Chapter Four
Post on my f*******: wall:
A.E., the official in charge of the Ministry of Education’s Scholarship Department in the 1970s in Aden, was beloved by students in my high school class.
He was a typical Adeni through and through: from the way he looked, his sense of humour, the wads of Indian paan masala that were always in his mouth, and his enthusiasm for football matches at al-Hubaishi Stadium in the Crater district. This was particularly true if his favourite team al-Husseini was playing, or its arch-rival al-Ahrar was.
I learned that if you wanted to catch him in a good mood, you had to go to a coffee shop by the stadium, near Sirah fishing port in the Crater district, after a football match al-Husseini had won or al-Ahrar had lost. (When he was at his office in the Minist
