Globerovers Magazine talks with Yemen-born Abdulaziz Alkazhi (26) who currently lives in Melbourne, Australia. Aziz, as he is known, grew up in the small town of Al-Mahwit, 110 km west-by-north (WbN) of Sana’a, Yemen’s capital.
He was just 14 years old and working in a small shop in Al-Mahwit when I first met him. In early 2018 Aziz found me on the Internet and we talked about his life.
This is his story…
“Thankfully there were no Facebook, video games and game apps in those days!”
Yemen
A few months after I met Aziz in Al-Mahwit, I posted a few photos on my travel website of my trip to Yemen, including a photo of Aziz at his shop. Years later, in early 2018, I received a Facebook message from someone who claimed to be Aziz, thanking me for posting his photo on my website.
At first, I brushed it off as just another scam message, but the more I compared the adult Aziz’ Facebook profile photo with the photos I had taken eleven years before, the more I became convinced that this was the real Aziz. I wrote back and started to ask him about the day we met.
Globerovers (GR): I met you at your shop in Al-Mahwit on March 22, 2007, when you were just 14 years old. I know that foreign visitors to that part of Yemen are rare. Had you encountered any foreign visitors prior to meeting me?
Aziz Alkazhi (AA): I have seen very few foreign visitors in my hometown. I have met some Canadians, Americans and French visitors but spoke little to them. I think they all came to see our unique architecture with rock houses built on the hilltops.
GR: Tell us about your family at the time I met you.
AA: I have five brothers and seven sisters, so we are a total of 13 children. At the time you met me, one sister was already married and one brother lived in Sana’a, so we were 11 kids living in a two-story house with our mother and father. My oldest brother was born in the 1980’s while our youngest sister was born in 2005.
GR: Tell us about that little shop where we met.
AA: My older brother, Sharaf, owned the shop. He often had to go and buy goods from different wholesale stores and walked long distances, so he could not spend much time at his own shop. I was there most of the time when I did not have to attend school and worked about 5 to 9 hours a day.
GR: What were the best-selling items?
AA: The best-selling was the “ice cream”, which was a cheap drink rolled in plastic and frozen like a rod, around 300mm in length and 30mm in diameter. Another hot selling item was a small sweet liquid chocolate thinner than my finger.
GR: Roughly how much did you sell a day?
AA: I sold mostly to the school students during their breaks. Girls attended our school in the early mornings and boys from around noon. On good days I would sell about 1,000 rials (US$5.50) worth of goods and on very good days up to 3,000 rials ($16.70). However, normally I took only about 150 to 300 rials ($0.80 to $1.70) per day.
GR: What happened to the shop? Still owned by your family?
AA: The current war has had a big impact on our lives. We had to move the store around a few times, and eventually we had to close it. So that store is now just history.
GR: As background to our readers: the Yemeni government has been in battles with the Houthi rebels since 2004. The fighting has been limited to northern Yemen’s Saada province. However, the war spread and engulfed many regions of Yemen when the Houthis took control of Yemen’s capital, Sana’a. Since 2015 a coalition of Arab and some African states, though mainly Saudi Arabia with weapons from the USA, UK, and France, launched a military campaign against the Houthis. The “Save The Children” organization estimated at least 50,000 children died in 2017 due to the conflict, hunger and disease. There are also reports that over 3 million Yemenis have fled their homes. Aziz, how has the war affected Al-Mahwit so far?
AA: The war is still affecting Al-Mahwit. While the town is not in the war’s direct line of fire, many of the town’s people have joined the battle in other parts of Yemen and lost their lives. More indirectly, no salaries are being paid to government employees, and no job opportunities exist which affect almost everyone in the town.
About 90% of the residents have no jobs. Resources such as electricity, Internet, clean water, gasoline, and everything else is very limited or non-existent. If available, it is exorbitantly expensive. Public health services are almost non-existent, so sick people suffer tremendously. While the people of Al Mahwit suffer, at least they don’t have to worry about their houses being bombed by American and Saudi fighter jets.
GR: Obviously a dire situation in Al-Mahwit. Have many people left the town in search of better opportunities?
AA: It is difficult for many people to just pack up and leave. Where would they go? However, it is estimated that between 10% and 30% of residents have already left Al-Mahwit for other places in Yemen such as Sana’a or Aden, in search of job opportunities. A few lucky ones have moved to places such as Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Egypt, and other countries, in search of jobs or opportunities to study.
GR: It is truly sad to hear how innocent people are affected by a senseless war. Let’s change the topic to something else. On my way to Al-Mahwit, our car drove past large swatches of terraces built against the hills. Does this land belong to the government, or to private families?
AA: The land belongs to the people and not the government. Family members have inherited much of the land for many generations.
GR: What crops are mostly grown on these terraces?
AA: Farmers plant grain resembling corn, but smaller in size and different in colour. They increasingly plant khat, the green leaves (see photo below) are available almost everywhere you look, and many men constantly have their mouths stuffed with it. They chew it for several hours. A long time ago we used to have large coffee plantations, but they are now mostly replaced by khat.
GR: One of the reasons I came to visit Al-Mahwit was to see, and photograph, those old houses built along, and on top, of the rocks. Some of those houses look very old. Do you know how old they are?
AA: In some locations, the town’s history goes back many years, and as such the houses are very old. I’ve been told many houses in Al-Mahwit are at least 300 years old, and maybe there are some thousand-year-old houses still standing.
GR: Are newly built houses still built in the old style?
AA: They try to repair old houses in a similar way as they were built. However, brand new constructions don’t follow the old styles of using tightly-fitted rocks as a building material. Nowadays bricks and cement are used, and houses look a lot more modern, and boring too.
GR: Those old houses look really big. Does only one family occupy each house?
AA: It depends on the size of the house and whether the family is rich or poor. Generally, it is one floor per family.
GR: You told me that you moved out of Yemen because you got a scholarship in Malaysia. Before we talk about that, first tell us about your school days back in Al-Mahwit. Which days of the week did you attend school and how many hours a day?
AA: My primary school was located right next to my store and was called “26 of September” (the date of the revolution in 1962). My secondary school was in nearby Alfawz. I attended school during the week, except on Friday’s which is our weekend. I spent roughly 4 to 6 hours per day in class, but we had one break for half an hour a day.
GR: What subjects were you studying at that time?
AA: At that time I was studying 10 subjects: Quran, Islamic Studies, Arabic Literature, English Language, History, Geography, Social Studies, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. I was very busy!
GR: And eventually you received a scholarship to study in Malaysia. Tell us about it.
AA: Every year the top eleven high school graduates in my city get scholarships to study abroad. My overall score was 91.36% so I ranked 6th. I therefore received a scholarship to study in Malaysia. I then moved to Kuala Lumpur and completed a bachelor’s degree in Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Malaya.
GR: You are currently living in Melbourne, Australia. How did you end up there?
AA: After I completed my studies in Malaysia I applied for an Australian Temporary Skills Visa, and based on my education and English Language skills I was accepted into Australia.
GR: That is awesome! How do you like Melbourne so far?
AA: Melbourne is such a great city. I would love to work hard and contribute to the economy and build my future here in Australia. Life here is so peaceful and all the systems are in place and working so well. Everything is functional – the people and the government. Melbourne has a high level of diversity and is a multicultural city with people from many different countries. Melbourne also has many wonderful places to visit and the weather here is so nice – from very hot to quite cold in winter.
GR: And the final question: When you look back at your life growing up in Yemen, please tell us what events you truly treasure.
AA: What I fondly remember about growing up in Yemen was the simple life I used to live, the traditional games we used to play as a group of children outside of the house. Thankfully there were no Facebook, video games and game apps in those days! We enjoyed traditional wedding ceremonies or Eid celebrations (Islamic “Festival of Sacrifice”). When I was 14 we took a school trip to Alhudaydah, a port city on the Red Sea. Such wonderful memories! I also remember the day I met you, and years later found your website and Facebook page.
GR: Thanks so much for sharing your story. I wish you all the very best in Australia, and trust the senseless war in Yemen will soon come to a sudden end!
☛ Read more: All Posts about Yemen
☛ Read more: Yemen – Where Time Stands Still
☛ Read more: Sana’a – Yemen’s Ancient City in a Time-Warp
☛ Read more: Unique Rock Villages of Yemen
☛ Read more: Yemen’s Hadhramaut Valley
Blog post and photos by Peter who has been travelling almost full-time since 2005 and has been to over 122 countries. He visited several countries, such as Japan, more than 20 times. Peter is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of GlobeRovers Magazine, an independent travel magazine focused on intrepid destinations.