I Try to Be a Citizen

Yemenat

Mohammed Al Mekhlafi

In less than five months, I have visited Aden twice, and this is the third time. The reason has always been the same: the simplest right that a state is supposed to grant its citizens, a national ID card and a passport. Nothing more.

The journey repeats itself, but fatigue takes on a different form each time. The waiting becomes longer, nerves grow more exhausted, and the feeling deepens that one is being drained for no reason other than trying to be a citizen.

This time, I was not alone. I was traveling with my family. We left Sana’a at five in the morning aboard a minibus known as a Hiace. For nearly half an hour, it drove around collecting passengers from different places. We then set off after a quick breakfast at Al Musafer Cafeteria on Taiz Street. The cold was biting.

At the first checkpoint on the outskirts of Sana’a, we were stopped. Our ID cards were taken, our names recorded, and then returned quickly. After that, we passed the remaining checkpoints with unexpected ease until we reached Naqeel Yaslah.

There, the scene was different. Thick fog enveloped the place, and visibility was barely clear. We descended slowly, and at times the road disappeared beneath the clouds. We stopped near the city of Dhamar in the Rosaba area and got out to take a few photos, not for any particular reason except that the view deserved it.

The clouds were crawling along the ground rather than floating in the sky. It was a rare, silent, and awe inspiring sight. My children were amazed, as they had never seen clouds this close or this expansive. Ayham, my eleven year old son, kept repeating with innocent wonder that it felt as if we were in Europe.