What? Huh? What did you say? Aysh??

My husband does this weird thing. A lot. It drives me and our kids crazy sometimes. It's nothing big or important, really. Just a little irritating.

Often we'll all be in the same room. He'll get up, go to another room, close the door and THEN proceed to say something to one of us. Of course, since he's in the next room, it's hard to hear what he's saying. So one of us has to track him down to get a better listen.

I always ask, "You couldn't think of saying this/asking this WHILE you were in the room with us?"

Similar story with the volume of the radio or TV. I personally like to have the volume a little on the low side, because we have kids and we don't need so much noise going on in our house. However, Hubby will often turn the volume up to hear better. OK that's no big deal. Unfortunately it is usually immediately after he turns up the volume that he decides to say or ask something. Again, as in the previous example, we cannot hear him so either there's a lot of "What?" or "Huh?" or I just take it upon myself to turn the volume back down.

He especially likes to do this when we have someone from Yemen visiting us and we're driving them somewhere. Hubby will blast a Yemeni music CD (it's kind of a way to show off that we have music from back home I guess?) and then try to have a normal conversation with the guest. Neither person can hear the other well, and I'm just sitting in the back seat, doing a facepalm the whole time.

This has been going on for twenty years.

To be (considerate) or not to be (inconsiderate)

My husband is a loving father and a wonderful husband. But many times, he comes across as inconsiderate. Here are some examples:

A few days ago, I was out running errands. When I came home, I discovered my husband had left the house. No note, nothing. I asked our older daughter, "Where's Baba?" She said, "I don't know, did he leave?" GRRR So he left the house without telling anyone what he was up to.

I sent him a text asking him where he was. He replied, "I went to visit so-and-so" I asked, "Didn't you think you could tell anyone?" Him: "Why??" GRRR

He had done this earlier in the year. He would take our youngest daughter out for a walk, and not tell anyone. Well, we soon noticed that our girl was nowhere in the house and for a few (frantic) minutes, we thought she had slipped through the door and run away! I texted him anxiously, "Do you have our daughter?" He thought it would be funny to play a trick on me, so he replied, "No, I thought she was with you"

Never toy with the emotions of a mother who thinks her child is missing. The split-second after he texted me that, I was in tears, bawling because she was nowhere in the house to be found. A few seconds later, he texted "Just kidding" - like it was no big deal. Believe me, I played Hell with him when he got back.

Here's what I did yesterday: I was scheduled to go to work as usual. I got dressed, packed my lunch and kissed everyone good-bye. When I got there, I learned I had been given the day off so I headed back home. Before I drove back, I sent a text to my husband, telling him that there was a scheduling issue and I was on my way back.

Why did I do this? Because after I left home, he wouldn't be expecting a car to pull up in our driveway. He wouldn't be expecting someone to unlock the house door. I certainly didn't want to walk through the door with someone swinging a big stick at me! So I INFORMED him, well in advance, so he'd know what was going on. And that he wouldn't mistake me for an intruder and hit me with a stick!

But, my friends, that is what's called being considerate.

What's the point of building a nice house, if you can't live in it?

So my husband knows a lot of Yemenis. Many of them live in NYC. Most of these men either work in convenience stores, or drive taxis around town. Either way, they work very long hours and often work in the most dangerous neighborhoods. (My husband worked in a dangerous Bronx area for years. He was robbed at gunpoint TWICE!)

These Yemenis work 12 to 16 hour days, usually with NO days off. Yes, it's crazy, especially in this day and age in America. But it's the Yemeni way. If a Yemeni doesn't like it, there are a dozen waiting in line to take his job.

Typically, Yemenis who work in NYC live there on their own, sharing apartments with other workers. Their wives and kids usually remain in Yemen. Many people keep their families away from the US so that their kids stay true to the language, culture and faith. Many see the ways of the US as "sinful" or haram. A big problem is, the family is separated for long stretches at a time, often years and years. While my husband lives here in the US with me and our kids, he goes back to visit about every 5 years. This is par for the course. Often, Yemenis work and work, sending hard-earned cash back home (via Western Union) What little extra they have, gets saved until they have pooled enough money to pay for a round-trip ticket, as well as some spending cash. And too often, it's a neverending cycle: Work 4 years, visit wife and kids for a few months, fly back to the US and work another 4 or 5 years... rinse and repeat.

Another thing many Yemenis do with their money, is save up for a nice house in Sana'a. My husband swears real estate in Sana'a is a hot commodity. He loves to talk about so-and-so, who bought a house ten years ago, and now the value has ballooned to triple, quadruple the initial cost. My husband tends to exaggerate. A lot. I can't tell you how many times he wanted to withdraw my 401(k) retirement savings so we could build a nice house in Sana'a.

One of his cousins in NYC, I'll call him Saif, fits the role I described. He has nine kids, one grandchild and two wives. He works long hours to send money to his wife (wives) and kids in Yemen. He also recently finished building a lavish house in a nice part of Sana'a. My husband raves about how successful Saif was to build this house. Like it's some status symbol.

I am not impressed. Sure, it's a nice house. But honestly, since Saif will be spending most of his time in the US (because he has to earn money to support all those kids!) what is the point of having a big, fancy whoop-de-doo house? He's working 14-hour shifts. He's sending all his money to Yemen. He doesn't see his wife or kids. He lives in a tiny hole-in-the-wall apartment in a seedy NYC neighborhood. Tell me, what kind of life is that? I'd rather do it the American way: Live every day with your family. Spend as much time as possible with them. Money comes and goes but you can never get the time you could have spent with your family back. He could have taken all the money he invested on the Sana'a house and made a fine down payment on a modest home here.

Let's try this again. Re-introducing myself...

I would like to start blogging again. Not that I was really doing it that much before. I actually prefer tweeting Unfortunately, tweets are transient. Not everyone sees them, depending on the time they are posted. And many people, myself included, have short, nano-second attention spans. You might see a tweet you want to address, but your attention has already shifted to the next tweet, so nothing gets done about it. Anyway...

I want to (re)introduce myself, so that I can get my bearings again. I am an American woman, born and raised in the USA. I grew up in a semi-Catholic home. My parents were not very pious, although they wanted to be. I grew disenchanted with the Church. I learned about Islam when I was a teenager and decided it was exactly what I had been looking for. Of course, there are more details along the way, but that's the gist of it.

I met my husband-to-be around that time. He was born in Yemen, raised in the remotest of villages (near Rada) He spent his early teenage years in Britain, so by the time he met me, not only did he speak English, but he was very Westernized. We fell in love, like Westerners do, but we also shared a passion for the Islamic faith.

At this point, we've been married, very happily I should add, for twenty years now. We've had a great relationship. Not a day goes by without us telling each other how much we love or miss each other. There are days we're just like teenagers again, full of loving glances and terms of endearment.

Along the way, we've had 3 children. While my husband and I have been on the same page in just about every aspect of our lives, (our marriage, our finances, our living conditions, our faith, our political preferences...) we tend do differ on parenting issues. I attribute this, of course, to our very different upbringings. What's acceptable in my culture is frowned upon in his, and vice versa. This was a main reason I even started a Twitter account: I wanted to find other families like mine: A mix of an Arab and a Westerner. I've had the Twitter for maybe two years now (?) and I've only found maybe 2 or 3 people who fit this bill. I would call that pretty unsuccessful.

I'm rambling, sorry! This was supposed to be my (re)introduction. Maybe this is why I stopped blogging in the first place: My tendency to ramble and go off-tangent.

In my 20 years married to my Yemeni husband, I've learned a lot about Yemenis and Yemeni culture in general. Some things I like, some I don't and for others, I'm indifferent. I will hopefully, from time to time, address topics I've observed. I want to make this disclaimer: If I make a statement like "Why do so many Yemenis work in convenience stores or drive taxis?" I don't mean ALL Yemenis. Of course, there are many Yemeni teachers, doctors, photographers, singers... I do not mean to fit every Yemeni into a stereotype. What I mean is, "MOST Yemenis, that I (or my husband) know" So, in the above example, it's true, most of my husband's Yemeni relatives and friends do indeed either work in a convenience store or drive a taxi. If I go down his list of phone contacts, I'm pretty sure about 90% of these people will fit that description.

Similarly if I say "Yemeni kids don't get much education", again, this applies to MOST Yemenis that I know personally. It is not a jab at EVERY Yemeni. So, if you're a Yemeni author, baker, computer engineer, clothing designer, lab technician, I am NOT addressing you. Most likely, my husband and I don't associate with people like you (unfortunately for us) This is because, as I mentioned before, my husband is from the village and not many people aspire to become more than farmers, sadly.

iViva la Revolucion!

Well, well, well... long time no blog. It's been almost a whole year since I last logged in to Blogger. It's a good representation of my laziness, I guess.

So much has happened, and is still happening, in Yemen since I last blogged. Yemen is in the midst of a revolution, an uprising. I can't say I'm surprised: Yemen has been poor and stuck in time for ages. Plus most of the citizens are un/undereducated and/or unemployed. This describes almost all of my husband's family. Poor Qat farmers, raising kids, eating Aseed, marrying off their kids and the cycle repeats.

I met my husband over 20 years ago, and hardly anyone has advanced their situation since that day.

So, I can understand if many Yemenis, especially younger ones, educated ones, feel disenchanted and frustrated. Plus, seeing the recent successes in Tunisia and Egypt, I'm sure they only want to be free and successful like their brethren.

As I type this, Yemen is still in a state of unrest. Protests, hints of civil war, casualties... I have a dedicated Twitter account solely for all things Yemen and in the past few months, my timeline has been little else but revolution tweets. If one was to judge from Twitter, it would seem that most Yemenis are against President Saleh and demand he step down.

My in-laws, as mentioned before, aren't in the educated, informed crowd. They are poor, simple farmers. They have only known Saleh as their president all or most of their lives and many of them regard themselves as loyal to him; they don't know any other way. If they were asked on the spot, I'm sure they would pledge their love and support for President Saleh. They have no reason to believe otherwise.

My husband lives with me, here in the United States. He has access to Twitter and the rest of the internet. He's a lot more informed than his relatives back home. However, he often feels the same sense of loyalty they do. He worries, as they do, that kicking the president out will lead to civil war, between the North and South.

But then, there are other days, when he feels disenchanted with the state of affairs in Yemen, namely the rampant corruption and lack of forward progress. On these days, he seems to empathize with the protestors and shakes his fist at President Saleh's stubbornness. It's a gray area sometimes.

I will hopefully post more often. Until then, my prayers go out to Yemen.

Special delivery

One of hubby's many, many cousins is here for a short visit. He actually drove here because he needed help filling out immigration forms. He drove 8 hrs to visit us. To help him fill out forms.

He did not bring the forms.

He didn't even have a clue what would be needed, like say... important things like a TAX RETURN, or a BANK STATEMENT, or a W2, or a COPY OF BIRTH CERTIFICATE.

So hubby says, "Don't worry about it. Help him fill out the stuff on the form; he can gather all his documents when he goes back home"

So how am I supposed to know what to enter in the field where it says, "income?" Or "taxable income?"

At this rate, I'll be lucky if this cousin knows how to spell his own name.

I AM NOT MAKING THIS STUFF UP

I asked hubby, why on Earth did this poor guy DRIVE here? I could have easily printed the forms off the web (which, go figure, is what I ended up doing) filled out his info and MAILED it back to him. We do have this neat service called the "Post Office" where someone will take your document to somewhere else. No driving necessary!

Hubby says it just shows how grateful the guy is that we're helping him with the form. I said, "Uh no. It shows that you guys have no sense of practicality"

My mother put some gifts in a box last month, and mailed it to our kids. She didn't see the need to hop in a car and drive for hours. She's a smart cookie, my mom!

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)