The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2021 89 s Things are not always peaceful in the Hadhramaut. Eighty years ago, the people were starving because constant warfare between the tribes made it impossible to farm. To combat this, a British official brokered Ingrams’ Peace. Between 1934 and 1937, Harold Ingrams, with his wife, Doreen, traveled through- out the Hadhramaut. He was sent as an adviser to arrange treaties between the many small tribes. He obtained 1,400 signatures to a three- year truce, which was later extended. The peace was wildly popular as conditions had been so grim due to the fighting. Later, I found out that even in 1966, getting to the Hadhramaut was perilous. While my husband was driven on the fre- quently mined road to Mukalla to meet the man who had just become Sultan of Qu’aiti, I flew home to Aden. A month later, on Nov. 22, the son of Amir Mohammed bin Said planted a bomb that blew up the Aden Airways plane on which his father was travel- ing. The prime minister and the 29 other people aboard were killed. s Many changes have occurred in the Hadhramaut since 1966 when Dave and I were in the Aden protectorate. The British Shibam, “the Manhattan of the Desert,” circa 2008. left in late 1967, and the independent protectorates became part of Yemen. (For the most part, Hadhramis consider them- selves Hadhramis and not Yemenis, and often do not have Yemeni passports.) In 2014, civil war began in Yemen. Shiites captured Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, from the Sunni government. One hundred thousand people have been killed in Yemen by Saudi bombing, and 85,000 have died in the famine. Although the Hadhramaut has not been bombed, its people have suffered financially. Amajor problem for the Hadhramaut is also the maintenance of mud buildings. A tropical cyclone flooded the area in 2008. Four towers were destroyed, and 15 others damaged, in Shibam. Appeals for financial aid have been made to UNESCO, which pledged $194,000 to help with res- toration of the heritage site. The European Union has also been asked for funds. s Despite these and other dangers and depredations, the mud skyscrapers still stand, representing the all-enduring Hadhrami culture. n WIKIMEDIA/DAN CHADBLEVINS The Hadhramaut in present-day Yemen.