yemenat
Yemenat
Mohammed Al-Mekhlafi
On my first day at the azba of Shi‘b al-Dhab‘, everything was new to me. I didn’t know the place well. I even kept getting my directions mixed up, unable to tell east from west or north from south.
At nine in the morning, I left the apartment with one of my relatives, Engineer Hamed Abdullah. He drove me to Algeria Street in the Al-Utaybiyya neighbourhood.
I tried to remember the road leading to the entrance of Shi‘b al-Dhab‘. I took the first side street towards Jabal al-Sayyida, but after walking a short distance, I felt that the place didn’t look familiar, so I turned back and took the second street. I kept moving from one street to another for about half an hour, trying to find my way, but without success.
I had called my friends at the azba, but they were asleep, and none of them answered. They had told me before that they usually slept until the Asr prayer.
I sat beside one of the shops, hoping to find someone I knew, and stayed there until the Dhuhr prayer. When I heard the call to prayer, I got up and headed towards the mosque. As I passed by, I spotted Kamal Hammoud Abdo, one of the sons of my village, inside his shop, “Al-Najm Men’s Tailoring.” As soon as I opened the door and walked in, he stood up and greeted me, saying, “Hala, Bin Saeed! Praise God, you’re most welcome.” He then shook my hand warmly and accompanied me to the mosque.
After the prayer, he invited me to lunch at a nearby restaurant. His son Osama and his brother Abdulilah were with him. Abdulilah also had a tailoring shop. I remembered him as a little boy in the village, and here he was today, a cheerful young man welcoming customers with a smile that never seemed to leave his face. We sat talking about our memories of the village until half past four in the afternoon.
I called Salah al-Qaisi and told him I was at Kamal’s shop, so he sent Mohammed Abdu to come and get me and take me to the azba. This time, I made sure to read the shop signs along the way so I wouldn’t get lost again.
When I arrived, one of the young men at the azba told me that the building they lived in had been abandoned for many years. Only recently had they cleaned it up and made it suitable for living. It was one of the buildings in Shi‘b al-Dhab‘, which lies within the Jabal al-Sayyida range in Al-Utaybiyya.
The building was falling apart, and everything inside looked old and worn out. Even the air conditioner barely managed to blow out any air. I compared it to a locomotive struggling to climb the mountain slopes of Hajjat al-Abd in the southern countryside of Taiz. It makes a terrible noise as it struggles uphill, moving slowly and sometimes stumbling along the way.
The air conditioner wasn’t our only problem at the azba. There were also insects, such as cockroaches and *kutan*, which irritated our skin. As I write this article, I feel as though fire is running through my body.
The water supply was another problem. Sometimes it would be cut off for two days or even longer. There were also large rats. Sometimes I would sit in the building’s courtyard, near the dense trees, scrolling through my phone, only to suddenly sense something moving nearby. I would turn around and find a rat passing right beside me.
Most of the neighbourhood’s residents were Burmese, Bengali, and Yemeni, with a smaller Egyptian community. It is one of the old neighbourhoods and falls within the demolition project for the expansion of the Grand Mosque.
I was once invited to have dinner at a friend’s azba, only to find that it was even worse than ours. That is how many bachelor accommodations are in the neighbourhoods of Al-Utaybiyya.
After the first week, I began to adapt to life at the azba and gradually fell into the same routine as the other young men. I would wake up around two in the afternoon, head to Algeria Street, buy some brown bread and a can of milk, and sometimes some salty cheese. Then I would make my way to Maryam’s cafeteria, at the entrance to the Shi‘b al-Dhab‘ neighbourhood, and have breakfast.
The cafeteria was run by a friendly Bengali man named Zafur, who loved joking around. Since we saw each other so often, a certain familiarity had developed between us. I would tease him, saying:
“Sadiq, I want Yemeni food, but you have no idea how to make it.”
He would laugh and reply:
“Yemeni food? No idea, no idea!”
After breakfast, I would sit outside the cafeteria, light a cigarette, and sip a glass of red tea while watching people coming and going along the road leading up to Shi‘b al-Dhab‘.
Once, I overheard a man talking on his phone. From his accent and appearance, he seemed to be Yemeni. He was probably speaking to his wife, addressing her in an angry tone:
“I sent it to you a week ago, and you keep asking and asking. Where am I supposed to get it from? There’s no work. We’re unemployed. I’m telling you, you have to economise.”
He spoke with such bitterness, as though his wife were standing right in front of him, arguing with him.
Many Burmese people also passed by. Some pushed small carts loaded with water bottles, while others carried goods between the shops. Dozens of women passed by as well, most of them Burmese, dressed modestly and walking quietly. Some were accompanied by their children, who carried their schoolbags on their way home from school.
After that, I would head to Salem Qattan Mosque, near the azba, for the Asr prayer. Once the prayer was over, the children would gather in circles to memorise the Quran. It was a beautiful sight: they sat around their teacher, repeating the verses after him.
I would then return to the azba, take a shower, and sit around until the Maghrib prayer. By that time, Omar would have returned from work. He would prepare the mu’assel for the hookah, and the *jiro* chewing session would begin with his brother Al-Jabali.
Sitting with them took me back to the atmosphere of the village I had left twenty-eight years earlier. If I were to add up all the days I had spent visiting the village over those long years, they probably wouldn’t amount to more than a month. My last visit had been about ten years ago.
I enjoyed our conversations. Once, I told them that I had met one of the sons of our village who had become a company manager and was earning a handsome salary, even though years earlier, back in Sanaa, he could barely afford his daily expenses.
Al-Jabali replied:
“Mohammed, the son of a poor man stays poor, and the son of a rich man becomes rich. We are the children of the *makadeem*, and that’s how we will remain.”
By *makadeem*, he meant the children of farmers who were tied to the land and made their living from agriculture and livestock. It was as though he believed that the circumstances in which we had grown up would continue to follow us, no matter how hard we tried to change our reality.
I told him, “Don’t be so pessimistic.”
After the Maghrib prayer, I would meet my childhood friend Mohammed Naji at Taiz Buffet, where we would have dinner together, as usual: *tawa* bread, *sahawiq* (hot chilli sauce) with cheese, and red tea.
He would tell me about his work, the hardships of living away from home, and how much he missed the family he had left behind in the village years earlier. He once told me that the image of his children crying silently on the day he travelled had never faded from his memory.
As we wandered along Al-Andalus and Algeria Streets, we often ran into people from our village and the neighbouring villages. Many of their faces had changed over the years. We would exchange greetings, and they would ask me how things were back home. I would tell them, “Just look at our situation, and you’ll find the answer to that question.”
Once, while I was feeling particularly heavy-hearted, I unexpectedly ran into Abdulqawi Saad Ghaleb, one of the sons of my village. I probably hadn’t seen him for more than twenty-five years. He greeted me warmly, welcomed me, and we chatted for a while. Those brief moments stirred a sense of hope inside me. He had always been a successful person by nature, someone who managed his life sensibly, kept things organised and tidy, and disliked chaos. He had been that way since childhood.
What moved me most was seeing my brother Wadhah again. As I looked at his face, I tried to recognise the brother I had played with as a child and recall the voice that used to fill our entire house. It had been twenty years since I last saw him.
He took me in his car to his home in Al-Aziziyya. As I entered the courtyard, I heard the voices of his children. I went towards them, overwhelmed by longing, eager to meet them and hold them close to my chest. The little girl stepped back slightly and asked her father in her childish village dialect:
“Abah, aj’eel?”
Meaning, “Who is this man?”
I told her, “I’m your uncle,” and pulled her close to my chest, feeling a sense of warmth and reassurance. I embraced her brother Ra’d as well. Then I sat with them, looking at their innocent faces and playing with them.
After midnight, Harith al-Qaisi (Abu Raslan) would take us in his car to have dinner, our main meal of the day, at various places along Mecca’s beautiful, upscale streets. There were towers, bridges, overpasses, and the railway, all so different from the old neighbourhood of Al-Utaybiyya, where I lived.
When we arrived late and the restaurants were about to close, we would order takeaway and eat in an open space. On one occasion, we sat in a green area beside the main road in Al-Kakiyya. On another, we ate on the rooftop of a popular market. We also visited Al-Hussainiyya rest house on the outskirts of Mecca, where we had a wonderful time before eating dinner and returning to the apartment.
Once, Mounir Abdo Ali and his brother Emad invited us to eat *aysid hind* (corn porridge), which they had prepared themselves in their apartment in Al-Utaybiyya. They served it with local ghee, *sahawiq* with cheese, and *haqin*.
I ate until I felt my stomach was about to burst. I then spent hours walking and wandering through the streets until midnight. At half past one, Harith contacted us, as usual:
“Come on over for dinner!”
I ate just a little, then headed towards the Grand Mosque.
At around two in the morning, I would walk to the Grand Mosque. I took the main road through Al-Utaybiyya, sometimes stopping beside one of the shops to jot down a few lines in my diary and enjoy the stillness of the night before continuing my journey. I would pass the Civil Defence building and the grave of Sayyida Khadija, may God be pleased with her. Beyond that, the Grand Mosque would gradually come into view. The closer I got to it, the greater the sense of comfort and peace I felt.
Crowds of people from different nationalities streamed towards the main entrance. I walked among them, observing the faces of elderly men and women. Joy showed on their faces as they gazed towards the Grand Mosque and the Clock Tower.
As soon as we passed through the main entrance, we entered the courtyard of the Grand Mosque. There, we encountered groups of pilgrims from different countries, speaking different languages. Each group was led by someone reciting supplications, which the others repeated after him, before heading towards the Kaaba to perform Umrah.
As for me, I would enter through another gate and take the designated elevators to the upper floor, where the tawaf area was located. I would pray two rak’ahs, then begin my tawaf and supplications, continuing until the Fajr call to prayer approached.
How beautiful it was to see an elderly man from the Turkish countryside, accompanied by his equally elderly wife, holding his hand as they performed tawaf together. Nearby, another man was pushing his mother in a wheelchair, while her young son walked beside her. She had tied his hand to hers with a spiral safety cord, afraid he might get lost in the crowd. All of them circled the Kaaba, calling upon God.
Sometimes I would find myself thinking that these were the same people I had seen the previous day. Then I would remind myself that people of the same nationality often look alike.
After the Fajr prayer, I would stay for a while. Sometimes sleep would overcome me, and I would doze off. I still remember the first time I fell asleep there. It was a beautiful feeling. I felt a great sense of openness in my chest, as though I were flying through the sky. Nothing was occupying my mind at that moment.
At around half past six in the morning, I would make my way back to the azba along the same road I took every day. But on one occasion, I found myself at a different exit. I thought the road back to Al-Utaybiyya might be shorter from there.
At the gate, I asked one of the passers-by how to get to Algeria Street in Al-Utaybiyya. He told me it was quite far, perhaps eight kilometres away, and advised me to walk to the end of the street and then take a taxi.
I walked to the end of the street, stopped a taxi, and asked the driver to take me to Algeria Street. He asked me for twenty-five riyals. I had only fifteen, so I had no choice but to continue on foot.
I spent two hours wandering through the streets. By chance, I spotted a Yemeni restaurant, went inside, and ordered a plate of *foul* and a *hamba tamees* for seven riyals. I had breakfast and then headed outside.
I stopped another taxi, but the driver asked me for ten riyals. I told him, “Brother, take me wherever you can for these five riyals.”
He drove me a short distance, dropped me off, and pointed towards an opening on the right, telling me to continue walking and turn in there.
I kept walking until I finally reached the house at nine in the morning.
yemenat
مشاهدة diaries of shi lsquo b al dhab lsquo
يذكر بـأن الموضوع التابع لـ diaries of shi b al dhab قد تم نشرة ومتواجد على قد تم نشرة اليوم ( ) ومتواجد على موقع يمنات الأخباري ( اليمن ) وقد قام فريق التحرير في برس بي بالتاكد منه وربما تم التعديل علية وربما قد يكون تم نقله بالكامل اوالاقتباس منه ويمكنك قراءة ومتابعة مستجدادت هذا الخبر او الموضوع من مصدره الاساسي.
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