I was blow drying my hair on Tuesday morning in the locker room at my gym and half watching CNN when I saw the headline that the U.S. government is evacuating its embassy in Yemen. I practically dropped the hair dryer and for some reason felt the need to explain my surprise to the random woman doing her makeup next to me. “I was there!” I shrieked in her face. This led to a conversation I immediately regretted starting that somehow circled back to Edward Snowden, as 80% of conversations in DC seem to do these days.
Anyways, on my walk afterwards to the Metro to go to my Spanish classes, I couldn’t stop thinking about how it was just a few months ago that I was there with Mr.YemenEm and that could be us getting on an Air Force plane and getting the heck out of Yemen. I kind of felt bad that we weren’t part of it, actually. I think there is some part of me that felt like we’d be going back, even though Mr.YemenEm’s tour there is over and we’re heading to a very different place (Spain), next. Ever since we left, I’ve have a hard time picturing that life is going on in Yemen as it was before. It feels more like it is existing in another time, rather than the truth that it continues to exist in merely another place.
Anyways, I’ll be watching developments with lots of interest and my thoughts are with the Yemeni people. It’s particularly unfair that there are people trying so ferociously to thwart progress in the country at the exact time that the country is rewriting its constitution with the hope of creating a better future for Yemen. “Better future” is a term that, sadly, is open to interpretation.
I’d also love to hear a recording of of the al Qaeda conference call that 20 al Qaeda operatives operatives participated in. I just bet there was that one jerk who kept breathing heavy into the phone until Ayman al-Zawahiri was like “For the fifth time you stupid infidels: When you are not speaking, put your phone on mute!”
Hoping for a better future for Yemen,
YemenEm
The Next Dinner Party 