Faifa

I was invited by a fellow teacher to go on a day-trip to Faifa.  Faifa is a town built on top of a mountain. 

In Canada almost no one lives on top of mountains, because it's too cold. But in the Asir Mountains of southern Saudia, it’s the mountains that receive all the rain that never falls on Jizan. The winds carry it right over us, and it falls when they are pushed up the mountains. So the mountain-tops (Faifa is about 1200 metres, I think) receive a lot of rain; the montaine plateau around nearby Abha (2000+ metres) is much greener than Jisan, and has temperatures almost as cool as Vancouver's.

Faifa, off in the distance

So we rented a car and went to Faifa.

Dennis runs off into the wadi

 Along the way, we stopped at an un-named (to us, anyway) wadi, (with water in it!).

Mark displays commendable caution.

We went walking for a bit, and encountered two young camel herders.

Herders, Yemeni style.

They were very gracious. Dennis wanted to hang around with them for awhile; then we pressed on.

!

Flowering opuntia.

A fountain along the road.

At the turnoff where Faifa starts (I think), I saw a wild fountain. Those buildings are in one of the old Yemeni/ southern Asir styles of mountain architecture: square stone with quartz inlaid around the windows and doors. Those towers are houses. 


Note the Toyota 4wd pickup -  those are everywhere, highly regarded, and rockin'! That one looks ex-army. The farmers love them. Foreigners are not allowed to buy them.

Downtown Faifa

It turned out to be a great trip, as we drove on the narrow and winding roads all over the mountain. I don't know the population of Faifa; there must be 15-20,000 people there, but the houses are spread all around because the hills are so steep. 

There are still some old houses standing; the mountain style is square, with small windows, or sometimes towers. Occasionally they are combined. They remind me of a fort - a man's home is truly his castle here!

This is also where the Flower Men of Asir live. They wear garlands of flowers in their hair, and sari-like wraps in startling colors; black with brilliant red and sky blue stripes on it, for example. Those camel herders are wearing them. These wraps function as clan identifiers which tell families (and villages) apart like tartans do in Scotland. This mountain culture is said to be 5,000 years old - it is 'Arabia Felix', the pagan pre-Islamic culture. 'Arabia Felix' : 'Happy Arabia' in the latin of the Romans, who came this way and knew them. North of here, on the other side of the Asir Mountains, is a large ruin complex that I was hoping to visit, but never made it to, outside of Najran.

I saw a youtube video recently, in which the mountain men performed a special dance celebrating ghat cultivation - now illegal, but it has been grown here for millenia. They did a very distinctive hand clapping thing, which I had not seen before.

A student showed me another video, taken in Faifa, of a large wedding. There were 300 men there - and 295 of them were carrying AK47's! Saudi Arabia's is a gun culture, and many people own these weapons, which, it appears, are completely legal.  These men, two at a time, took turns walking into the middle of a large space, and firing off a dozen or 15 rounds into the air with their weapons. The bullets, I am told, are not cheap. They do this for about a half an hour as a celebration of the wedding. I have heard them on occasion in the early hours of the morning in Jizan.

 We came across a local restaurant and decided to have lunch, but arrived during saleh - prayer time - so we had to wait about 20 minutes until it re-opened. We had kabseh and excellent mutton broth soup, and a very strange green soup made from spinach and okra. It is so gooey it's hard to take a spoonful of! Very popular in Jizan, too.

The roads are mostly paved and quite narrow. We found it necessary to be cautious, as, occasionally some young buck would come roaring and rattling down the hill, in fine Saudi style, utterly, seemingly, disregarding pedestrians, playing children, and other cars on the road alike. Everyone got out of his way - the path seeming to clear by magic, then filling again in his wake.  
 

By this time it was 3 pm, and time to head home. On the way down, we met a student we knew, and he promised us a visit to the local hot-spring next time.  
 

We arrived back in Jisan at dinner time; tired, happy - and hot.  

 

 Some photos were taken by Dennis Giesbrecht. Thanks!  I took the rest on my ipod...