political parallax

Rereading the last post makes me want to vomit so here is something else:
Aden has a fairly small expatriate community, most of whom know of each other, if they haven’t met a few times anyways. On Thursday (which is like Friday in the west) my Italian friend Federica who was just recently let back into the country hosted a dinner party for about fifteen people. I went with my friend Faie who was the only Yemeni person attending, I was the only American person and one of just two not working for a development or relief organization. The other was a Somali-Italian named Mohammed with an interesting story I will share.
Mohammed looks ethnically Somali with the typical high cheekbones, large front teeth, close-set eyes, and a skin color darker than you can imagine. Until recently though, for most of his 23-year life, he has carried an Italian passport. He grew up in Italy with his family and started playing basketball on the Italian national team. Somehow, while he was visiting friends or family in Somalia (probably Puntland not Somaliland but I’m not certain), his passport was stolen or lost or expired or something. For a year and a half he hasn’t been able to return to his family and friends and girlfriend in Italy. Despite knowing only Italian and English, knowing neither the Somali language nor Arabic, he’s spent time in Somalia, Djibouti, and now has come to Yemen as a refugee.
There are a number of refugee communities around Yemen, mostly along the coast. They are primarily fenced-in camps where refugees await some sort of living or work permit in-country. Within the Aden municipality there is a neighborhood, Basateen, designed specifically for refugees, mostly Somali. The schools are overcrowded fitting eighty students into a classroom designed for twenty; there is a clinic providing healthcare for those proving they are identified refugees; there is a community center where relief and aid workers spend time; the neighborhood lacks running water in nearly all the clapboard homes and shops but it has been made available to the madrassa or Islamic schools.
On occasion my school makes activities for the scholarship students, one of which a few months ago was to tour Basateen, and then engage in a cultural exchange with the refugees. It was rather hot and dusty wandering around the neighborhood and the students absolutely hated it. In the community center after the tour, the students had brought food to share with the refugees, and the refugees brought treats to the students to complete the cultural exchange and broaden understanding. My students did not partake in the Somali food and the conversation was pretty limited, although it wasn’t entirely their fault. We were hosted by a Somali woman who was too shy to really talk and a man who mostly wanted to kvetch about conditions instead of sharing a story to personalize his experience and to practice his English despite there being a Somali-Arabic translator. The students could not have cared less, and with a decent reason they all identified later in a forced writing session. Yemen has enough of its own problems it needs to deal with.
Even for non-Yemen standards, Federica’s dinner party was exceptionally good fun. She brought real cheeses from Italy, different pork products, and red and white wines which we all appreciated a bit more than we probably should have, especially Mohammed. And let me tell you, after a few glasses of wine he became the most Italian person I have ever met. His emphatic gestures and lyrical accent are unmistakable, practically a caricature. He lives in Basateen and predictably, he hates it. He told us some about living in the especially devout neighborhood, “I watcha a movie and they saya ‘Whya you do that?’ I listen toa music and they ask ‘Whya you do that?’ I playa a basketball and they saya ‘Whya you do that?’ Fucka man! What I asupposed to do?” He’s been away from Italy for about eighteen months already. He can’t get a job here in Yemen because he doesn’t know Arabic (or Somali). He can only wait for the Italian embassy in Sana’a to hear from Italy about his passport approval which probably isn’t going to happen on his own due to Italian xenophobia and racism. As he succinctly puts it, “Burlesconi is justa Mussolini witha another name.”
His story reminds me of course of Taryn’s incident during our first couple months in Yemen. Her passport was stolen and she was not allowed into the American embassy despite having registered. Our friend Matt wasn’t admitted then even though he had registered and was carrying his passport. Recently, the American and UK embassies have closed some days due to threats. Additionally, scheduling an appointment for something as simple as getting extra visa pages in my passport (which I need before I can get an exit visa to leave Yemen), is something I have been trying to do since before Thanksgiving. These stories beg the question: just how well is the social contract working?
Through this year in Yemen I have learned intimately the inner-workings and goings-on of a foreign body politic. This knowledge is a perspective gained which I will be able to draw upon all of my life when combating the political malaise throughout America. I, too, am often guilty of this stultifying apathy because it is more often difficult to see just how political decisions affect you without seeing an alternative. For this I am very grateful, it has been an unforeseen reward to my experience.