My, (our), first story was just published on the web today. I have a buddy here, Jon, who actually wrote the piece and I did most of the research. We’re going to do some stories like this, retarded Woodstein style, and some on our own, but this is the first story either of us had written yet for IRIN.
So here’s the deal: I wrote a story, (the one posted earlier), for the crappy Yemeni English newspaper here. Then I met a girl who was writing stories for IRIN, the United Nations news service, and she was leaving for India. She had read my story and told me to look into taking over for her when she left and I did. My buddy at the Observer paper was interested too, so we’re both doing it.
For the story I met with the communications director and the doctor in charge of the polio program at UNICEF here, then with the director of the vaccination program with the Ministry of Health. They were all great to me and very generous with their time. They explained the whole program, faults and all, and I was working on a long piece that included the stuff in this article along with a story about how the original polio vaccination campaign was delayed by a global vaccination shortage and which probably allowed the virus to spread to Yemen in the first place. Big story there! But my editor called us two nights ago and wanted the story the next day. So we had to give her this one right away - really only half finished - and the other story I’ll have to work on over the next few weeks.
I have to say, though, that the editting that was done on the story after we sent it in made the story worse rather than better. I understand some of the edits - they pared it down 200 words because it was way over the 500 word minimum, then stuck some important bits back in. But they put them in strange places - like inside quotes. Inside quotes!? That was odd, and it made the story less coherent, in my opinion. But I suppose I’ll learn how to write the stories to make them happy and still tell the story as I see it and retain my own language.
Overall I’m finding the job much easier and more interesting than I thought it would be. Most of the people I’ve met with have been really easy to get ahold of and talk with and they’ve given me much more of their time than I expected. I did meet with the Ministry of Health director of the HIV-AIDS program and she was extremely guarded, giving me the party line that everything’s okey-dokey when I know it isn’t. But that, in itself, is interesting and will make it kind of fun to dig that story out from under the government here. So it’s win-win so far.
I think this is the first job that I’ve had that’s really demanding, (I’ve been working it pretty much every waking hour for the last week), but doesn’t exhaust me. So far I’m really enjoying it and it’s really rewarding. And, for Yemen, the pay’s good. Can’t beat that with a stick!
I should be doing about two stories a week soon.
Done patting myself on the back. Now I’ll give you all a chance. By "you all" I mean "you both", of course.
BYLINE: Bonestein
Oh yeah, here’s the story: YEMEN: Polio vaccination “highly successful,” say the health ministry
Then there’s the editing gig at the Yemen Observer. It pays sweet fuck all, but I’m still doing it for one reason: comedy! Virtually every story we recieve from the journalists has something of rich comedic value in it. Really, these things are goldmines. Usually it’s just the repetitive use of hackneyed useless phrases like "It is worth mentioning…" or "…on the other hand…" and other coloquial or just plain meaningless phrases that don’t belong in a newspaper. Jon and I can make the night fly by just with parroting those phrases everytime we see them. Jon has the unique and valueless ability to build a whole article using nothing but the stuff we delete from stories every day.
But every so often I come across something that just knocks me off my chair. Recently I started saving them in a Word file I call "doozies." I should have started this earlier because I’ve left out some real winners.
Of course, in order to not sound too harsh on the writers, it should be understand that these are all Yemenis writing in their non-native language. We make fun because it would be a pretty gruelling process if we didn’t. Also, the paper has such poor management that the journalists are not expected to improve in any way, and so we do get frustrated correcting the same shit every day. We give them feedback, but much of the time it’s wasted. Another reason we get some of the nuttier stuff is because many of our journalists, because modern education is only a generation or two old in Yemen, are very self-conscious and proud of their job using the English language. But the idea of improving their language skills, for many of them, consitist simply of collecting snippets of English jargon and obscure, often defunct words and phrases. They love nothing better than to spend hours pouring through these big expensive dictionary CD-Roms, foraging for these nuggets of coloquialism and then sprinkle them about their articles - when what they really need to sound intelligent would be to learn some basic English grammar! But they’re not dumb guys; it’s really just a mistaken sense of what’s important to writing in our language. Also, no Yemeni has ever held back when I’ve accidentally said, "I’d like to eat some shoe herpes," by mistake.
So, now I’d like to share these doozies with you all. [::crickets::] Without further ado, I give to you the comedy stylings of the Yemen Observer staff with: "Doozies!"
[Quote references at the end are abbreviations of the authors' names. Just ignore them.]
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The real achievement now is not that a lot of women write and purplish their work in novel or poetry, but it is in issuing their own newspaper and magazines and on their ability to participate in forming cultural perspective of the society. –El
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The only thing we knew about them what Rames Field, Secretary of Defense said that they are a threat to the security of the USA. – Z
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When we talked to the soldiers about the rights of prisoners, they say they have no rights." What we saw in our meeting with these prisoners is that they are true humantrains.” -Z
[This one needs a little explaining to know just how bad it is. The journalist, (one of our best English speakers), was trying to refer to two American lawyers who are representing Yemenis held in Guantanamo, and who came to Yemen and gave an interview to our journalist. Not only did he call the two lawyers "humantrains" instead of humanitarians, but he referred to them as prisoners by mistake as well. Yeeesh!]
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Dr. Thakur reviewed what distinguishes Shakespeare’s life from others. Then, in the second part, he shifted the focus to what distinguishes this great playwright and poet from others. –Kh
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The president said "Islam is the religion of peace, pride, courage, dignity, strength and killing and extremism has and will never be part of the Islamic teachings." –Kh
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The institute will focus on six main areas of the industry:
1. Tour Operation
2. Tourist gaudiness.
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The association was founded in 1976. These tanning courses are one of the events of save motherhood project that take time of 2002 – 2007. -El
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Has he had the same childish face of Linardo De Cabrio or he is fat, blade head but with childish heart. –El
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She asserted that men are frightened of cleaver woman, whenever they meet girl, they try to destroy her. -El
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Nauif said that when he was trying to calm down a security man and prevent him from firing his college mates, the bullet hurt his finger.
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Here’s a larger sample of the type of stuff that comes across our desks on a daily basis. This is by one of our "jargon collectors", and he’s a really sweet guy. The language of this article is not the worst we get. But in this example, he, innocently enough, manages to suggest a form of ethnic cleansing - forced relocation of populations - as a means of solving some of the country’s social and development problems. We had a chat with him about the problems with advocating major violations of international human rights laws in the paper and he suggested he would "make some changes" and resubmit it. We never convinced him that there was anything wrong with what he wrote - not because he means to hurt anyone, but only because he is so worried of losing face that he will never admit a mistake in language or judgement. He really is a nice guy, but, yes, he is a big pain in the ass.
Demographic redistribution required for overall reform
By
Yemen Observer
Redistribution of population can provide better solution for social, economic, and political problems in Yemen. Population in Yemen is concentrated in certain parts of the country such as the Highlands spanning big cities like Sana’a, Taiz, and Ibb, as well as coastal cities that overlook important commercial ports like Aden and Hodeidah. Some parts of the country particularly semi-desert and coastal areas are less inhabited than other parts of the country. Though natural resources such as water and maritime resources are available in large amounts, Yemeni people inhabited mountainous areas for different reasons.
Abyssinians, Portuguese, and the British. Coastal areas are too hot and so they are repellent to inhabitants who prefer to live in the highlands where the weather is moderate. People where attracted by the greenery of the mountainous areas.
[::shudder::]
Tribal, sectarian, and racist groupings will disintegrate after being redistributed and the possibility of forming armed wings. For example, the Buhra in Yemen are concentrated in the districts of Haraz and Jibla and the Houthi followers are concentrating in Sa’ada. So, redistributing such groups and integrating them to the society can guarantee their inability to rebel for it will be less possible to gather for fighting against the legitimate government.
To sum up, redistribution of population can be a potential means for social, economic, and political reforms.
People can get lot of experience from each other as they come from different regions and backgrounds. A person from mountains will get experience in the life of fishermen who live near the sea in Hodeidah, Aden, or any coastal city or town.
Discrimination based on regionalism will deteriorate with the passage of time. People of different parts of the country can keep in touch while living in the same place for example people from the south, north, those from this governorate or that.
Isolated communities provide havens for destructive thought mongers and terrorists. People in such communities are easily to can be easily brainwashed. For instance, Al-Houthi has been a monger of sectarian beliefs in Sa’ada where he could make use of the fresh minds of young people who were living in the isolated mountains in this province.
Concerning social reform, redistribution of population will intensify the national unity by integrating the various classes of the society into consistent social fabric. Redistribution of people will break the isolation of self-contained classes like Akdam and will make such classes incorporate gradually into the society. Therefore, the national identity will get more consolidated.
In areas with large population such as the cities of Sana.a, Taiz, Aden, and Hodeidah, water is extremely consumed, construction expands over the agricultural lands and, thus, leads to reduction of agricultural production. Flow of people from villages to cities where services like electricity, water, and easily accessible means of communication resulted in fever of competition for lands that lead to reduction of the areas fit for agriculture and water shortage. Coastal areas such the empty parts of Hodiedah, Hajjah, Taiz, Lahj, Aden, Abyan, Hadramout, and Al-Mahrah, were left by people the history of Yemen due to many factors. People in the past used to prefer mountainous areas as the coastal areas were often subject to attacks by invaders like
