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List of contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
I Early Days
Come in
A mountain town
First lodgings
Market
Henna
More cooking
Visiting with Katiba
Hosting an afternoon
II Being a Household
Move
A day's exploring
Children and photos
Missing Katiba
Meeting the neighbours
Afternoon visit
Getting to know the neighbours better
Women come to our place
My mother visits
Language
Baking bread
The school
Amina's kitchen
Dressmaking
Afternoon in Meruwagha
Weddings
An afternoon's entertainment
Water
A German visitor
Post, and an enemy
Tim and the boy
Ramadan
Death of an old woman
III Living in the Town
Hamda's cow
Two visits to the health centre
Gardens
Outing with Amina
An afternoon with men and women
Behind the scenes at a wedding
Outings with Khadija
Exchanges with the neighbours
Earthquake
A visit to a village
Taking photos
Religion
'Butchers'
An afternoon with Na'ma and Fatima
No periods
Long pregnancy
Leaving in protest
'I never loved him...'
After divorce
Walking around
An evening in Meruwagha
Photographs: a row with the sheikh
Big men
An afternoon's talk
Endings
IV Going Back
1987
2000
2009
Summary
An engaging and authentic travel narrative, Bread and Henna relates social anthropologist Ianthe Maclagan's experiences of eighteen months living among the women of a small mountain town in Yemen during the early 1980s. After a gruelling road journey, she is initially taken in by a family who provide support and hospitality - but charge extortionate rent. Maclagan then sets up on her own, struggling with isolation and practicalities such as getting water and cooking. One day, female neighbours establish contact by offering cuttings for her rooftop garden. Then, by throwing pebbles from their roof down Maclagan's stairwell, they invite her to run errands for them.
Gradually Maclagan is drawn into the life of the town and, in turn, takes it into herself. The women she gets to know have hard lives and limited choices, but prove friendly, warm, welcoming and curious. After initially attending community feasts as an honorary man, she later witnesses the hard work of women that lies behind spreads of delicious food offered to guests. As she learns the local Arabic dialect, she joins local women in long, enjoyable and sociable afternoons chewing qat. She is invited to attend weddings and other celebrations, joins visits to the sick and participates in mourning.
As she integrates, Maclagan hears what the women say about their lives, about marriage, pregnancy and families - when asked how many children they have, women always include the ones who died - and about the struggle for girls' education. Maclagan learns how women seem to have more freedoms after marriage than before, leaving their husbands in protest or to teach them a lesson. This extended encounter with women of a remote community furnishes detailed descriptions of a different approach to life and cuisine.
Bread and Henna offers a window on a world that has gone - an intimate portrait of a country that is typically in the news for reasons of war and hunger. This memoir will enthral lovers of travel writing, people interested in the workings of different societies and the lives of women, and those who have travelled to Yemen - or have yearned to do so.
Foreword
Key Sales Points
. Engaging travel memoir about life in a remote Yemeni community
. Authentic account of integrating into a very different society
. Written by a professional social anthropologist, offers a window on the past, rich in intimate insights about the lives of women - from community feasts to pregnancy, education to marriage
. Contains eight pages of colour photos
. A book for lovers of travel writing, people interested in the workings of different societies and the lives of women, and those who travelled to Yemen - or have ever yearned to do so
