Sana'a

http://idlewords.com/2014/07/sana_a.htm

by dang • 12 years ago

271 52 12 years ago

616c• 12 years ago

I work with Yemeni dudes. It is pretty ballsy to travel into Yemen for the last two years. This is coming from a dude who has travelled to some weird and shitty places in the Middle East. When I first came here to work, said Yemeni dudes withs lots of friendly tribal connects said "yeah, you can come visit with me." As of two years ago, they dread going home. If it not the militias, and inter-village tribal warfare (a constant), gas shortages are choking the country to death.

I have always wanted to go. Yemen is the source of all Arabic languages (Proto-Arabic) and Semitic dialects that only really receive mention in the Bible. Whether or not Sana'a is the oldest inhabited city (people also compare to Damascus in this race to proven the unprovable), it is a source of history stemming back farther than any of us can image.

And the drug shrubs! What else could you ask for.

chrissnell• 12 years ago

What an awesome trip. I've wanted to go there ever since I read "Motoring with Mohammed" [1]. It's an incredible book about an American who shipwrecked on a remote desert island off of Yemen (not Socotra) and buried a bag of valuables. The book is the story of his trip back there--many years later--to retrieve his bag.

It's a damned shame that the Middle East is so ravaged by conflict. There are so many places I'd love to visit. I want to drive the Khyber Pass in my old Land Rover, I want to visit my family's roots in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon (apparently a Hezbollah stronghold these days). I want to chew qat in Yemen and float the Euphrates in Iraq. Maybe someday...

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Motoring-Mohammed-Journeys-Yemen-Red/d...

dfryer2• 12 years ago

I was in Sana'a around this time last year, the article paints a strikingly accurate picture of the experience. Yemenis as a whole are the friendliest group of people I've had the pleasure to meet. On the other hand, the problems of the nation seem to be incurable, unless someone has a recipe for turning sand into water and oil.

guard-of-terra• 12 years ago

It looks like they could employ something like this baby: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-350_reactor

Sadly it doesn't seem to be mainstream anymore.

aaronbrethorst• 12 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8006678

rayiner• 12 years ago

Yemen wasn't always so dangerous. My dad used do development work in Yemen in the early 90s. At the time it wasn't an eventful place. He was there when the civil war broke in 1994. He was stuck in Sana'a while it was being shelled. Finally managed to catch a C130 out of town when the US military evacuated a bunch of Americans.

colordrops• 12 years ago

I don't know anything about Yemen, but my impression is that the country has a bad rap even in the middle east, and it has for a while. My father, of Lebanese descent, moved from Lebanon in the 50s. He had stories about Yemen from way back when. One example was that an eye for an eye was still the norm there - a boy smashed out the eye of a cow with a rock in a morbid attempt at fun, and the owner of the cow did the same to the boy. This punishment was accepted in the village where this occurred.

Kiro2• 12 years ago

Sounds like the boy got what he deserved. What kind of psychopath does that to a cow?

idlewords6• 12 years ago

You could have ended this comment at word #6

eLobato• 12 years ago

How is this Hacker News worthy content? It's a great article, granted, but it has nothing to do with hacking (unless I'm missing something).

If you downvote this comment, I think explaining in a reply why this article belongs in Hacker News would be great.

dang• 12 years ago

Hacker News is about more than hacking and startups. That has been in the site prospectus for some 7 years and is kind of the whole idea.

I posted it because it's damn interesting, and secondarily because the site could use a little more diversity.

Zancarius• 12 years ago

I found it fascinating, because it's a place I'd never go to--and because I admire those with the intestinal fortitude to visit places that could potentially land them at the bottom of a 6' hole in the ground. One of the reasons I read HN is because of the occasional morsel like this that is simultaneously unexpected and rewarding.

The other side of the coin is that it was well written and humorous, which helps, but the language itself brought to life incredible images. Writing is a skill. Good writing is an art. Both can be appreciated but one is adored. I always assumed that hacker-types generally had a wide array of eclectic tastes and interests, and I'm pretty sure some of the more famous ones would agree [1]. Besides, who doesn't like a good, lively story about a culture that's alien to the majority of us Westerners?

I'm still puzzled though. I've never understood why some people have a penchant for clicking links they know they'll hate, read them anyway, and then post their misery and suffering. It would seem less of a cognitive load to ignore the unwanted than to embrace and let it fester.

[1] http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/reading_habits.html

kstop• 12 years ago

Because reading about his awesome life makes me want to develop a SaaS product and charge for it from Day 1.

adventured• 12 years ago

You've been here for nearly three years. The surprising thing is that you don't know Hacker News is not just about hacking. That fact has been repeated almost daily since the origins of this site.

simonw• 12 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

stupidpost• 12 years ago

I totally agree 100%. I began to read the blog post and noticed that the author was trying to make it sound like a novel. If I wanted to read a book I would. It wasn't interesting; actually pretty distracting.

mwfunk• 12 years ago

The two most tiring and unnecessary comments anyone can make on any news aggregator websites (including HN) are:

(1) "Hey, this article is titled '10 cool things about X' (where X is some programming language or framework or library or server or something) but it didn't explain what X was! I've never heard of X so clearly no one else has either!" Every once in a great, great while, it's a defensible comment, but it's just not worth making the comment even when it is. Just Google it if you haven't heard of it, that's what the rest of us did.

(2) "Hey, this article you guys linked to doesn't fit into the category of articles that I have assigned to your website!" Seriously, no good can ever possibly come of this. Downvote the article if you feel this way, that's why the ability to downvote articles exists. It's just so not worth verbalizing the sentiment.

Unfortunately, the third most tiring and unnecessary comment that can be made on such sites is probably the one I just made, so sorry everyone! :) I mean well, I really do.

clarry• 12 years ago

I kind-of get your point -- I don't see why the linked post is something that hackers in particular should find intriguing. But I personally found it to be an interesting read, and I expect most people (hackers or not) should feel the same. In any case it's a refreshing change for all the "big tech corp did this or that" stories that are repeated in all tech media (even mainstream media) and are only tangentially related to hacking because it's got something to do with technology.

_hnwo• 12 years ago

this was fascinating, thanks for sharing

jvandonsel• 12 years ago

I love Maciej's writing. His piece on the Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel (http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-weehawken_burrito_t...) is one of the funniest things I've ever read.

tokenadult2• 12 years ago

I love his writing too. My all-time favorite is one of his best known writings, "Argentina On Two Steaks A Day,"[1] which I first read in a print best essays anthology and didn't realize had begun as a blog post until years later.

[1] http://idlewords.com/2006/04/argentina_on_two_steaks_a_day.h...

kudos200• 12 years ago

My favorite by far (or, well, the other one that comes to mind) is No Evidence of Disease. I've recommended it to all my friends.

http://idlewords.com/2012/09/no_evidence_of_disease.htm

kimdouglasmason• 12 years ago

Certainly a place to watch considering that they're going to run out of ground-water sooner rather than later. I imagine the graph of population will look pretty similar to that of reindeer on St Matthew Island:

http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Antevs/nats104/00lect21crash2.gif

aaron695• 12 years ago

I call BS on the reindeer on St Matthew Island story.

There's evidence it was a natural disaster, which makes much more sense -

http://www.weatherwise.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/2009/Nov-D...

3pt141592• 12 years ago

I studied Civil Engineering in University.

There is no way that that city disappears. The economic incentives are too strong to pipe water in. 3km up some mountains is nothing. Humanity has built pipelines a thousand of kilometres long and over or through much taller mountains.

The city might be corrupt as hell, but when there is truly a water shortage (right now, if they are using it for crops, there isn't in the economic sense) some rich guy is just going to bribe everyone in the way and build that pipeline then charge everyone in the city a dollar a cubic meter or something. Certainly cheaper than rebuilding a stone city.

idlewords6• 12 years ago

We know what a water crisis in Sana'a will look like because the city already runs low on water every time there is a shortage of fuel:

http://mideastafrica.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/30/yeme...

It doesn't matter what technology you use to bring in water. When the cost gets high enough, people are going to leave the city, and the poorest will have to leave first.

3pt141592• 12 years ago

What is cheaper, building a city or building a pipe?

I find it hard to believe that the local economy has collapsed to the point where they can't afford a pipe to a desalination plant.

prawn• 12 years ago

I would've thought that the poorest would be in the weakest position to move - no means to pay, fewer opportunities to hear of alternatives, little contact with family who might be elsewhere, etc.

chetanahuja• 12 years ago

This is the second time I ended up on Maciej's website through a hacker news link and ended up spending far too much time happily browsing about. He's a far better writer than one would expect a "blogger" to be. Let's call him an essayist instead.

This was the essay that took me to his site the first time around:

http://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm

amass2• 12 years ago

It's interesting that a place that has such overwhelmingly friendly people gives the impression of being a terribly dangerous place to visit to so many Americans.

tptacek• 12 years ago

It is in fact a dangerous place to visit. Having an incredibly friendly and hospitable population is something it has in common with several other dangerous places to visit.

amass2• 12 years ago

I definitely don't dispute that fact. But if you ask most people in America what their opinion is of the Yemeni population, "friendly and welcoming" would not be the most common response.

Tepix• 12 years ago

Great story, excellent pictures. The colours and the dynamic range are sweet - does anyone know what equipment he uses?

jpatokal2• 12 years ago

Every rooftop has a low wall around it and has been capped off with a little cone of rubble.

In case anybody was wondering, this is most likely because Yemen has the same daft law as much of the Middle East: you only start paying property tax when your house is complete, so if you leave the "last floor" (roof) notionally incomplete (a row of bricks plus some construction detritus, as if you were still working on it), you never pay tax.

idlewords6• 12 years ago

I have heard this with regard to Cairo, but as for Yemen... citation needed. It sounds like reactor-grade bolonium.

jpatokal2• 12 years ago

Good luck digging up citations to Yemeni tax law, but I've seen it in Jordan as well. Perhaps some shared vestige of Ottoman rule?

soapdog• 12 years ago

In Brazil during the colonial times catholic churches would have to pay taxes once they were complete that is why they always have one bell tower and a second incomplete tower.

contingencies• 12 years ago

Best middle eastern food in Bangkok is Yemeni, as rated by my family and two random middle eastern dudes we met under our sitar teacher's apartment in another part of the city who pointed us there as the best place to go. The owner screams when you walk in... every customer is Habibi!

Sana'a

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