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Sunday, September 28, 2008
A New Mexico Educator's Work on the Arabian Peninsula Reveals an Ancient World Full of Beauty, Friendship and Growing Optimism
By Bill Heenan
For the Journal
On Sept. 17, a car-bomb and sniper attack by suspected al-Qaida terrorists on the U.S. Embassy in the capital city of Yemen killed 10 Yemeni policemen and civilians, an American woman and six attackers. The assault prompted New Mexico educator Bill Heenan, working as an English teacher in the capital city of San`a, to offer a counterpoint to the violence. In this story, he describes his experiences — overwhelmingly positive — with the people who live in the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country and its first multi-party, parliamentary democracy.
SAN`A, Yemen— Last Wednesday morning, I needed a break from my daily Arabic lesson.
To relax, I climbed up seven stories of stairs—no elevators here—to enjoy a view of Yemen's spectacular sprawling and chaotic capital city of two million. Under the rooftop mafraj, a covered area where families enjoy the cool evening air and observe the neighborhood without being seen, I peered across minarets, satellite dishes, and construction cranes toward a 10,000-foot mountain with the ruins of an ancient fortress upon it.
The view was remarkably free from the usual smog and dust since most of the city was asleep. It was the month of Ramadan during which people fast during the day and spend the nights feasting and visiting family members. Yet something wasn't right.
I saw helicopters hovering above a plume of smoke rising over the upscale hotel and embassy quarter, about five miles away.
Collegial concern
I didn't piece it together until I returned to the new English-language institute where I supervise 50 Yemeni English teachers. I was greeted in the courtyard by a group who wondered if I was all right and if I had heard the news about the bombing of the U.S. Embassy.
Soon, other teachers joined our group and expressed outrage that such an act could take place during Islam's holiest month. And still others offered their sympathy and asked if I needed anything.
Finally, they reminded me that most Yemenis did not behave like this, that I would be safe with them.
I didn't need much reminding. Since arriving here last June, I have been enjoying their hospitality and friendship — and now protection. My first impressions of this Texas-sized developing nation of 22 million were positive. Although my luggage got lost on the flight here, the Yemeni owner of the institute offered to replace the contents himself.
Gracious hosts
The welcome mat has continued to unroll. Right away, I was invited into people's homes, to their weddings and banquets.
Despite official anger over some U.S. policies in the Middle East, I have never been treated disrespectfully or discourteously — though I admit to being roughly handled in some protracted bargaining sessions in the old souq, or market. In fact, no one has ever asked me about politics unless I raised such subjects first.
Unfortunately, the embassy bombing could interfere with Yemen's attempts to modernize. It could scare away foreign investors and tourists and force the government to invest more of its budget into the military and security forces.
Much of the country is mountainous, above 3,000 feet in elevation, with plenty of remote areas to hide in.
Although the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen does have significant oil deposits whose benefits had been having an impact.
Path to progress
When I arrived, the nation seemed to be heading in the right direction. Kidnappings and terrorist activities had ceased, an insurrection in the north had come to an end and tourists were starting to return to this friendly and fascinating, yet largely unknown, ancient land. The U.S. and British Embassies had even invited their non-essential personnel back.
And if the headlines in the lively English-language press was any indication in the Arabian Peninsula's first multi-party, parliamentary democracy, the nation was attempting to come to grips with serious social issues such as poverty, corruption, rising prices of staple foods, dropping water table, illegal immigration from Africa, unemployment, arms smuggling, uncontrolled urban growth, and the national addiction to chewing the leaves of the mildly narcotic khat tree.
My Yemeni instructors and students were feeling optimistic about the future and despite the embassy attack, they vowed to carry on.
Ticket to advancement
My institute, as many others, plays an important role in developing the country. In this most conservative of Islamic societies — both men and women often wear traditional clothes — the institute is one of the few places where men and women could mix relatively freely. Half of the teaching staff is female, and through English, they and their students can dream beyond day-to-day survival.
Having English skills in Yemen is the ticket to upper mobility in a society in which almost half of the country lives below the poverty line. Even literacy in Arabic is low.
If the multinational companies here are not scared off by the embassy attack, they will continue to offer incredible job opportunities to both men and women conversant in English.
The 1,600-odd student body is a cross-section of the society. Hard-working and dedicated, they consist of middle- and high-school students, housewives, government and private-industry employees, and blue-collar workers. Attending classes is a privilege.
3,000-year history
Yet despite the terrorist attack, they would carry on as they have done throughout a turbulent 3,000-year history of tribal upheavals, foreign incursions and a difficult recent unification of what used to be the nations of North Yemen and South Yemen. A thousand years before the birth of Christ, the region was the center of the spice trade, where wise men gathered frankincense and myrrh in the hills, and Queen Sheba reigned in what is now the ruins of Maarib.
With limited resources, the Yemeni government has attempted to preserve much of this heritage, especially in San`a's Old City, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Inside the Old City walls, I have often gotten lost amidst a profusion of the world's first skyscrapers — eight-story, gingerbread-colored and whitewashed stone buildings. Most have been owned by the same family for hundreds of years.
A new war on terrorism could put the brakes on these preservation efforts, which draw tourists from all over the world.
Outside the capital, there are even more spectacular historic treats. I have frequent invitations from students and teachers to visit their ancestral villages in a nation where 75 percent of the population is rural. Less than an hour from San`a, there are fortified towns, watchtowers on the heights and ruins of castles left by invading would-be occupiers.
My Yemeni friends have reassured me that eventually the terrorists will leave because their actions continue to alienate the typical Yemeni in the street. After all, mostly Yemenis died in the embassy attack.
If the country can continue along its path of development, then some of the root causes of terrorism—unemployment and poverty—will no longer nurture al-Qaida's supporters, and my students and teachers can achieve their dreams.
Bill Heenan, a former educator with the New Mexico Corrections Department, is in Yemen to experience educational administration and study Arabic.
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