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Woman  on  a  Bus:

14 scenes

by

Gabriele vom Bruck

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Aural landscape:

the cry of the bus driver’s tout - famous in San‘a

for his talent for calling out destinations;

the desultory chatter of passengers, including some women,

waiting for the bus to depart;  the  clatter of the engine.

Please allow time for audio download via Quicktime

The setting

This year I am spending part of my sabbatical in San‘a, the capital city of the Yemen Republic, where I am doing research on women’s life stories.

On the daily ride from my house to the places where I meet the women, I often take the cheapest transport, the dabbab. The dabbab is a small bus that goes round the central parts of the capital. The dabbab has four or five banks of seating, with places for three passengers in each. The sliding door on the side is hardly ever closed. There is no time schedule, and the bus stops wherever passengers wait at the roadside, signalling that they wish to come on board. The drivers do not necessarily bother to signal to cars behind them that they intend to stop in order to pick up passengers.

In many ways ‘life on the bus’ appears to be a reflection of the familiar gender relations and behavioural rules, but none the less men and women’s behaviour is not entirely predictable.

Unrelated men and women - that is, persons who in theory may enter into marriage - are supposed to maintain a distance from each other.  Above all it is incumbent upon women to avoid stirring desire in men by speaking in a loud, melodic voice, using perfume in places also frequented by men, or revealing parts of their bodies.

Women are especially careful in the way they conduct themselves, having been brought up not to raise their voices or even to speak at all in the company of unrelated men, and not to be seen by them. Women often refrain from answering their mobile phones on the bus, or if they do, will speak in a very low voice. Nor do they appear to look at other passengers or at people in the cars next to the bus (as I tend to do). As in other spheres of life, on the bus men and even young boys often act on behalf of women, in their eyes facilitating their journeys.     

Since women joined the workforce in the 1970s and 80s, habitual encounters between unrelated men and women working in offices and factories have become more common although sometimes women are given separate offices.  Relations have also become more relaxed between young adults who study at the university where they join each other in classes.  But as a rule, only a small proportion of women work outside their homes.

1

I am boarding the bus on one of the main streets of San‘a.  The street is named after Muhammad Zubayri, a revolutionary hero who was killed in the early 1960s. On spotting me, two men, one of them quite old, move from the middle row to the back seats, joining another male passenger.  They have made this move in order to spare me the discomfort of having to sit next to men to whom I am not related.

Soon another two men, standing on the roadside, stop the bus. They take seats on the two folding chairs attached to two rows close to the open door. One of them, a young policeman, sits down next to a woman wearing a balto (a black garment that fully covers the body). In order not to bother her, he’s perched on the edge of the chair. Apparently feeling uncomfortable or having wanted a short ride only, he soon gets off without paying the driver.

In the afternoon when I am about to enter a crowded bus, a young man who is sitting next to his mate, gently hits his shoulder, indicating to him to get moving to the back seats so that I can sit in the row on my own. A little while later my mobile phone rings and I answer it. I am still talking and it’s time to get off.  I move clumsily. My coat is bunched up, not lying properly to cover me as it should.  A man sitting near me adjusts it so that it falls properly into place.

2

I am on my way from Maydan al-Tahrir, the main square, to Zubayri Street. The bus is almost full. On spotting me and two other female passengers who wish to come on board, two men move from the front to the back row in order to make room for us, joining other men. This time I have to get off in al-Qa‘, the former Jewish quarter, where I have been invited for lunch. I want to be sure I am getting off in the right place so I ask the woman next to me to confirm that we have arrived in al-Qa‘. She nods. I ask her another question about Yemeni coins.  She nods again and says softly, “Yes.” 

As we drive on the woman sitting next to the window hits it with a coin, thus signalling to the driver that she wants to get off. A bit later the two women sitting in front of me tell the driver in a very low voices, “‘ala janb (lit. “on the side”, meaning “Stop!”)”.

I am the last woman to get off. I hand the driver a coin and make my way to the small alleyways of al-Qa‘. 

3

Today I am sitting next to a man, leaving at least five inches between us so that there will be no body contact. As a foreigner, I am keen to avoid being seen as a woman who does not care about gender-related etiquette.

The bus stops for another woman passenger. There is only one seat left next to a man. No one is moving. The driver gestures to the man sitting next to me that he should move to the back, and he obliges. The woman, who wears black gloves in addition to her balto, takes a seat next to me. Gloves such as these are worn mainly be young women who wish to prevent men from judging their age from the shape of their hands, objects of desire.

I ask myself why the man who sat next to me didn’t make any move to move.  Was he waiting for others to do so? Does he come from a region where gender relations are somewhat more relaxed? The woman wearing the gloves hits the window with a coin, but the noise is drowned in the loud traffic and the driver doesn’t hear the signal. Addressing the driver, another man calls out, “‘ala janb ya akhi!” (“Do stop!”).

4

As I am trying to get onto the bus,  the driver gestures to a man sitting alone in the last – fourth - row to move to another bank of seats. The man gestures back to him that there’s no space elsewhere.  However, he gets up and moves to the third row. As a result, four men are squeezed into that row while I am sitting alone in the second row.

Soon a man dressed in a suit, most likely an Egyptian, boards the bus, taking his seat at the other end of the bench where I am sitting.   A man who had been sitting in the crowded third row gets off the bus. Another man comes on board and chooses the vacated seat in the third row although there is still plenty of space between me and the man in the suit.

The woman behind me knocks at the window and one of the male passengers shouts, “‘ala janb!”

Usually women hardly talk on the bus but today two women are having a conversation about the older one’s pain and the price rises that have occurred since Ramadan.

A couple is about to climb on to the bus. The man in the suit makes no attempt to move to another row in order to give up his seat for the woman. Her husband takes a seat at the back of the bus. One of the young men sitting in front of me turns to the man in the suit and asks him to move. He gets up reluctantly. At last the woman takes the seat next to me.

5

Today I am on a bus where the rows are facing each other. A young man opposite me is looking anxious. He wears a khaki jacket over his zanna, the long white garment worn by most men who grew up in the northern parts of Yemen.  He says that he is about to return to his village in Bani Hushaysh, an hour’s drive from the capital.  He is worried that his gun, which he hides under his jacket, will be taken at the army checkpoint on the road to the north.  I joke with him, advising him to wear women’s clothes. (Women’s bodies are not searched by the soldiers.) Contemplating that proposal, he exclaims, “‘Aib (Shameful)!”  One of the other male passengers laughs. I remind the young man that it was said that the last Imam  - the ruler overthrown in 1962 - fled the capital in women’s dress and now this young man would have to wear it only for a very short time. “Wa-la daqiqa  (Not  even for a minute)!” he says. 

6

I have boarded the bus in Tahrir Square.  The driver’s tout is shouting out the bus’s destination, attempting to attract passengers. I take a seat next to another woman. There are one or two more seats left in our row. The tout says that it is inappropriate for a man to sit next to a woman, by which he means us to understand that if a man gets on, he will have to squeeze into one of the back rows which are already occupied by several men. 

As the bus is about to leave, the woman beside me murmurs, “Bismillah al-rahman, bismillah al-rahman (In the name of God).” When she wants to get off, she says, “‘ala janb” in a low voice, knocking at the window, and a boy sitting in the row in front of her informs the driver of her intention, in case he hasn’t heard her.                 

7

As I am about to board the bus, a woman and her three children in the middle row move closer together, leaving a small space for me. They disembark before I do.  I sit all alone on the bench.  Several men are sitting uncomfortably in the row in front of me. A man, who doesn’t look Yemeni, is about to board the bus. He gestures with his head that I should take a seat next to the woman in the row behind me so that he can take my seat.  I oblige. 

8

I am speaking on my mobile phone.  The young woman sitting next to me becomes curious about my nationality. When I have finished the call, she asks me in English where I am from. “Are you Germany?” She explains that she is studying English at San‘a university. She speaks softly, and several times I have to ask her to repeat her question.

9

A very old, frail woman enters the bus, taking a lot of time to master the two steps. I take care of her walking stick and give her some money. Another passenger gives her the same amount.

While I am sitting alone in the middle row of seats, in front of me a man has squeezed into a row adjacent to the open door where there are already several male passengers sitting. His seat is broken. I am worried that he might fall off.  

10

As I am about to take a seat next to a woman, she gestures that I should sit somewhere else because she will get off soon. The driver seems unhappy, looking at her disapprovingly because there’s no available seat that is next to a woman. At last I sit down next to a man who is alone in his row. As soon as another seat next to other men becomes available, he moves to it.

11

A man reads verses from the Quran loudly, engaging the driver who listens attentively.  

12

There’s no seat left next to a woman so I take one next to a man in the last bank of seats.  I leave sufficient space to ensure that physical contact can be avoided. After one of the men sitting next to the driver alights, the driver summons the man sitting next to me to come and sit in the front.

13

This morning I take the bus from the Square.  I take a seat in an empty row and wait for the bus to depart.  Soon afterwards a woman and a man sit down in my row, the woman beside me and the man beside her.  The driver’s tout is annoyed with the man for not knowing that it is inappropriate to take his seat next to women passengers. In a low voice, but not so low that the tout can’t hear, the woman says that the man is her son. Her son is now angry about the rough words used by the tout.  The two men snarl at each other until the bus takes off. 

14

This morning economic considerations won over ethics. I took a seat in one of the last empty rows.  The driver told me to move to the front seat next to him, so some more passengers could sit in the row I had moved from.  He didn’t want to lose income but asked me because I am a foreigner. He would never ask a Yemeni woman to sit next to him.  There would be protests.

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Photographs and sound recording

in and around San‘a, Yemen Republic,

by Gabriele vom Bruck