looking back at my yemen trip journal....
5.18.08
The Arab world is a knife's edge. One constantly walks on this sharpened razor wire; the unalert
will face a precarious fall on both sides into abyss. Life is lived in public by men , constantly dancing on, and daring the blade to penetrate. Smoking, shouting, swearing, driving like mad, living like mad; the feeling is both exhausting and exhilarating. Living for only that moment, that day, that second in time; a sharp blade indeed; an edge that brings with it the complete mysterious and unknown, men look the same from the outside, but it is what is inside that matters, and these ingredients are often volatile.
Step into a vehicle and dance on the edge with one foot; horns blaring, swerving, speeding, moderation not even an afterthought. Exhausting and exhilarating; a drug addict who hasn't slept in a week will inevitably crash.
The women are there, but they are not present. It is a disconcerting feeling to lose half your society so quickly, so quietly.
The men do the work; the men drive the cars; the men argue; the men clog the markets with their wares and shouts and touts; the women slide by formless in black, dark ghosts, black tears in the panorama, dark eyes burning under cover of night.
This balancing act, the blade itself, abandoned to history's call.
Explosive arguments, explosive personalities, explosively disarming smiles from strangers; passions, politics; much is explained, so simple, with this edge.
