Underneath

I attended a divorce party last night of a Yemeni colleague. Yep, that is unusual. None of the Yemeni women (and they were all women) I talked to there had been to one before. Waila’s husband wouldn’t agree to a divorce, so she had to take it to court and after a long battle managed to get her freedom—her cake had black roses and "I am alive" was written on it in frosting. There were probably about 30 people there—her Yemeni friends and coworkers and us foreigners from the office. The Yemeni women, who day to day wear the headscarf at least and many who veil their faces on the street also, got totally glamorized. Short, strappy dresses showing lots of cleavage, makeup, jewelry, curled hair. It took me a second or two to recognize a few women! I was totally underdressed (make that overdressed).

They sat on low cushiony couches, smoking cigarettes and sheesha (water pipe with flavored tobacco) and chewing qat. Qat is a mild drug that is a stimulant—apparently like drinking 5 cups of espresso. You chew on the leaf a bit and then leave it in your cheek (swallow your saliva but not the leaf and leave it in there for hours). Men can be seen chewing it most afternoons—sometimes with pouches of it so big that their cheeks protrude like chipmunks or squirrel (or a little kid with one of those ginormous gumballs or jawbreakers). When they talk, you can see the green bits—like a cow chewing its cud. The women were a lot daintier about it, but some had a cheek-full. No one was drinking alcohol (which Yemenis can’t legally buy) but the foreigners had been informed they could bring their own (no one did).

There was a woman there playing the oud (traditional instrument that looks a bit like a guitar but is more round) and singing. Some of the women danced a little, but most just sat around gossiping, smoking and chewing, all dressed up. I was at the qat party for almost four hours and it was still going strong when I caught a ride home from another Yemeni coworker. Everyone at the office is really so nice. (Juliette used to work at Lutheran Services of Iowa in Des Moines—the place I got the job in Dec but then didn’t have the budget to actually hire me. She’d gone to graduate school and then worked there with the director—the same person that had interviewed me. Small world!)

The singer thought at first that I was Egyptian, maybe because I had come with my Egyptian colleague. When she asked where I was from, I told them all that I was American and she cheered “Obama!” And everyone laughed. One of my first conversations with the driver at the office was about Obama and the prospect of change—all eyes are on Obama and the world seems to be holding their breath, hoping he’ll make a difference.