ST MICHAEL’S PARISH CHURCH • LINLITHGOW • EH49 7AL
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MINISTER: REV DR STEWART GILLAN BSc MDiv PhD
St Michael’s Parish Church is recognised as a Scottish Charity No SCO16185
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I finished the last magazine article with a series of questions and will answer them in this article. I knew I had run out of space allotted me in the magazine and was thinking of subjects I had not touched on. I will try to answer some of them now.
The women in the Yemeni towns dress in unrelieved black with only their eyes showing, even their eyebrows must be covered. Those from a very traditional family wear a gauze veil over their eyes as well and black gloves. I am told this has only been the case for the last 20 years. Before that women wore colours and in the country many still do so. As a western woman I did not veil but wore a headscarf covering my hair and neck. As the balto, the long black garment women wear, was made of black polyester and warm I opted to wear western clothes but made sure I was covered to wrist and ground. I mostly wore skirts as I find them cooler but if I had decided to wear trousers I would have had to make sure my blouse covered me to below my thighs as anything shorter would have been considered indecent. As an older woman I was allowed to be less strict than my younger colleagues and on occasions even went out without a headscarf. I was assured my grey hair would allow me respect but I noticed on the occasion I was out with Yemeni women they politely asked me to wear a headscarf.
I saw women mostly out in groups with the occasional older woman alone. Women are allowed to drive which makes Yemen more liberal in its views than other Islamic states. When travelling on the buses women do not share a bench seat with men unless the men are from their family. If women wish to board a bus with men on it they may do so as long as a bench can be freed up for them to sit on. If not then the bus does not stop.
The facts of the shantytown in Sana’a can be described and we have all seen TV footage of such places. Narrow alleyways, ‘houses’ made out of anything available, filthy children, …. I thought as I have seen such sights on TV I wouldn’t be too bad. I cried like a baby after we left. No words can describe the smell, faeces on the ground over which we walked. The reality of holding the hand of a child who will never leave that place and indeed will be brought up to believe that is his correct place and it is evil to hope for improvement because this is where Allah put him. As I type this the tears are rolling down my face. I went to the shantytown with a young western lady who is a nurse. She told me she went there nearly every day and it was wonderful to see the faces of the people light up as they saw her. By being there, greeting them and touching and hugging the women and children she showed the people she genuinely valued them. She and a doctor have set up a clinic where the people can go, see a doctor and be prescribed medicine which will help them and they can afford. She has also taught mothers living there basic rules of hygiene and they organise groups of other women and pass on this knowledge.
This seems a suitable time to tell you about the man in the souk who will haunt me for a long time. After we left the shantytown we went to the souk in Sana’a for some retail therapy. As we walked down the street we saw a man sitting on the ground with his back to us. His legs were straight out in front of him and he was pulling himself backwards as he obviously couldn’t walk. As we walked past him we found there was something else he couldn’t do. He was wearing a traditional male robe and as he pulled himself backwards his urine bag bounced on the ground between his legs. What horrified me even more than this was not one of the passers by stopped to ask him if he needed help; all ignored him.
Again I have run out of space so will have to stop. By the time you read this, God willing I will again be in Yemen. Before Christmas I received an email from the Christian Language Institute in Taiz where Dave, Lloyd and I ran a language cafe during the trip I have been writing about. They needed a teacher for the spring term and thought of me. I accepted and am flying out on March 31 and returning on May 10. I will be grateful for your thoughts and prayers during this time.
YEMEN -
by Anita France