More of old Sana'a:

It was simply fascinating, like stepping back into a medieval city -- all small shops, crowded and twisty streets, little light but the sunlight, and all kinds of work and trade going on.

One of the best was the camel walking in an endless 15-foot circle to make a sesame seed mill grind the seed. The camel had blinkers on, despite the fact that it was pretty dark in the cave-like room where he was working. When asked, the owner said, through a translator, that the camel had to be blindfolded, otherwise he would "go crazy."

"You see," he said, "the camel thinks he is on a journey. If we take the blinders off and he sees where he is, what he is doing, he will die!"

That could be applied to a lot of us, I thought...