The Sheraton

The book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran contains an account of Baghdad's Green Zone in the immediate aftermath of the US invasion: while the dusty streets of the city were filled with gunfire, sectarian bloodshed, chaos, inside the Green Zone wealthy young contractors sat by the poolside sipping beers while others grilled hotdogs, with a classic rock soundtrack played through loudspeakers. It was a condensation of Americana in the heart of an alien culture, totally disconnected from the metropolis outside. That's what the Sheraton is like.
Yesterday was one of my classmates' birthdays, and so a group of us decided to head to the Sheraton in Sana'a, one of the few places in town that serves beer. At 9 we hopped in a cab and drove to the other side of town. It holds the fragments of Western culture in Sana'a: the US embassy, the Sheraton and Movenpick hotels, and Tourist City, a compound for expats that requires a non-Yemeni passport for entry. Our cab pulls up to the outer wall of the Sheraton and we're greeted by heavily-armed soldiers and a barricade. The undercarriage, engine block and trunk of the car were checked and the taxi driver was patted down and questioned, all while us ignored foreigners shifted around uncomfortably. We were finally cleared and drove on to the second guarded checkpoint, and then onto the hotel itself.
It was eerily empty. We walked through the metal detectors into the marble lobby; the only other people we saw were bored-looking staff in red porter outfits. We walked downstairs to find an honest-to-goodness Chinese restaurant where we ate Western-priced dumplings. Sitting at a table with a cloth napkin and seeing my first fork in weeks was odd. The large dining room was home to an American oilman smoking and staring blankly at a Chinese watercolor, and a well-padded American couple who looked like they wouldn't venture outside the Sheraton bubble during their stay yet would still proudly claim to their friends back home that they visited Sana'a, "even though it's pretty dangerous". We finished eating and headed upstairs to the bar. Outside was a foam cow skull, some cactus and a sign advertising a cowboy-style event that weekend. Inside was a dim room with red, velvety wallpaper covered with dozens of pictures of New York landmarks: buildings, Broadway marquees, taxis. The bar's patrons all looked like Saudis, and they were throwing down massive amounts of cash for the hard-to-find alcohol; a double of Johnnie Walker Red ran around $20. We played pool for a while on worn tables with mis-matched balls and then called it a night. At the lobby we asked if we could get a taxi and, within seconds we had the Sheraton Mercedes at our disposal, paying the equivalent of $8 for the ride home (the average Yemeni takes three days to earn that much). The car was out-of-place: new, washed, without even a ding or scratch. We felt amazingly conspicuous riding in the German beast back to our dorm.
Without a doubt, the night at the Sheraton was the most alien experience I've had in Yemen. This compound of opulence surrounded by beggars who have to drag themselves around because they can't afford a wheelchair for the legs they lost in the civil war. Riding home in a freshly waxed Mercedes-Benz while women outside the window were picking through the trash. I value the trip for the experience, but it's not a positive memory.