It looks as if everything has pretty much fallen into place for my February departure to study in Yemen for what I am expecting to be about twelve months in length.
This week I begin the process of getting from Seattle, Washington to Sana’a, Yemen. I decided to attend the Center for Arabic and Eastern Studies (CALES - http://www.y.net.ye/cales/).
To be honest, my first choice was the Yemen Language Center (YLC - http://www.ylcint.com/) but since I couldn’t get any email response from YLC, I decided to attend CALES, which responded to every email I sent.
My immediate preparations for departure are as follows:
Wire a $200 deposit to CALES (To “arrange for your accommodations, for the first month”)
Meet with a travel agent regarding a flight itinerary
Send my visa paperwork off to the Embassy of the Republic of Yemen in Washington, D.C. (http://www.yemenembassy.org/)
Hopefully I’ll get this portion done by the end of the week.
Note: Although on their website CALES indicates that they can assist in obtaining a visa, I was told that it was faster and cheaper to do this on my own (shrug). CALES recommended I apply for a tourist visa and after I arrive in Yemen they will assist me in getting a student visa. You can obtain the visa application form along with all the information you need on the embassy’s website that I’ve linked above.
Now, I don’t know about anybody else, but I have found the lack of authoritative information on studying in the ME to be very frustrating. So, if anybody is interested, I shall be blogging my progress from start to finish. Of course, this will be for study in Yemen, particularly at CALES (although I’ll try and find out information on other academies in Sana’a). For information on studying abroad in Syria, I recommend you go to Jeremy Palmer’s blog at: http://arabicacquisition.blogspot.com/
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