Yemen Pride

The People of Yemen go about their daily lives in a very different way in relationship to the way that Horwitz leads his life. They carry weapons and dress in turbans, sandals and a robe with pants and a dagger below the waist. Horwitz needed a way to dive into this culture and used Qat as a tool to be accepted by the Yemenis. It allowed him to socialize with the locals and by doing so, he learned a great deal about life, the people, and culture of Yemen. The people of Yemen are individualistic from those of other Middle Eastern countries. Because most people revolve their life around a hallucinogenic drug, life seems to be much slower and easy going than life here in America. Horwitz even engaged in a conversation with Mansour which describes just that. "I think Americans like drugs that hit fast and hard and then wear off, such as whiskey and cocaine," he said "They could never get used to something that makes you sit around all afternoon doing nothing." What Mansour is saying makes complete sense because to the Yemenis, drugs are used for an entirely different reason than for the reasons they are used here. Kids use drugs to get high fast and others use drugs either because they are addicted or because they want to hurt themselves. In Yemen, they use a slow drug that passes the time, it is used socially, and even to become closer to Allah. The Yemenis that Horwitz met in the Yemen chapters seemed to be very proud of their Qat chewing pastime. Not only are they proud of Qat, but they seem to think that many important things have derived from Sanaa. In a Qat induced conversation, Mansour says that the stucco/adobe style that characterizes New Mexico and much of Mexico, was a variation of the Yemen Mud-Brick architecture. Mansour says that steam baths were invented in Yemen and had the idea stolen by the Ottomans. He even says that William Shakespeare was a Yemeni who was really named Sheik Zubayre. Regardless of whether Abdul and Mansour awere revealing one-hundred percent true facts to Horwitz, it is the interest and love they have for their simple lives that makes them individual. M.A.D