Chapter 5:South

South part of Yemen includes the famous city Aden which was a British colony. The South part of Yemen is bigger than the north part.

Maybe most famous people of the south are Hadrami People, Hadramies are famous for spreading Islam to countries like Indonesia and Malaysia and there a lot of Hadrami people still living there.

Traditions in the south differ from in the north but it’s not a big difference.

Let’s talk about what people wear.

The climate in the north is kind of a continental climate where as in the south most of the time it’s hot so people like to wear what we call “Foota” or “Soba’eiah” and to make the picture close to you, a Foota is like what the people of Scotland wear (that thing like a skirt what’s its name), and as for the top part they can wear a t-shirt or what ever that goes with it.

Almost no one wears a dagger in the south, but they have dagger for some occasions and not everyone have a dagger people who were sultans in the past or were connected to sultans or they were royals have daggers and people from known tribes have daggers.

Notice that I’ve said “have” not “wear” they wear it in some occasions, but most of the time they don’t.

Next time we are going to talk about some people get married in Hadramoot since it’s the biggest part of south, also it’s the biggest part of Yemen.

Chapter 4: Tribe pride (North & South)

Yemeni society is a very conservative society it’s the mix of two (Muslim-Arabic) traditions.
All Yemeni people are Muslims and we have some Yemeni Jews here and there (and we don’t hurt them ok…!).

Every part of Yemen have there own traditions and style of life and I’ll try to talk about them (but hey I’m not an expert I’m just trying to give you more info about my country).

North part of Yemen traditions differ from south part, in the north the tribe is main thing and loyalty to the tribe is the most important thing, although most people don’t care much about that anymore but they consider it an important tradition and some tribes are famous than other so as you can see it’s all a matter of pride and who is famous and so on.

Famous tribes of the north are like (Hashid, Bakeel….there a lot actually but those two are the most famous).

But there are some cities of the north like (Taiz , Ib ) who don’t care much about the tribe and where are you from.

In the south in cities like (Aden, Al-Mukalla) people forgot all about tribes pride and all stuff related to that 100 years ago, they do know where they are from and every body sticks to his/her roots but it’s not a big deal anymore.

Ok the END, yes I know this in not enough I promise I’ll write more & more.

Chapter III: let's get married

Chapter III: let's get married

In chapter II I talked about the traditional dress code in the NORTH part of yemen which by the way apply to about 75% of the north some parts of the norht don't wear a dagger.

maybe most of you thought that I would write more about what's the dress code in the south but I'll leave that for another day.

Today I'm going to talk about how people get married, or to be exact how to propose.

Let's get it started:

Most of the world have the (European –American) way to propose to a woman, well you can do that here but you still have to do it the right way(if want to do something do it right).

What I'm going to speak about here maybe apply to 80% of the Arab world in general with maybe a little difference from one country to another.

So if you loved some girl and she loved you and you want to get married there are some steps you must do first.

First step: you can propose to the girl family directly or you can try the second approach which means that you have to send someone who knows the girl family (a friend of the family and it would be better if he/she was a good friend of the family) and tell them that you want to propose for there daughter and see what they have to say.

Second step: if you proposed directly or they agreed to meet you after step one – part two then you and the girl father or who is considered her legal guardian will schedule a day when you come with some of your family members and set with him and some of his family members (that’s of course if the girl wanted to marry YOU!!) and you talk about the details of the wedding and who will pay for what and so on.

Step three: get ready for the wedding.

Step four: get married.

Step five: now you have her have a great life.

I know this was short but I'm kind of busy these days I'll try to write more stuff in the near future.

More pics of yemen

Many thanks to Mr.Sami Almekhlafi for collecting a lot of pictures of Yemen and publishing them, here are some of the pics he have on his web site:



if you want to see the full pictures please go to this link : Pics of my country

PS: enjoy karin !!!!! :)

Aljazeera

if you are hearing one side of the story of the Lebanon-Israel story goto Aljazeera for all the news see whats really going on


Aljazeera.net

We are with Lebanon and Palestine against Israel and occupiers

Support us against the Israeli occupation...your VOTE counts.....


Englsih:

We are with Lebanon and Palestine against Israel and occupiers


Frinch:

Nous sommes avec tous le Liban et la Palestine contre l’Israel et les occupants


German:

Wir sind zusammen mit dem Libanon und Palästina gegen Israel und Besatzer


Spanish:

Somos todos con Líbano y Palestina contra Israel e inquilinos

Chinese:

我们都是同黎巴嫩和巴勒斯坦对以色列占领者


Japanese

私達はイスラエル共和国および占有者に対してレバノンおよ
びパレスチナとのすべてである

Lebanon under fire

3 days and the Israelis are hitting on Lebanon now maybe most of you heard the official story that Israel is trying to get there 2 soldiers out.

See the problem is Israel found it a chance to start its own plan to destroy Hizb-Allah (which by the way means God’s people) because Hizb-Allah is like wall between them and taking over all Lebanon.

Hizb-Allah is the one who fought against Israel when they occupied south Lebanon and drove them out of there destroying the Israeli army legend so it’s another chance to get even.

Even though the powers are not equal and the Israelis (as usual) are fighting dirty and targeting civilians and villages.

They have bombed Beirut airport and parts of Beirut so the tourism season is over for good in Lebanon and Lebanon loses 100 million dollars everyday because of that so it’s not a war against Hizb-Allah but it’s a war against the whole country and they still have the nerves to say it’s about the 2 soldiers (hey Hizb-Allah is at the south and Beirut is far far from there) and plus it’s the Israelis that still have Lebanese hostages and Hizb-Allah wanted to trade these 2 soldiers with some hostages but Israel didn’t want to ,so don’t keep telling me it’s about the 2 soldiers because it’s clearly not because if they really cared about these two soldiers why did they start this war and lost maybe a couple of millions when they could’ve surrendered some hostages from there side??? It’s all a big fat lie.

Until now maybe 110 Lebanese civilians but Hizb-Allah bombings only killed 9 while they were able to bomb a chemical factory in Hifa but they didn’t because they didn’t want a disaster and the civilians are not the enemy, but the Israeli army is still bombing civilians.

Last Saturday UN voted to stop Israel the US used the Veto to cancel the whole thing, and the US supplied Israel with Jet fuel so Israel can keep the PEACE!!!! (Yes PEEEEEEEEEEEAAACE?? Keep the peace with a missile!!!)

Chapter II: we are still talking about Sana’a

Preface:

Welcome to chapter II of this ….. !!! It’s not a book so…well welcome to the second part of this series of articles about Yemen.
I've added more pics above for Yemeni People and the last one isn't a picture taken from sana'a it's a pic of a Yemeni village (I know Karin will enjoy them). :)

Chapter II: Dress code in Sana’a and most of the north parts of Yemen

Life in Yemen is different than maybe what most people are used to, Yemeni people are strict about there traditions and every part of Yemen has it’s own traditions and dress code and so on.

Lets talk about Sana’a for example (since I live there, but I’m originally from Hadramoot which I’ll talk about maybe in another chapter), the dress code there is the white Thob, the Ganbiah (dagger), and you can wear a jacket over them, and a scarf (in Yemen they call it Somatah).

I know most people stopped at the (dagger) thing saying “they seem so uncivilized”, so let me explain the “dagger” thing.

1st of all we don’t use it as a weapon a dagger says a lot about the person wearing it, it’s like a car so you have a Mercedes Benz people will know you are rich but if you have a Toyota People will say that you’re doing well, so a dagger is like a social thing not a weapon.

Some dagger can cost a lot they can reach about 1 million dollars!!! (And I’m not joking).

But this dress code isn’t what ALL people wear but it’s like the dress code for most people in the north part of Yemen, the south part for Yemen dress code is entirely different.

Pics of Sana'a with my N70

here are some pics i took with my N70 while i was on a quick visit to old Sana'a and some pics i took of Sana'a

Chapter 1 : Sana'a

Ok I’m try to talk about how it’s like to live in Yemen & Sana’a (the city which I live in).

Preface (AGAIN!!! yes):

Sana’a is the capital of Yemen, and for those who don’t know much about Yemeni history Yemen was separated into two parts north and south Yemen, the north was ruled by the Imam and the south was under British control in the 26th of Sep 1964 the north became the republic of Yemen and in 30th of Nov 1967 the south gained it independence.

The north capital was Sana’a & the south Capital was Aden.

And so in 1990 the two parts became united & both formed what is know today as the republic of Yemen and Sana’a was the capital and Aden was the main sea port.

Chapter 1: welcome to my city “Sana’a”:

There is a poem that goes like “no matter how long we travel, we will go back to Sana’a”
This became like the most used poem for all Yemeni world wide, because it like the “Come back to home” song.

Sana’a is a wonderful city, in here you’ll find people from all over Yemen that came to the capital either for work or visiting or moving there, and Sana’a is known for it’s great weather (but this year it didn’t rain a lot like it used too I hate it when it doesn’t rain…oh ok back to the subject), some say Sana’a have an European like weather (although I didn’t go to Europe).

Sana’a consists of 2 main parts (from my point of view):

1- The ordinary Sana’a where it’s like modern and nothing really is out of the ordinary (at least for us).
2- Old City of Sana’a: it’s the door to the 19th or maybe 18th & 17th century in old Sana’a you’ll find everything just magical houses that are like 100 or years old and old style markets and there a market for everything, a market for silver, for antiques for traditional hand crafts, until this day each time I go to Old Sana’a I feel like I’ve took the time machine and went back time.

You can’t hate us Yemenis we are just too nice (and too NOSY if there is anything new we just gather around it), Yemeni people are the kindest people there ever was they just treat you like a friend and we really don’t care much about where you’re from or what you do as long as you are a human then you are a friend.

Now there is a lot to visit when you come here to Sana’a so let me suggest 3 places you MUST visit:
1- Old Sana’a : I don’t care if you were living on the moon you have to go to old Sana’a
2- One of the “Shibani Restaurants”: these restaurants are famous all over Yemen for there traditional YET so GOOOOOOD food and believe me you don’t want to miss this one.
3- Dar Al-Hagar: this was the summer home for the Imam it’s about a 30 min drive from Sana’a and it’s really fascinating It was built on a HUGE rock the traditional Yemeni way which is just so magical.

This was the end of “chapter I” and I don’t know how many chapters or what is the next chapter is going to be about so keep on reading, and if you have any questions just ask, I’ll try my best to answer anything.

Note: i'll try to add some new pictures of Sana'a this week.

Slow Connection

Preface (I know it’s not a book I just like the sound of it):

I was going to write about my country “Yemen” but then I thought that would be kinda lame if you want to know the “Official” info about Yemen just go to Google and type “Yemen”.

Ok let’s break things down a little bit (for the ones who don’t know any Arabic), my Name is Thamood and I’m 22 (turning 23 next august) and I’m a computer science graduate and that’s about it (what more do you want to know) and did I say I’m from YEMEN?.

Intro: my life & slow connections:

Yeah it’s 2006 and for the most of us in Yemen we are still using the dial-up connection to the internet (OMG….yeah I know), but hey it’s not bad at least you learn some things while you are waiting to download your 300KB picture (yes we wait for those kind of things), because we only have like 2 ISPs and both of them are complete idiots and don’t know what is the meaning of the word “Technology” or “DSL” (I’m wondering if they are still using windows 3.11)!!!

They do have ADSL connections but for the most of us (I mean the Yemeni people) and comparing it to the income it’s kinda expensive (plus it’s for only 120 hours a month STUPID TELECOM MINESTRY) that’s why internet cafes are so much popular than home internet here (which I hate coz people here are so NOSY they like to watch what you do all the time and there is no privacy).

I do have a dial up connection at home which I use a lot, but I really wish more ISPs could come here so they can free us from this HUUUUUGE problem, we are not fully using the internet, and we have to wait like 10 min for a flash to open or a picture to be downloaded!!!
Yes we can go to internet cafes but it not really that great too because sometimes someone might be downloading something using download managers like flash get or some program like that and the whole line would become slow!!!!! GOD please send us ISPs plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz - i used SOME a lot in this last piece lolz ;)

Why do we hate Israelis?

Translation: (written in Arabic) can anyone see me?

Preface:

Why do we hate “Israelis”?

If you haven’t red the intro of how Israel was made the 1st place please read it here.

Let’s get it on:

Now a lot of people all over this world ask us Muslims “Why do we hate Israelis?”
Well let me write a little tale.

“a young girl was setting on here small disk in school she was smiling and having fun with her small friends, she had dreams and hopes for the future, become a doctor a reporter no body knows and NO will know what she was dreaming of” WHY?

A sniper , or be exact an Israeli sniper was kinda bored that day so he LOOKED through his rifle and so this “little girl” sitting there smiling on here disk.

“Now I’ll give here the eternal smile”
…………………………..”BAMMM”……

Shot her in the heart now she is DEAD!!! (Awful???...Really ???)

Stories like these happens everyday in Palestine and I mean EVERY SINGLE DAY and most of you wont hear about it, coz most of the western media is controlled by Jews who have relationships with Israel.

This mother i holding her DEAD baby infant.

You wanted a reason? Well that “little girl” story was a reason and there are more stories that you won’t know about (3 months old child dies , 3 years old , 5 years), they are killing with no mercy what so ever and you call us terrorist!!!!! Think again.

Welcome to Arabia-One

i started to write artciles about my life and yemen and other stuff in english in my other blog,so i thought to move to another blog that will be fully englsih so people won't get cinfused.

hope you have a great time reading my blog.

-Thamood Bader