Day 2

OK...so let me start with a description of the World Cup, Yemeni style...So I don't watch soccer, I don't care about soccer, I wanted to sleep during the final soccer game. But Yemenis had other plans. As I lay in bed, I knew every single time a goal was made because of all of the gun shots going off in the air and horns honking. It was crazy. When the match finally ended, there were so many gunshots....the Yemenis were definitely rooting for Spain.
I really did not get much sleep last night...I'm still jet-lagged so I was actually still awake when the 4am call to prayer started. It is like nothing else in yemen...because Sana'a is totally flat and surrounded by mountains, it all echoes and you can hear everything. There are hundreds of mosques in Sana'a...it is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard, it is so peaceful and calm and soothing and it really reaches your core.

Today was the first day of classes. 4 straight hours, every day. Breakfast is served by the classroom building every day from 8am to 9am and then classes are from 9 to 1. I have 2 professors, 2 hours with each, and they only speak Arabic, which is good. My level has three students in it, including me. The other two are also Americans, and they both go to Middlebury...aka I look like an idiot because their teachers were so much better than mine...but also because the class is so small, everyone gets so much individual attention that I am bound to finally learn the grammar, and I don't really care if I look dumb because I want to learn the stuff.

Whatever, enough about classes...I should be doing my 3 hours of homework right now, but I ain't!
After class, I grabbed lunch with a group of students and young people that work for the program...we got kabob sandwiches, which they make really nice and spicy in Yemen...the food is amazing...it was made with some sort of ground meat...I have no idea what animal or what part of that animal, but it was good...i'm not sick yet *knock on wood*.
At 4, all the new students got together and 2 of the schools teachers gave us a tour of the old city of Yemen. It was all in Arabic and all the other students are at the beginning level so I had to translate...funnnn. But anyways, they showed us how to get to the old city and took us to the top of one of the taller buildings in Yemen so we could get a view of the entire city...wow. the city is gorgeous. it is so flat because it is in a valley. see facebook for photos. (and by the way, in the old part of the city alone, there are more than 166 mosques, so there are gorgeous minarets everywhere). Then, they told us that they were abandoning us and we would have to find our own way back. Apparently this was part of the plan to get us lost and make us learn our way around the old city...not a bad idea. So we actually decided to go exploring and not try to get out immediately, so we walked around all the souks. I bought an abbaya, which, for those who don't know, is the long black gown-like thing that is very loose and completely covers you. It is so comfortable and nice and hand-made...and it cost $6! And in the abbaya store, there were 3 yemeni women also looking for abbayas and I finally got to talk to Yemeni women! they were so incredibly nice and helpful and we talked for a while. I really want to make friends with Yemeni women because apparently they are the best cooks and I really want to go in a Yemeni house and see how life is. I also bought some amazing incense that smells so good and is really fresh..i think it was maybe 50 cents? And apparently Yemen is famous for having the best black pepper so I bought some of that too for super cheap.
So after a few hours of wandering around, we decided to look for a restaurant and walked along the sa'ila (which means river in Arabic, but in Sana'a, it is actually a road that is built below ground-level, so that when it rains, all the water drains into it and it becomes a river). We ended up walking into a random restaurant that opened into a big courtyard with tons of restaurants in it...all of the food in Yemen is kind of like street food. "nicer" restaurants actually have tables and chairs and they throw a piece of plastic on the table and you eat off the table using bread as a utensil. There are over 300 different types of bread in yemen...I'm in heaven. So tonight, we had no idea about what type of food the restaurant served, but I understood the word "lahmeh" (lamb) in his description, so we asked for a small assortment of everything (picture on facebook). they bring you huge pieces of bread and we got a cold soup type thing made from tomato, onion, garlic and herbs, and a dish made with strips of lamb and veggies with tons of spices and very hot which kinda tasted like a yemeni fajita, and also a dish with ground lamp and spices, and a weird omelette type thing with spices and tomato and also a dish made from kidney and veggies and spices. I don't eat eggs, and I know from Jordan that I HATE kidney, but the soup and the 2 types of lamb were AMAZING. Soooo good. And everyone said the eggs were good. Considering the levels of cleanliness, I'm shocked I'm not sick yet from the food, but I guess my 2 trips to the hospital in Jordan for food poisoning prepared my stomach for Yemen.
So...now I have about 3 hours of homework to do. Tomorrow I am going to a Yemeni body language talk, so it will be easier for me to understand the women by knowing how they communicate.
Well, if you made it through all of this, congrats!