Show me Djibouti!
Tuesday, March 15th, 2005لو سمحت, هل تعرف أين سفارة سفارة جيبوتية؟
"Please, do you know where the Djibouti embassy is?" This was my first real sentence in Arabic used to get me something - to the Djibouti embassy. I had to use it about a dozen times and it took me about an hour and a half to get there - an hour after it closed - but I got there. And I didn’t get that confused puppy look from the locals, which I usually get when I’m trying to use my Arabic around town. It was a good feeling. I put the sentence together on the bus, double-checking the words out in in the little notebook full of useful, (mostly), words in Arabic I keep in my back pocket at all times. but I was at least familiar with all the words and the grammar of the sentence so I felt confident throwing it around at anyone in the vicinity of where I thought the embassy was and who looked least likely to point me in the wrong direction just for fun. It worked too well, in fact, as most people I asked it of started right off yammering away in Arabic like I was just a lost Yemeni from Aden in town for a Friar’s convention. So I was giving them the confused puppy look since I know about as many Arabic words as a puppy knows English. But I watched the hand signals and caught a few words and got closer to the embassy each time I asked my question.
The Yemenis were great. First I had to get to the Ethiopian embassy. I got out of the minibus, (most buses here are tiny, beat up little vans that hold six people at a time and cost 15YR [Yemeni Ryals], or about $0.09 - and I can guarantee you you get every penny’s worth in safety and comfort), and used my question on the nearest shop owner. He starts jabbering in Arabic but soon notices the deer in headlights look I’m giving him, so he calmly walks me outside so he can at least point for me. We played a couple games of charades on the street, but he seemed more than happy to do it. I think he could figure out that I was struggling with his language and treated me like the proud father of a kid who just accidentally bunted his first base hit with his eyes closed. See, when a westerner in Yemen knows Arabic really well, like many of my friends here, Yemenis are nice but a little suspicious, I think. It seems like they think you just might be a spy, or an embassy staffer, or an oil worker, and they treat you fairly indifferently. Not like you’re a threat or something - they just seem to assume you’re only here because you’re on the clock. Now, if you know zilch for Arabic they pretty much assume you’re a tourist. Toursts don’t get any respect. Oh, they get help if they ask, and often when they don’t. But a tourist, to the locals, is like a nice couple doing a walk-through at a an open house, but that the locals are only renting. They’re nice and everything, but their hearts just aren’t in it. But I think the point that I’m getting to right now - learning the language but just making a mess of it - is just where the Yemenis will like me the most. They know I’m making an effort, wrestling with their language, in their country, talking like a toddler and trusting them not to fuck with me just for chuckles. They seem to like that. I’m in the high chair, covered in pudding, bowl on my head, big dumb grin on my face, but I got some of it in my tummy so I’m a good boy! That’s how I get treated most of the time.
So anyhoo, the shopkeeper points me down a street, (the wrong street, since nobody really knows where their African embassies are - do you?) and I found an embassy there. I ask a cop there, in Arabic, if it’s the Ethiopian embassy and he says no, then a bunch of other stuff that I could only assume was Arabic. Once he sees my pie-eyes he just takes me by the hand, (did I mention that men hold hands here?) and takes me to the guard shack where he asks his buddies where the right embassy is. They didn’t know, but they all gave their best guesses, all of them different, I’m guessing. Finally someone must have actually know because we headed out for some unknown destination, this time not holding hands, which was nice. I love a man in uniform as much as the next guy, but the Klashinikov was a bit of a turn-off. He walked me about a half mile away, just me and this cop in his blue camoflage uniform and his machine gun. Usually people like to ask me the same questions - where are you from? what’s your name? have you eaten salta yet? - just to show off their English. But I imagine when your job requires camoflage and a machine gun, talking baby-talk on the street with some big, bald goofy-looking white guy is just not cool. So we walked quietly. But he did walk me all the way to the embassy I wanted without giving it a second thought, told the guard there to help me out, I imagine, gave me a cool-guy wave and headed off. People treated me like that all day.
Getting to the Djibouti embassy, a worker at some government agency rode in the taxi with me just to make sure the driver got me to the right place and didn’t rip me off. When I offered him a little something for the trouble he looked at my money like it was a rubber chicken and sort of laughed at the idea that I would even offer it. Then, when I left the embassy a staffer in a nice suit from the embassy next door walked me the four blocks, in the rain, to Baghdad Street where I could catch a bus. He even laughed at the joke I made about an American going to Baghdad Street. It was an uncomfortable laugh, but still…
So that’s a little slice of what it’s like to be an American living in Yemen. And I don’t want to hear any shit about the holding hands part - the guy had a gun! And surprisingly soft hands.
