“What
can I teach my children that the school has not taught them” grumbled
Yasmine to her husband, who was trying
to take a nap, but somehow the
cat refused to stop wagging his tail near his ear. “You can
teach them never to try to take a nap next to a spoiled cat, that is
what you can teach them. They will never learn that in school. But in
here they will graduate with honors”. Mahmoud was not at all interested
in teaching anything to his kids. He wanted to take a nap, hell or high
water.In the meantime, one of the youngsters came in: “Why
should our army be sent to fight the entire population of one of the
governorates of the country. In fact, the entire Armed Forces are now
engaged in a full scale operation that is aimed at the obliteration of
the people of Sa’ada.”The father now awoke: “How many times
have I told you, Ibrahim, stop talking politics these days; you know
that the Government has its ears tuned on anyone who ever dares mention
the Governorate of Sa’ada. Just yesterday, one of our neighbors was
asking someone at the Al-Qa’a Market, near the Foreign Ministry, where
they were selling the
grapefruits that were coming from Sa’ada. Within
seconds, a pickup loaded with an anti-aircraft gun whisked by him and
blocked his forward path. The men on the pickup came down and
surrounded the guy and picked him onto the truck. Later on, when he was
released, he told a horrible tale of how it took him 10 days to
convince the arresting officer, who had heard him say the word Sa’ada
in the marketplace and called for reinforcements to help arrest the
man, who was ‘giving lectures on the Houthis in the marketplace’ the
real truth. When he tried to explain to the prison officials that he
has never been to Sa’ada, nor has he even met anyone from there, they
got a few ‘agents’ all testifying that they each heard him mention the
word Sa’ada ten times! He kept consistently saying to them that the
only time he ever mentioned Sa’ada in the market is when he was asking
about the guy selling Sa’ada grapefruits there. There is only one guy
selling Sa’ada
Grapefruit there, so they can go ask him if he was not a
regular customer or not. Sure enough the police did not waste any time
and they picked up the Sa’ada grapefruit seller, on suspicion of
financing the Houthi rebels! By the end of the week there were 20
people arrested ranging from the supplier of the grapefruits to the
market, the truck driver who brings them and finally the farmer and his
children who grew them. All had become a ring of financiers for the
Houthis.Finally, an intelligent officer came to take the
complex case of the Houthi financing ring, because the ring was ‘found
to have tentacles stretched out in all directions according to the news
bulletin’. The officer was smart enough to realize that this case was
really getting out of hand for no reason at all. When his commanding
officer asked him why he is being so lenient on one of the most
‘dangerous’ terrorist financing team they have ever captured. The young
intelligent officer said: ‘For the simple reason that I have been
buying grapefruit from the same man for the last ten years almost and
there is no place that one can get grapefruits like this anywhere in
Yemen, or for that matter anywhere in the world.’ He took a huge
grapefruit from a bag he had brought from home. He told his commanding
officer: “Every winter, if you want to get the best grapefruit in the
world, just go to this man right here, pointing to the Sa’ada
Grapefruit seller. I guarantee you will never get better grapefruit
anywhere else in Sana’a. With this blessing from Allah our neighbor was
able to get out from the misery of uncalled for imprisonment on
fabricated charges, by zealous security officials who want to get a few
brownie points for their records” The father ended his long
dissertation on the case of the Sa’ada Grapefruit seller.The
mother was shocked at the nonsense of it all, and the unneeded
suffering revealed by her husband: Just think what they would have
done, if they heard what our son just said a few minutes ago! The
father said: “Well, I do not know how the women’s prison is like, but
for sure, you would have found out right away, because the first people
they will look for, especially if our son goes into hiding, will be his
parents. In our case neither grapefruits, nor apples will save us from
the Houthi witch hunting that caught on with our security apparatus
like a mysterious severe flu.”