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!"

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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.

Parenting

Sorry it's taken me so long to post. I'm having computer issues. I managed to get it powered-on for now, so here goes...

Reminder: I am an American woman. My husband was born in Yemen, but spent time growing up in the West.

One of the few areas where our cultures and upbringing clash deals with parenting. Specifically parenting our teenage daughter. If you cringe at the thought of raising teeange girls, you are not alone.

My husband grew up in a country where girls are subordinate, domesticated, often uneducated and/or illiterate. Girls in his village speak when spoken to. A girl in the Yemeni village has a 99% chance of growing up to become someone's wife to bear his children. Of all of my husband's dozens of nieces in Yemen, I don't know of any who have become anything else. Worse off, none of the girls have any aspirations to be anything else than a wife and mother.

A girl in the village might go to school until her pre-teen years. Then, as has been reported widely in international media, she will be married off, often to a much older man. She'll have a lovely wedding, with gunfire salutes, henna, musicians, dancing, makeup, gold jewelry and cash gifts. But then, after her big day, she'll be a wife like all the others. Live with the mother-in-law, help cook for all the members of the new family. Visit her own family rarely if ever. Bear children and if they are girls, raise them to eventually be just like her.

My husband spent a lot of time growing up in the West. When we had our first daughter, he only wanted the best for her. Not just brand-name clothes and shoes as many parents do. But he was so proud of her achievements in school, her trophies, her awards, her promotion to the gifted program. He wanted our daughter to be the first girl descended from his village to go to college and succeed on her own.

However, our daughter had inclinations of her own. She wanted to do well when she was in elementary school. When she hit middle school, she slacked off, as many students do. She got overwhelmed with the work and found it easier to just not do it. It made us crazy, but moreso my husband. Our daughter had the opportunity so many girls in Yemen didn't, and she was squandering it away????

What made it worse, was that our daughter just wanted to be a typical American teenager. She wanted to dress how other girls dressed. Listen to the music everyone else listened to. Blog about things teenagers blog about.

To me, it hasn't been a big deal. She's a kid, let her be a kid. I grew up in a similar fashion and I'm grateful my parents didn't force me to do anything or behave in a certain way.

To my husband, it's a daily battle. He frowns on her wearing tight jeans. On her wearing makeup and hoop earrings. On her having a Facebook. On her having male friends. On her cursing in e-mails and text messages. On her talking on her phone, late at night, giggling like crazy.

It puts me in the middle. Me, the American woman, married to a Yemeni. I love and support my husband. But I love and support my kids too. I tell him, "Look, you gotta let her be her own person. If you force her to act a certain way, dress a certain way, etc, it will backfire and we will never have her trust and sincerity"

To which he'll answer to me, "What, so we let her do whatever she wants? She looks like a streetwalker in those clothes. You want guys on the street looking at her curves like that? If we let her do what she wants, she'll come home pregnant one day. Pregnant and/or drugged up"

And then I'll retort that we have to trust her, have faith in her. I show him examples of me, my sisters and brothers. We had little interference from our parents and we all turned out to be educated, successful and decent people with solid lives. He brushes this off and reminds me that "it isn't the same for Yemeni girls"

A big part of his problem is that he worries what other Yemenis will think. How would it make him look to others if they knew his daughter hung out with guys in the cafeteria? What would his cousins think if they stumbled upon her Facebook page, with all her dolled-up wall photos? What would people say if they knew she was friends with Blacks and Hispanics? (Oh traditional Yemenis can be a racist bunch. But the same can be said of many cultures. It's an ugly but universal reality)

I often counter and tell him he shouldn't care what people half-way around the world, living in mud-brick huts think. But, for me to say that debases his family and he resents statements like that. In other words, they are family and I should care what they think.

And the cycle continues. Sometimes daily. I try to be the diplomat at each encounter. I advise him to not be so harsh. I tell her to understand where he came from and to not resent what he says. I had to remind her once, that Yemenis see females as beings to be protected, honored and respected. A girl that has lost her respect or honor can never get it back. I told her that when Baba says you're wearing too much makeup, it's because he doesn't want other people to see you as an object on a store shelf.

One of the main reasons I set up this blog, and the Twitter it stemmed from, was that I hoped to see if other people are dealing with what we are. I cannot be the only Western woman who married a Yemeni (and that uses a computer)

Village Yemeni men are LAZY

I visited my husband's village a few years ago. The men there do hardly any work. Regular jobs are scarce for the most part. But even so, I only saw women doing all the hard labor, while the men would sit around in the Diwan, chewing Qat, all day long. WTH they sit around and talk about, I couldn't tell you.

My husband said the conversations are about life, politics, memories... like anyone else. I felt, geez, if they have so much time to kill, why not get a job or help your wife around the house?

Seriously, the women got up early every day to make breakfast. And this isn't cereal and toast breakfast. This is fuul, fettah, hubs (bread), sebaya (sweet, buttery, layered bread) and other goodies which I do not know the names of. In other words, breakfast there is like pure, down-to-earth, homestyle cooking. There are no boxes or cans; nothing is pre-packaged. Everything is made from scratch. So this breakfast is quite labor-intensive. The women slave over the stove (is it even a stove? ) while the men lie in bed, or lie on the Diwan cushions, drinking chai (tea) or ghahuwa (ginger-husk coffer, ick!) and wait for breakfast.

After breakfast, the women clean up (of course!) In the village, there isn't running water, so the pots are washed in a pan of water and aired out to dry. There are no toilets, so the chamberpots have to be emptied out regularly. Plus, once the water runs out, the women have walk to the water pump and retrieve more. She's not pushing a barrel of water on a shopping cart. Or pulling it in a red wagon. She's carrying a huge pail of water on her head!!! And she walks back to the house to replenish the supply.

All the while, they are also changing diapers, wiping runny noses, breastfeeding babies, feeding the goats, chickens, whatever, sewing, and other many, many other domestic duties.

In addition to eating, chewing qat and waiting for the next meal, Yemeni village men do little else.

I was there. I was in the village. I saw it all. Yes, they separate the men from women as much as possible! If men are gathered in a room to eat, the women are not allowed to enter the room to serve the food. The women pass the food to a child, who brings it to the guests. If a woman has to walk past a room to get to the other side of the hall, and there are men in that room, she has to get a child to respectfully close that door so that the men do not catch a glimpse of her. This is while she is fully covered, head-to-toe in loose, non-form-fitting attire. Often even her face is covered. Heaven forbid a woman accidentally make eye contact with a non-related man!

This picture is of some of my in-laws, but I am not sure exactly who. This is my husband's home in the village. You can see a woman in the middle of doing some chore, while a group of boys stand by and look down on her.

This picture below shows the large amount of land (and thus water) that is used for qat. Notice the AK-47 pointing at the camera, casually!

And next is an old picture of our Diwan. In this pic, it is relatively empty, except for the few kids who wandered in. The men are probably out shopping for qat and the women are cooking or cleaning.

Yemenis in NY

Many Yemenis live and work in New York City. In my opinion, these are mostly men, who are here to work off-the-books so that they can send money back home to Yemen. Often, they are sending money to their wives and children. Sadly, this is very common, meaning they are here apart from their families.

I know of a lot of guys who work in delis, convenience stores, bodegas, newsstands and the like. I'm not exactly sure what draws Yemenis into this line of work. I guess it might be similar to why there are so many Vietnamese nail salons, Chinese dry cleaning and Sudani cab drivers? Maybe everyone else is doing it

Anyway, the life of the "bodega" Yemeni isn't ideal. Usually he'll work seven days a week, 12 hours a day. No days off, no vacations, sick days, half-days, holidays, weekends. Seriously. I suppose it's a similar story for a lot of people who came to this country, working long, hard hours, in search for a better life. But I digress...

He will work at the cash register and/or stock shelves. A lot of times, I've seen these guys come off the airplane, straight from the village and thrust into work. Yemen is an Islamic country. Not ultra-conservative, I don't think, but fairly conservative. Yet these Yemenis will come to NYC, and start slicing ham and salami for sandwiches, stocking beer in the coolers, selling scratch-off lottery tickets and maintaining inventory on newspapers and magazines, including X-rated reads. All of these were haram where they came from, so it's an understatement to say it's a culture shock.

Many guys suck it up and deal with it, maintaining the values they grew up with. They realize it's part of the job, earning a living to send money home, all the while asking God for forgiveness.

For other guys, they can't deal with it, and succumb to the pressure, to the "sins" and guilty pleasures.

My husband and I know of people on both ends of the spectrum. The ones who fall are such sad, pathetic creatures. Drinking, doing/selling drugs, cavorting with prostitutes. Interestingly enough though, I've never known of a Yemeni to eat pork. I guess some haram is worse than others!

Of course, like anything, there are exceptions to the people I've described. We also know of Yemenis who have their families here, raising their kids. Eventually, there are Yemenis (Yemeni-Americans) going to college and working 9 to 5 jobs just like any John Doe. However, these really are the exception. My husband and I only know of few people who don't fit the mold and they are usually the younger, rich generation, offspring of government elite.

I mentioned earlier that many Yemenis in NYC work in convenience stores. I think the next job of choice is taxi-cab driver. The ones who save up for a taxi or limousine license, learn enough English to get by, learn enough of NYC traffic patterns.

To me, working in a convenience store or taxi-cab are 2 of the most dangerous jobs they can pick. Cash transactions, dealing with the general public. Convenience stores are often near train stations or bus lines. It's too easy to get robbed in a deli or a taxi-cab.

My husband worked in a convenience store in NYC and he's been robbed at gunpoint TWICE This shouldn't be a typical workplace danger, unless you work in a combat zone.

Happily married

I'm an American woman who is married to a wonderful Yemeni-American man. We've been together for 20 years, but it feels like we've known each other all our lives.

It's often quite amazing how well it's worked all these years, considering how different our backgrounds and cultures are!

We love each other immensely and could not imagine a world without each other. Like any other couple, we joke, laugh, tease each other, bicker, argue (rarely, though!) and all the other normal stuff.

A lot of what I tease him about relates to him being from Yemen. He teases back, at me, my family, my heritage... it's all in good fun.

We have beautiful children, from teenagers to toddlers. Since my husband was brought up a little differently from me, we occasionally differences in opinion in how to raise them. In fact, many parts of daily life can bring up terms for debate! Luckily, we handle everything and work things out.

I've always hoped to find other women like me: American or Western and married to a Yemeni. Come on, I can't be the only one! I set up a Twitter account a while back just for fun. I've connected with Yemenis and others with roots or interest in Yemen. While I love tweeting, the 140-character max often isn't enough! Hence, the birth of this blog.

A lot of what I might post, here or on Twitter, is all meant in good fun. I don't mean to insult anyone or any country. As mentioned earlier, I love my husband dearly. I also adore his family, who have embraced me and our children with open arms. I get along with his many "cousins" (You know, for Yemenis, almost any other Yemeni is a cousin!) But he has his quirks and I love him, quirks and all!

OK, so that's my intro. As they say, Yalla! Yalla!