out to be as insubstantial as the Sana’ani air.
Faris also said he wanted to have a dinner in my honor on one of my last nights and present me with some gifts. “Don’t buy any jewelry,” he said. “I have plenty for you.” The chances of me buying jewelry were slim to none, and slim just left town. I didn’t wear any jewelry, save Ginger’s wedding ring.
Then he offered me a job. “I will pay you one thousand dollars a month”—most journalists at the paper made $200 a month—“plane tickets back and forth to New York, and occasional three-day vacations in Beirut,” he said, “if you will come to run the Yemen Observer.”
“To run it?” I thought he must have been joking. I had no management experience, almost no Arabic, and Faris had never even seen my résumé. Theo had hinted that Faris might offer me some kind of job, but I hadn’t expected to be handed the entire paper. Not one newspaper editor in the whole of the United States would have looked over my résumé and thought, “I want this woman to run my paper.”
“You would have total control,” Faris continued. I would? I wouldn’t have to write flattering pieces about the president? Was this possible?
“I’d be the editor?” I fleetingly imagined my name at the top of a masthead.
“We’d have to make you managing editor or something. The editor in chief must by law be Yemeni. But you would be in charge.” Hmmm. I wondered if the Yemeni staff would really let me be in charge if there was a Yemeni name above me on the masthead.
For a moment, I allowed myself to contemplate the heady thrill of being the boss. Then, almost reflexively, I declined. “I am still paying off American debts,” I said. “I don’t see how I could possibly live on that.” I was making $60,000 in New York and could hardly manage to scrape by.
“Think about it,” he said.
“I’ll think.”
“I could make it fifteen hundred dollars.”
“Do you know what I make in New York?”
“It will be cheaper to live here.”
I looked out the window at the darkness settling over the city’s scores of minarets, the slow brightening of the colored glass qamarias . I watched the women hurrying to beat the darkness home, laden with sacks of food, and the men, their cheeks fat with qat , striding past in long white robes. I thought about the gray New York office where I had spent the last five years.
“I’ll think,” I said.
FOUR
things to chew on
A few days before my departure, I woke up at six A.M. in a blind panic. Was it possible I had so little time left? There was so much still to do! I hadn’t taught my reporters how to do research on the Internet. I hadn’t given them enough investigative skills. I hadn’t talked with them about follow-up stories. They often wrote a breaking news story about something—a new kind of irrigation being introduced, for example—but then never wrote about the effects of the project. The paper was full of the launchings of brilliant new projects, but my reporters never bothered to find out whether they met their goals. Given that a large percentage of development projects worldwide fail, I felt that it was the press’s job to monitor them and hold them accountable.
I also hadn’t finished writing my democracy story for Arabia Felix or my overall report on the paper. Then, in class that day, something happened that made me forget how much I hadn’t done.
On the dry-erase board, I wrote a list of facts: A murder was committed. Thabbit al-Saadyi, ninety-four, murdered Qasim al-Washari, forty-nine. (I let the students pick the names.) The murder happened in a casino. It was committed with an AK-47. On Saturday at three A.M. Qasim was found riddled with five bullet holes, with three thousand riyals in his pocket. Next to him were a bottle of vodka and two roses. (Again, details courtesy of my students.)
They then had fifteen minutes to write me a really good lead.
And—miracle of miracles—they did! Farouq
Faris also said he wanted to have a dinner in my honor on one of my last nights and present me with some gifts. “Don’t buy any jewelry,” he said. “I have plenty for you.” The chances of me buying jewelry were slim to none, and slim just left town. I didn’t wear any jewelry, save Ginger’s wedding ring.
Then he offered me a job. “I will pay you one thousand dollars a month”—most journalists at the paper made $200 a month—“plane tickets back and forth to New York, and occasional three-day vacations in Beirut,” he said, “if you will come to run the Yemen Observer.”
“To run it?” I thought he must have been joking. I had no management experience, almost no Arabic, and Faris had never even seen my résumé. Theo had hinted that Faris might offer me some kind of job, but I hadn’t expected to be handed the entire paper. Not one newspaper editor in the whole of the United States would have looked over my résumé and thought, “I want this woman to run my paper.”
“You would have total control,” Faris continued. I would? I wouldn’t have to write flattering pieces about the president? Was this possible?
“I’d be the editor?” I fleetingly imagined my name at the top of a masthead.
“We’d have to make you managing editor or something. The editor in chief must by law be Yemeni. But you would be in charge.” Hmmm. I wondered if the Yemeni staff would really let me be in charge if there was a Yemeni name above me on the masthead.
For a moment, I allowed myself to contemplate the heady thrill of being the boss. Then, almost reflexively, I declined. “I am still paying off American debts,” I said. “I don’t see how I could possibly live on that.” I was making $60,000 in New York and could hardly manage to scrape by.
“Think about it,” he said.
“I’ll think.”
“I could make it fifteen hundred dollars.”
“Do you know what I make in New York?”
“It will be cheaper to live here.”
I looked out the window at the darkness settling over the city’s scores of minarets, the slow brightening of the colored glass qamarias . I watched the women hurrying to beat the darkness home, laden with sacks of food, and the men, their cheeks fat with qat , striding past in long white robes. I thought about the gray New York office where I had spent the last five years.
“I’ll think,” I said.
FOUR
things to chew on
A few days before my departure, I woke up at six A.M. in a blind panic. Was it possible I had so little time left? There was so much still to do! I hadn’t taught my reporters how to do research on the Internet. I hadn’t given them enough investigative skills. I hadn’t talked with them about follow-up stories. They often wrote a breaking news story about something—a new kind of irrigation being introduced, for example—but then never wrote about the effects of the project. The paper was full of the launchings of brilliant new projects, but my reporters never bothered to find out whether they met their goals. Given that a large percentage of development projects worldwide fail, I felt that it was the press’s job to monitor them and hold them accountable.
I also hadn’t finished writing my democracy story for Arabia Felix or my overall report on the paper. Then, in class that day, something happened that made me forget how much I hadn’t done.
On the dry-erase board, I wrote a list of facts: A murder was committed. Thabbit al-Saadyi, ninety-four, murdered Qasim al-Washari, forty-nine. (I let the students pick the names.) The murder happened in a casino. It was committed with an AK-47. On Saturday at three A.M. Qasim was found riddled with five bullet holes, with three thousand riyals in his pocket. Next to him were a bottle of vodka and two roses. (Again, details courtesy of my students.)
They then had fifteen minutes to write me a really good lead.
And—miracle of miracles—they did! Farouq
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