yemenis go latino this world cup

It’s 10 pm. Behind the Great Mosque, in the back alleys of the old city of Sana’a, all is dark. But at the foot of a tall house in ruins, a make-shift cafe has sprung up. Cheers resound from inside. Behind the iron door, on mismatching carpets and improvised elbow rests, men of all ages are watching football.

Tonight, in South Africa’s World Cup 2010, Denmark is playing Cameroon.

Mohammad Faraj, 28, says that he built the cafe - a concrete block wall, iron door and colorful tarpaulin sheets for the roof - for his friends to see the Spanish League games and then the World Cup. Entry is YR 100, so that someone can clean it in the morning.

So who are all the men inside rooting for this evening? “Cameroon!” comes the resounding answer. “Definitely not Denmark!” The 2006 Danish cartoons of Prophet Mohammad that caused such controversy in the Muslim world are still fresh in these men’s minds.

“It was a while ago, but then they repeated the insult,” said Saleh Ghuthaim, 35, the owner of the ruins on which the cafe popped up.

Instead Ghuthaim and his son Hussein, 13, who plays football at the Al-Wahda Club in Sana’a, hope that Spain or Argentina will win the world title.

Of course, says Ghuthaim, they are supporting Algeria as the only Middle Eastern team in the international tournament, but for them “there is really no hope.”

To read the whole article as published in the Yemen Times, click here.

running the water home

'i can't go home without five of these'

I hear noise behind me as I walk up the road. Akram, 10, appears at my side. He is handsome in a pair of dark blue combat trousers and a grubby tucked-in khaki shirt. He frowns and pouts, and lifts pinched fingers to his mouth in the universal gesture that means "food." He keeps up the pace next to me and repeats the charade until I stop.

"What do you want?" I ask, slowly opening my bag. "Money for lunch?" Recognition flashes through his face. In a perfectly normal voice, he says, "However much you want."

With a little more in his pocket, he overtakes me and continues proudly up the road. He makes no effort to escape me. We pass a restaurant and he pauses, but then carries on. "Where are you going?" I ask.

"Aaaall the way up Hadda Street," he says, waving towards its end a good 4 km away.

He holds up a YR 100 note, less than USD 0.50. "Every day, my mother wants me to come home with five of these." He says his father died and he is an only child. His mother does not work, so she depends on him to pay the rent.

He works in the afternoon until sunset. "But I can't go home without five of these. It's my mother. It would be shameful. And it takes a while, because people give me YR 10, YR 10, YR 10…"

I leave him to cross the road. He walks up to a parked car and speaks to the driver. Up the street comes hurtling a black 4WD, weaving dangerously between the heavy lunch-time traffic. As it passes, packed with young men, some leer out the window. "Hello!" they shout.

Akram says that in the morning he stays at home. Sometimes he watches television.