The rival school of MALI is Amideast here in Yemen. There was a problem awhile back when some American teachers from Amideast went boozing in some nightclubs here. The police became involved and there was a big debacle.
This is the background information...
So one day I meet a friend of my manager's named Mostafa, one of the most closed minded Yemeni men I have encountered thus far, and comes from a tribe notorious for illegal weapons smuggling. He tells me he would like to chew qat with me and another foreign teacher from Finland, named Maria. Before I could politely refuse, Maria accepted the invitation...I felt obligated to go because the man is pretty crazy and I didn't want Maria to be with him alone.
We all went to Maria's apartment and he was there along with a man from Qatar and the administrative assistant of MALI, who had taken off his professional clothes and was wearing his traditional Yemeni dress; a skirt, loose shirt and turban. His name is Mohamed Hassand and looks like Popeye when he chews qat.
As we sat and chewed Maria told us she was being sent to Mukalla, a town about 10 hours from Aden. Mostafa became upset, but then turned to me and smiled saying well at least I have you now. Thereby telling me that I was his new interest...oh yes how I was flattered. As the evening progressed Maria said she wanted to go to a nightclub with me, and Mostafa flipped out saying that I was forbidden to go because I was a woman, an American woman no less and I was not allowed to go. Mind you, I just met this man.
Mostafa later left and within a half hour I receive a phone call from my manager telling me the police called him advising him to tell his teachers to not go to nightclubs. This no doubt was the doing of Mostafa because he is friends with the police here. In addition, my manager told me to be at home by 11pm. This is my MANAGER.
Blah. So the next night a man who I am friends with came to pick me up. Within a minute of meeting him on the street, he received a phone call from a man saying to drop the foreigner and immediately go to the police. Then we kept seeing a car drive by us. In addition I received phone calls from my manager again at 1 am asking why I was not at home.
A few days later we found this to be the car of Mohamad Hasan--the administrative assistant from MALI. He was instructed by my manager to watch me...basically spy on me. And this all began because of Mostafa.
I flipped out on my manager, told him he was out of line and if this continued I would immediately report him to the American Embassy. Since then, the problem has stopped.
But this is the world I live in. A dumb Yemeni man with machine guns gets the hots for me and next thing I know I have a qat stoned man with a turban spying on me.
When does this all become normal?
