An upcoming Yemeni village wedding

My husband's family is from a village in Yemen. Everything there is like time stood still. You'd barely know it is 2012 if you were there. No electricity, no running water, no paved roads. The houses are scattered throughout the land. There are rocks, pebbles and boulders everywhere. I'll never understand why no one has taken the time to MOVE the rocks out of the way so people could at least walk safely.

Not only the landscape of the village is frozen in time: The culture is as well. The religion is Islam, obviously, but the local culture is more stringent. This post will address an upcoming wedding in my husband's family.

One of our nephews, I'll call him Ali, is the one getting married. Ali has been living and working in New York City for about 10 years. He is about 30 years old now (not many from the village know their true birthdates) and eager to be married. The majority of marriages in Islam are arranged: The families of the bride and groom meet and discuss the potential nuptials. In our village, they take it a step further (further backwards, if you ask me): The bride and groom usually never meet until the actual day of the wedding. This is the case with Ali. He has not even seen a photo of his bride-to-be. All he knows is her name, and he struggled to remember when I quizzed him. I joked that I hoped she was pretty, but he didn't seem to like my joke. I wonder if he'd divorce her if she weren't! (I hope not!)

For the past few months, Ali has been "preparing" for this wedding. This means, he's been sending over money - lots of it. The bride's family asked for a dowry, as is tradition. Ali sent money for the dowry - but a better term is "bride price" because it's like the groom is paying for the bride.

He sent the money that the bride's father requested. Then, two months later, the father asked for even more. He said the bride needed better gold jewelry and clothing for her special day. Ali sent more money.

In the meantime, Ali expressed to my husband that he didn't want his wedding to be extravagant, overboard, as Yemenis tend to do it - even in the village. He was being sensible, knowing how hard it was to earn a living. He hated the idea of squandering it all for the sake of "showing off" at his wedding. His father dismissed the idea. He wanted his son's wedding to be huge, with singers, musicians, plates and plates of cooked lamb and other indicators of prosperity. The family is far from wealthy; they live on maybe $5 USD a day, but they want their neighbors to think they're well off. Such is the culture: Islam tells Muslims to be modest and humble; village culture says to show off and make your neighbors jealous.

What made it worse was that my husband agreed with Ali's father. My husband said "You can't go against the tradition! What would people think?!!" I took Ali's side. After all, it's HIS wedding. Why can't he have it the way HE wants it? If the people of the village are going to criticize his decisions, they can go jump off a cliff - it's not their business!

In any event, Ali's wishes were ignored by his father, so the preparation continued.

When Ali finally booked his ticket to Yemen, he came to our house (we live about ten hours away from New York) He came here to pick up several enormous suitcases we had packed. The cases were not packed with items for him, but for everyone back home in the village. It was full of clothes, watches, jewelry, makeup and other gifts. Yemenis typically do not visit home empty-handed. The people in the villages have so little, that even second-hand clothing is welcomed.

Ali's flight is tomorrow. Hopefully everything goes smoothly. If not, I'll probably have more material for another post!

Hurricane Sandy

My husband and I used to live in New York City. It's where we met, got married and had our first children. We have since moved ten hours away (by car) but we both still have family members in the city and surrounding areas. New York will always be our home. Our prayers go out to anyone affected by this devastating storm.

On October 28, 2012, the day before Hurricane Sandy made landfall, one of our nephews in New York City decided he wanted to take a bus to come visit us. Just like that: no planning, no preparation. Since his English isn't that great, he didn't know how to buy a ticket so he called my husband to book him one.

First of all, I have to comment that Yemenis tend to do things this way: impulsively. I cannot tell you how many times my husband, or one of his friends/relatives, have just suddenly decided to make a long journey - often to Yemen! With little/no preparation! On the other hand, I am not Yemeni and my relatives never, ever do things this way. My parents planned a trip to Asia almost a year in advance. My sister flew to the Caribbean, planning the vacation at least six months in advance. My other sister traveled to Spain similarly. My point is: a big trip takes big planning - or so it should.

Well, back to this nephew. My husband searched the Greyhound website but all the buses had already left NYC that day. He also tried the train (Amtrak) and also had no success. We were finally able to find an alternate bus line that could make the journey. Unfortunately, with the impending hurricane, the company cancelled all trips leaving NYC and leaving our nephew stuck.

The nephew told my husband "Oh, my co-worker so-and-so drove up to your state yesterday and offered to give me a ride, but I said 'no'"

My husband replied, "You idiot! Now look at all the hassle there is!"

---

On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit the northeast coast of the United States, causing a rising death toll and billions of US dollars in repairs.

Prior to Sandy making landfall, Mayor Mike Bloomberg ordered evacuations of several at-risk neighborhoods. These were close to or at the shoreline and most vulnerable to the onslaught of the strong winds, heavy rains, and impending flooding. These areas were designated as "Zone A"

Our nephew (the same one mentioned above) lives in Coney Island, which is in Zone A.

My husband implored him to leave there as instructed. Our nephew said, "Nah, me and cousin so-and-so are just going to stay and wait. It'll be OK"

Sure enough, Sandy hit with FULL FORCE causing massive flooding and power outages. Our nephew and the cousin found themselves TRAPPED in their apartment building. Water flooded the stairwell up 4 stories. They had no landline phone. They had no food in their apartment (Don't get me started on how poorly they prepared) and with no power, their cell phones were slowly dying.

They tried shouting out the windows, yelling for help. Unfortunately for them, the rest of the neighborhood had already (WISELY) evacuated, so they were pretty much alone - stuck.

They were stuck for 2 days before the waters finally receded. They jumped out of their building starving and frazzled.

A lesson learned, hopefully.

A new mosque

Hubby: "I'm going to pray at a different mosque today"

Me: "Why?"

Hubby: "It's in so-and-so town, not too far away"

Me: "Why?"

Hubby: "I wonder how to get there? Should I take the highway?"

Me: "Why are you going to a different mosque?"

Hubby: "Oh I just want to see what it's like. I heard it was nice."

Me: "Are you going there to meet someone?"

Hubby: "Well, my old friend Adel prays there"

Me: "OK, so when I asked you 3+ times why you are praying at a different mosque, THAT was the answer you could've given me at the beginning"

Some recent conversations with my husband

Here are some snippets of recent conversations my husband and I have had:

1)
Me: "Have the children eaten dinner?"
Husband: "They didn't want any."
Me: "Did you ASK them if they wanted to eat?"
Husband: "No"
Me: "Well how do you know they didn't want any?"
Husband: "Look, I cooked. If they wanted some they would've asked for it."
Me: "But if you don't tell them you cooked, or you don't ask them if they want to eat, how would they know?"
Husband: ...[silence]...
Me, to our kids: "Kids! Do you guys want to eat?"
Kids: "YES MAMA WE'RE HUNGRY!"

2)
Husband: "I want to buy you the new iPad"
Me: "No, we already have an iPad; I don't need another one"
Husband: "But it's so coooool"
Me: "And it's so expensive! And unnecessary!"
Husband: "But it's so coooool"
Me: ...[walks away]...

3)
At a appointment, the doctor took note of my husband's medical history. She noted his age, height, weight, diet among many factors. She also noted "OK so you're a heterosexual male with one partner" Later, when we got home, he and I talked:

Husband: "I can't believe she said that!"
Me: "Said what?"
Husband: "That I'm a heterosexual male"
Me: "But you are!"
Husband: "Of course I am! Do I look like some makhnooth (Arabic slang for 'homosexual') ??"
Me: "Honey, it's her job to document anything concerning your medical history, lifestyle included"
Husband: "Huh! So you think some men say they take it up the ass????"
Me: "I don't think they'd be so vulgar and tactless. I think they'd just remark that they are 'homosexual' It doesn't have to be graphic!"

4)
Me: "I really wish you wouldn't use your iPhone while you drive."
Husband: "Don't worry! You worry too much! I know what I'm doing!"

A few minutes later, as he was photographing the clouds in the sky as he drove, he nearly crashed into another car.

Me: "What did I just tell you??? Didn't I just say it was dangerous to be distracted by your phone while you're driving?"
Husband: "What are you so angry about? I didn't hit him, did I?"

5)
Husband: "I just spoke to one of my favorite nieces, Lamyah. Can you believe she has a little son now? He's grown so big now, mashallah! She's so proud of him! I'm going to send him some money for Eid"
Me: "That's great! I'm happy for her! What's her son's name?"
Husband: "I don't know"
Me: "You never thought to ask???"

Why I don't trust addresses from Yemenis

I don't blog nearly as much as I'd like to. This is due to the fact that I'm rarely on an actual computer and I don't know how to blog from a smartphone. I know, I know, #firstworldproblems, right?

Well, here's today's post. This just happened literally minutes ago, so it's all still fresh in my memory.

My husband is visiting an old friend he knew from childhood. This friend, (I'll call him Abda) is a college-educated Yemeni who does a lot of traveling in his line of work.

An hour ago, my husband texted me "I need you to mail something to Abda. It's an important memento from our past + I need you to express-mail it to him."

Abda, you see, is in town but only for today. Tomorrow he leaves for another city and I'm to mail the gift to his hotel there.

I texted my husband back "OK, no problem, just text me the address. Tell him to type it because I don't want any mistakes" (I wasn't kidding)

He handed his friend his cell phone and had Abda type in the address. After I received it, my husband texted me again, "OK that's the correct address. Send it as soon as possible so it'll arrive at his hotel while he's still there. Insure it, track it. Thanks"

Well, being a wife of a Yemeni for many, many years, I knew better than to just trust this information. I entered the address in Google Maps and, what do you know? It didn't exist. The street address existed, but it was in an entirely different town. The Google Maps Street View looked more like a quiet, residential street than a commercial area for hotels.

I told my husband "I don't think this address is correct. Are you sure you want me to mail this there???"

He called me immediately and asked me to wait until he could (again) confirm it. In the meantime, his friend Abda contacted the hotel staff for information.

Five minutes later, I finally got the correct mailing address.

I texted him "You mean between two Yemeni guys, it took you this long to get an address right?"

I cannot make this stuff up.

Peace

Feeding the kids

Making sure kids eat is a responsibility shared by people all over the world. It doesn't matter where you're from: you know you have to provide for your kids. It's part of being a good parent.

There have been many days I have been out running errands and I'll leave my husband home to watch the kids. When I get back, many hours later, I always ask how things went and "Have the kids eaten?"

For some reason, my husband takes this question a little to literally. He'll say, "Oh yeah, they ate" And when I investigate "But WHAT did they eat?" the answer is often "oh you know, cookies, cake, juice, candy..."

Excuse me, but while those are technically classified as "food" items, they aren't FOOD as in nourishment. JUNK food is not what I want my kids eating all day! Especially when they come home from school and haven't had anything nutritious since breakfast.

This is an ongoing thing and my husband and I have discussed this time and time before. He just doesn't get it and he accuses me of "coddling" our kids (as he claims most American parents do)

So, all you non-American parents, you tell me: Would you be OK with your children not having decent food to eat after getting home from school?