Qat (3) My First Qat Gathering in Sana’a

Yemenat

Ahmed Saif Hashed

Shortly after my arrival in Sana’a following unification, I was overtaken by a subtle sense of isolation, confinement, and tension.

It was a feeling akin to imprisonment or turning inward upon oneself, within a society accustomed to qat, where people share a dominant daily ritual centered on chewing it and gathering in what is called al maqyal.

My move from Aden to Sana’a was not merely a change of place; it was a passage into an experience that had never entered my imagination before I arrived.

I felt that I would become an outcast, withdrawn into a bleak inner cell, unless I tried qat or at least attended its gatherings. I even felt the need for a private circle of my own, where acquaintances, friends, and those I wished to know more closely could meet.

Reality spoke plainly. There is no warmth without qat and its gatherings, and no escape from coexisting, to one degree or another, with a reality in which I found my estrangement both confined and imprisoned.

I felt an unfamiliar pressure, a sensation growing at an accelerating pace, that I was living in a society immersed and enclosed, where qat had become a pattern of life itself.

In such a society, the balanced individual appears aberrant, living in alienation, while the aberrant is deemed normal and continues unchallenged. The rule turns into the exception, and the exception becomes the rule. What is right is seen as wrong through the lens of a dominant and familiar consciousness.

I could not be idealized to perfection, even if I longed to be. I had no authority, no scepter, and no power to enact laws or impose them upon a society without an authority that decides and enforces.

Under such pressure, it was natural to bend slightly or concede where possible, in a society that condemns deviation with isolation and rejection. Perhaps that was how I reasoned in a moment of prolonged vulnerability.

So after long hesitation, under the weight of this feeling, and within a social reality that imposed its own conditions, I decided to establish a modest and simple qat gathering of my own, suitable to my circumstances.

I had purchased cushions and bolsters stuffed with wood shavings and other fibers whose origin I could not identify.

Perhaps some were even homemade, filled with whatever was at hand—old fabrics and scraps—just in case, as a precaution against any shortage that might arise.

My first qat gathering in my own home in Sana’a included a circle of friends, colleagues, and in-laws, all of whom chewed qat except for two: my companion Jazem, and my neighbor and colleague, Mansor Al-Waidi. As for myself, I felt subtly compelled to conform—to (be one-eyed), as the local proverb says: (If you enter among the one-eyed, blind.)

This was despite the fact that I was hosting the gathering. Yet I found myself compelled to chew qat nonetheless, under an oath as serious as divorce pronounced three times.

My brother-in-law, Mohammed Al-Matri, chewed qat as a master, a connoisseur, and an expert in its rituals. He practiced it with daily dedication, interrupted only by serious illness that confined him to bed. His expertise in chewing qat and achieving the perfect state extended over decades—forty or fifty continuous years.

He insisted on attending my inaugural gathering to honor it. He brought his own qat without my requesting any, for I had not intended to chew any myself. I only planned to sit among those who chewed. But he insisted and compelled me to participate fully, invoking strict oaths and pledges, even the severity of divorce.

Jazem, my friend, companion, and party official, whom I wished to introduce to some of my in-laws and acquaintances in Sana’a, never chewed qat, substituting instead za‘qa(dry nuts). Mansor Al-Wa’idi, my neighbor and friend, consumed neither qat nor za‘qa.

Whenever boredom struck, he would return to his nearby home, only to come back an hour later.
We three had arrived from Aden after unification, while the fourth, fifth, and sixth participants were from Sana’a and chewed qat almost daily.

I found myself practicing a self-imposed compulsion to chew qat. At the start of the gathering, I felt like a condemned man forced to do what I detested.

Yet I tried to mask my discomfort with a feigned composure. Every time I placed a leaf in my mouth, its bitterness shot to my head like lightning and thunder. I felt the strain and coercion with every chew, until my own patience seemed, in that gathering, like enduring a harsh session of torment.

I requested black tea with mint and cloves. As I sipped it, I sensed that Al-Matri, seated beside me, disapproved of my behavior. I heard murmurs and bursts of unintelligible sounds, like the gurgling of a hookah, before he resumed conversation elsewhere.

In Aden, and before that in our village, it was customary for many to drink tea or mazghul while chewing qat. My father did it, and many others, and I had never heard anyone criticize it. Yet I felt that my actions displeased Al-Matri, unsettling him in ways I could not fully understand.

Al-Matri’s mood and enjoyment began to unravel, as if some internal mechanism had failed. His face darkened and soured. Perhaps he tried repeatedly to suppress his irritation each time his eyes fell on Jazem across the circle, chewing za‘qa with astonishing expertise.

The crisp sound of the dry nuts slicing through the air was striking, sometimes harsh and provocative to Al-Matri’s sensibilities.

His patience snapped. The sounds of za‘qa became, to his ears, explosions hurled directly at him. He erupted at us like a violent thunderclap, as though possessed by some diabolical force. His outburst surprised us all.

(Chew it, or leave! Get out of here! Off my face! Since three o’clock, you haven’t made us chew qat or tasted it!)

A wave of acute embarrassment overwhelmed me. A sharp constriction tightened in my chest. My lips dried until, for a moment, they seemed mummified, as if from some distant Pharaonic era.

My face flushed and I felt deep shame for what had happened and for the severity of his reaction toward Jazem, who appeared shy, broken, and stunned. Jazem exhaled pain and sorrow at the audacity and bluntness that struck us all.

I felt dizzy, as if the ground beneath me were shaking. Jazem is a man of rare refinement, sensitive and deeply emotional. To me, he was an exemplar and a role model: a learned man, a party leader of the highest caliber, and above all, a nobility of character almost unbelievable.

I apologized to everyone, and especially to Jazem, sensing that what had occurred was harsh and shocking, a wound not easily healed, even if I plastered over it with a smile. It was the first profound lesson I ever learned in my first qat gathering, my first experience hosting such a session in the capital, Sana’a.