It is hard to believe now, but Yemen was once called Felix Arabia, Happy Arabia. The Romans gave it that name because it was more fertile than the rest of the Arabian peninsula.
Reading about war and famine in today's Yemen, I recall my time in Yemen's capital city, Sana'a, as a Catholic Relief Services health educator. It was 1979, and my first sight of women covered completely in black, and men with curved daggers jammed into their waistbands, gave me a jolt. I feared sudden, unpredictable violence, but what I got instead was sudden, unpredictable warmth and acceptance.
Under a brilliant blue sky, this city of rammed earth buildings trimmed in white gypsum had endured for more than a thousand years. Water was scarce, electricity was unreliable and phones were antiquated. There were no libraries or movie theaters, and I couldn't go jogging without wild dogs giving chase.
But faithful to ancient traditions of hospitality, Yemeni neighbors pulled me into their homes daily, offering super-sweet tea, savory salta, a meaty stew and choice TV-watching seats. Upon meeting me, our nursing trainees, young and veiled, proclaimed me "very good" and vied to sit as close as possible to me when we drove to clinic visits. Other expatriates experienced similar hospitality.
The country was governed by Ali Abdullah Saleh, a young army colonel who had recently seized power. As weekends approached, the rumor mill started up. "I hear there's going to be another coup this weekend" was a popular refrain.
One early December evening my electricity went out. At first it appeared normal; the city experienced blackouts most nights. When it was still off the next day, I discovered that my landlady was illegally tapping into a neighbor's line. In retaliation, the utility had cut her — cut our — cables. And, despite her promises of restoration bokra, tomorrow, the outage dragged on.
The lack of a companionable refrigerator hum silenced my house and heightened my sense of strangeness and distance from home. But I made do, cooking breakfast oatmeal on my gas stove and sipping room-temperature Tang, the only "citrus" available. Thankfully, my neighbors welcomed me for dinner.
Christmas was approaching, and I wanted to decorate my little house. Sana'a was now mostly devoid of greenery, so I decided to approximate a tree by draping material over the base of a lamp.
