Of guns, daggers and women

My fist is in his mouth, his fist is in my eye
Yaddi fi fumuh wa yadduh fi ‘aini

Everyone in Marib has a Kalashnikov automatic rifle – the Bedu roaming dusty streets, the police escort bouncing in a pickup ahead of us and the soldiers at the checkpoints that pepper the road to the Rub al Khali. The Kalashnikov is thus the great leveller of Yemen, something so casual it is slung heal-heartedly over shoulders in the market, around boys, men, in restaurants, over ancient ruins. They had it with them when they ate salta, drank chai and chain smoked Rothman's. It was all glorously blase and very safe. Marib averaged a kidnapping every week this December – Swiss, Germans and Austrians. Each group was returned safely, and the Swiss even resumed their journey through the country, after a day of recovery.



© 2001–2008 p i n a k i