My 12.12.12

The sunset near my new home

I was very excited about 12.12.12. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s the last date of its kind that we’ll experience in our lifetimes, or if I wanted an excuse to celebrate in my new home, but I really wanted to plan something special.

There was one other person I knew would back me up on my shenanigans. The only other foreign staff on the compound who is the big UN man in charge, from Rwanda, who spent his first few months here alone. He’s been happy to have someone around to talk to and comment on our new environment and culture that we’re surrounded by. So I went to his office and told him about 12.12.12.

The kids made this for my 25th

Over the next week it sort of became bigger than it needed to be, just in my own head. I was so excited to do something. It reminded me of when I was in Motta and everyone I was working with seemed to be in the doldrums – they were tired of the monotonous of the small town and nothing to do. I’m not the brightest party planner (everything half thought and last minuteJ) but I kept trying to find ways to have fun. I celebrated my birthday with a bonfire and s’mores, cake, bread dipped in balsalmic vinegar and red wine. Invited kids and friends and made toasts – that was fun. Invited my friends for a movie night after renting an American film poorly dubbed in Amharic. That was a semi-disaster but still fun to try (no one understood eating popcorn with a movie – they refused to eat it until I made the coffee, which I hadn’t even planned on making). And the girls spa day at my house – also a semi-disaster because my neighbors hated me for having too many people over but still fun. The neighbors refused to let anyone use the latrine and I added too much honey to the face masks so they wouldn’t come off. But the girls had fun anyway.

The girls at my house for spa day in Motta, Ethiopia

But what could I do in this compound in the desert in Yemen with a small group of people who refuse to interact with the opposite sex? I thought about playing the dumb ferengi card and inviting males and females alike to my little shindig. But the women would know and not show up anyway, or be very uncomfortable. And as much as spending yet another evening inside our hot little kitchen/dining area/living room room watching Turkish soaps sounded like an alright way to celebrate, I figured the guys would want to do something out of the ordinary and they are my team. I only work with 2 of the women I live with, the rest of my team are men.

I told E (Rwandan guy) about my dilemma and he said I was thinking too much about it and I should just come have a good time at ‘the white house’ (his place) and invite a few of my male staff. I decided in the end (literally the last moment) that I would bake a cake, and have fruit and chocolate and soda at the white house, invite the guys for some music and maybe t.v. and talk about 12 accomplishments or 12 somethings. By 7pm I was just finishing work and still had no flour for the cake. MJ went to grab flour from a shop in the camp while I brought all my supplies to cook in the white house. If I cooked in the female kitchen, I was afraid they would talk me into staying there with them.

So E and I are standing in his kitchen preparing the cake. We turned on his oven, operated by propane. My back was to the oven as I stirred in the eggs, and all of the sudden I heard the loudest BAM!!! I’ve ever heard at such close range. It rattled my body and left me shocked and shaking. I didn’t know what happened for a moment. E looked at me.

“Did that come from in here or outside?” (it is Yemen after all)

I quickly realized that the oven had exploded, leaving the oven door wide open.

The evening ended pleasantly. I baked the cake in the women’s kitchen, sat with the guys for some half-burned/half-mushed cake and fruit and then ended by eating a late dinner with the girls before going to sleep at 11.

With the guys, I asked them to think of 4 things they never want to do again, 4 things they want to do this year and 4 things they want in the future. We only got through 1 thing they never want to do again for each person before it was time to go. They had such great stories and the morals of them are as follows:

This has nothing to do with the story, but happened last week - adorable!

·       Make sure you’re standing in good balance in a wet shower before moving around

·       Don’t travel in Yemen without your ID and then run from security police when they catch you (he got shot at and then put in jail with a sick goat)

·       Don’t try swimming in the sea when you don’t know how and no one else around you does either

·       Don’t travel in Yemen without your ID, even if you’re Yemeni because your physical features might appear to be Chinese, causing the police to stop you for questioning

And for the women, I asked what they want to accomplish in 2013. They told me to start first so I said, “I would like to visit Socotra Island” I was amazed at their response! The women who will never even eat their lunch outside of their kitchen were rattling off how they’ve always wanted to go. They asked me to tell them so they could come with me. Wow. I didn’t expect that but sounds good to me! Now I have the couple of foreign men I know in the country to go with or these women…. Hmmmmmm… maybe both?

(As you can see I did not get any photos from these 12.12.12 events – I never remember to)