Instant Exposure

Yesterday I returned to Aden from Taiz, a city two hours away and home to another survey site. The weather in Taiz was a welcome change from the constant heat of Aden. The days there are cooler and it rains (!) in the afternoon giving the landscape some green.

Taiz is also home to some of Yemen's largest food processing plants. One of these plants produces Noody Instant Noodles. The Noody slogan is "Get it before it’s gone!" The runner up slogan was "Noody: Enjoy in the privacy of your own home"

Taiz was completed plastered with pro-government propaganda. It was overwhelming. Every light post on the main road had a banner or poster with a picture of the president or a unity slogan or both. Yemen was two separate states until unification in 1990. Civil war broke out in 1994 and although Southern Yemen lost the war, it has not given up the fight. Southern separatists still harass government forces and there are real concerns of renewed conflict.

I recently finished a book on Yemen called Yemen: Dancing on the Heads of Snakes by Victoria Clark. The imaginative title refers to the president Ali Abdullah Salih's balancing act of northern rebels, southern separatists and al-Qaeda. It is a good read for those interested in learning more about Yemen.

The enumeration teams have completed work in Aden and Taiz and are now working around Lahj, the last governate in our study. Then, we randomize. In public.

Shades of gray, shades of pink, and I need to do laundry