock, when they see the strict ban of women in the public life. On, the streets, the Tihama is not much different, but yemenis, who are invited to a household in the Tihama might also get such a cultural shock, when they see, that both genders are taking lunch together, chat together and so on.
"But the people here will not kill us?" I suspected her of suicidal intentions, when a 20-year-old "akhdam"-beauty took my hand to take a walk through the old town of Zabid, after she had invited me to her family's home. "In the mountains they would do so," she answered, "but here it's no problem."
Before I made my way to Aden, I still wanted to visit the peninsula of bab el mandeb. It's a military area because of it's important geographic location, but the local police was very friendly and helpful and supported me with a car and two policemen to show me around, in order not to get in trouble with the army there. However, there was no accomodation, and they drove me to the next policestation on the way to Aden, where a less friendly stuff awaited me. I was already sleeping on the roof of the station, when they forced me to enter their car to go to Aden for a 2 hours drive, just to sleep in another fucked up police station. On the next day, they asked me the usual questions and sent me to another station untill i was finally released at 3 p.m. A friend of mine - he's from the village where i was teaching - who stays in Aden only for 1 week also has to survive now a serial of interrogation and got rid of his I.D.-card - just because I wanted to meet him.
However there was also something to laugh about: In one station, 2 policemen brought me to their officer's room and showed him my passport. The officer took a look at my passport, then he asked: "And where is the person?" He obviously recognized me as a Yemeni, due to my imama and the "mawaz", the skirt, most men are wearing in Yemen, Somalia and some parts of Ethiopia.
With a few exceptions, the cities cannot compete with those in the mountains on the architectural level, most consist only of ugly concrete buildings along the main road, without any side road. One of the exceptions is called Zabid. Almost all houses are made of white-painted bricks with beautiful decorations. Little seems to have changed since the city's most prosperous era, when algebra was discovered in it's university, which is only a quranic school today. The narrow dust roads are unsuitable for car driving, the most usual transport is by motorcycle.
On the countryside one can find a lot of variations of buildings, mainly huts, however they look very african. Also the women's wide, colourful dresses are something I'd refer to the black continent. The men's clothes don't differ from the yemenite one's , with the exception that they don't wear a djambia. The absence of kalashnikows is also remarkable.
Most tourists who visit Yemen experience something like a cultural shock, when they see the strict ban of women in the public life. On, the streets, the Tihama is not much different, but yemenis, who are invited to a household in the Tihama might also get such a cultural shock, when they see, that both genders are taking lunch together, chat together and so on.
"But the people here will not kill us?" I suspected her of suicidal intentions, when a 20-year-old "akhdam"-beauty took my hand to take a walk through the old town of Zabid, after she had invited me to her family's home. "In the mountains they would do so," she answered, "but here it's no problem."
Before I made my way to Aden, I still wanted to visit the peninsula of bab el mandeb. It's a military area because of it's important geographic location, but the local police was very friendly and helpful and supported me with a car and two policemen to show me around, in order not to get in trouble with the army there. However, there was no accomodation, and they drove me to the next policestation on the way to Aden, where a less friendly stuff awaited me. I was already sleeping on the roof of the station, when they forced me to enter their car to go to Aden for a 2 hours drive, just to sleep in another fucked up police station. On the next day, they asked me the usual questions and sent me to another station untill i was finally released at 3 p.m. A friend of mine - he's from the village where i was teaching - who stays in Aden only for 1 week also has to survive now a serial of interrogation and got rid of his I.D.-card - just because I wanted to meet him.
However there was also something to laugh about: In one station, 2 policemen brought me to their officer's room and showed him my passport. The officer took a look at my passport, then he asked: "And where is the person?" He obviously recognized me as a Yemeni, due to my imama and the "mawaz", the skirt, most men are wearing in Yemen, Somalia and some parts of Ethiopia.
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