Reflections by Stephen Coats based on the memoirs of Nancy Coats
Our new home city of Sanaa was mesmerizing! Our first impressions were good, for the most part. Sanaa’nis seemed to like to shake our hands (especially the children.) The women wore pants, with a long dress over that, and sweater or whatever over that plus a black veil to cover their face. All you saw was their eyes. This was very new and different for us! Children were all warmly dressed too being a city with nearly a mile-high elevation.
Our favorite part was the old city, a walled-off section dating back to the 15th century. The wall was crumbling in many places, but the old gate was still in place and that was the way to enter. My mom, aunt, sister and cousin loved going to the souk (shops) to spend birthday money on gorgeous locally made Yemeni necklaces and rings. The streets and alleys were very narrow lined with small shops that were loaded from top to bottom with various wares. Not a square inch of space was wasted, items hung from the walls and ceilings. As you moved away from the shop area, there were residential areas with buildings touching each other and extended families living together on the many floors of most buildings. The windows dated each building. Small white round ones were the old alabaster type, translucent, but couldn’t see through. As the building progressed upward, windows became more modern and the newest ones were on the top floor… Yemeni style colored glass, usually. Some dwellings even had stables on the bottom floors of the houses. Here, sheep, goats, and larger animals are kept if they had them.
The impoverished seemed to follow us everywhere while we shopped and asked us for money constantly. We were not used to that coming from Oregon. We often gave them bread instead of money. Many of the poor ladies often carried an under-nourished baby on one hip. Near our house there was a small rural “village” community area made mostly of old car bodies and cardboard houses. All of these houses had people living in them, many came from another part of Yemen… typically the Tahama area
The traffic was shocking for us! We could not immediately discern the traffic laws or rules, no driver’s licenses, limited use of turn signals, very few traffic signs or lights and the most widely used form of driver to driver communication was the horn! Honk honk! It really was an amazing experience for my dad and my uncle who were the main drivers. If the men saw a foreign woman driving a car there were a lot of stares in her direction. The roads were not in good shape, with lots of rock piles to go around, even to get into our driveway. And yet somehow everything seemed to function well.
Most intersections had a traffic cop directing things which worked well. Even the neighborhood kids jumped right in and would direct traffic as needed. It really did take a community to keep the traffic flowing.
The taxis, cars and motorcycles were decorated out of this world. They covered the dash, inside the doors, etc. with fake fur. They plastered pictures from magazines inside the door. They hung any bobble they could find from the mirror. Some even had fancy paintings on the outside. Even the trucks and pickups were flashy, decorated elaborately and with much pride. One thing we never saw were “pin–up” girls (sexy pictures of women), at least not out in the open like we had seen London, much to my mother’s relief. All the pictures of women showed their faces, and I guess that was the limit in this conservative country.
Sana’a was a city of contrasts and wonders and we were just beginning to explore its many facets.
TO BE CONTINUED…
