Anti-Drug America

In the second chapter of "Baghdad without a Map", Yemen: Confessions of a Qat Eater, I gained a lot of insight into different traditions in the Yemen culture. Qat is part of their daily lives, a popular social activity that is a good explanation of the personalities the people of Yemen possess. They dress in colorful turbans opposed to other more serious Middle Eastern countries where that would seem unacceptable. I don’t believe that there is anything wrong with Qat; in fact I think it is almost a cool aspect of this country. “We want to be Yemen. We do not want to hurry up and be like the West.” Pg 20 Yemen seems to me, in a world where religion is strict and many are oppressed by violent dictators, relaxed. They clearly don’t have much but they are proud of whom they are and if something makes them happy let them be. I tried thinking of our society allowing drugs. What would the U.S be like if we could all invite our friends over and get high? I think of the people in the U.S as stressed. Although many of us are supposed to be taught at a young age that money does not buy happiness, our lifestyles do not reflect this. We are always competing and there are many trying to achieve that American dream and now that I go to a New England Boarding School I find myself fitting into that mind set. Because I go to this school, I must treasure the opportunities I’m given and make something of myself. I do know how lucky I am and I do value my education but at times when I cannot sleep because I have anxiety over hours of work still left to do I wish society could be different. In reality I think we could be nicer people if we could take a minute to breath. I’m not saying we can all sit around for weeks, chew qat and forget about everything we have but look at the people of Yemen who essentially have nothing. They still can take a moment and just let the day pass them by. Then there are people in the U.S, we have everything a person in Yemen could ever dream of, that work 7 days a week to hold on to every little penny they have. For me holding on so tightly to that perfect portrayal of American success is so much less satisfying, it could mean so much more if you actually had time to sit back and realize how fortunate some of us are.

JEH