Life in the Medina Qadima (Old City)

Sana'a, Yemen

Sana’a is a very dusty place and the tower house I had rented had not been lived in for three months. The house is about 350 years old and few of the windows fit their frames, so dust and sand had seeped in through every crack, with the result that several millimeters of the stuff coated the entire abode. From the outside, the house clearly lists at one corner, and as I conducted my “walk through” I came upon one tiny room at the top of the house which is at some point going to disengage from the rest of the building. Knowing my luck it will happen at the first hint of the summer monsoon when I am on the roof with no other way of getting down. The owner is remarkably sanguine about the imminent destruction of his property, as when I suggested he should fix the large crack that runs across the ceiling and down the wall, as well as the roof beam that is split in two, before it fell to bits he said not to worry.......

Garden near my house