Yemen Unit

I have to admit the last several countries we studied our senior year were rather muddled. I was desperately trying to finish studying every country, while also trying to get all of the graduation stuff done, all this means that our Yemen Unit was sadly not as thorough as I would have preferred, especially since all of my usual sources haven’t actually covered the country yet. Expect me to update this post once that happens, until then our Yemen Unit was an interesting, if rather annoyingly brief part of our geography lessons in Africa.

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Yemen Unit resources

The problem when the groups you usually get information from cover countries alphabetically, none of my usual sources have information yet. Or, I guess I should say the big deal is Geography Now hasn’t covered Yemen yet.

Sigh, this led to much yelling and screaming from the kids as we had recently watched an absolutely terrible video for a country in Oceania, but it’s been pretty terrible.

• Yemen BBC facts
• 7 Yemen Facts– only seven
• National Geographic Kids: Yemen
• 10 Yemen Facts
• 20 Interesting Facts about Yemen

I mean look at that, there is no one with a random 37 facts or 72 facts. It took some searching to find 20 facts.

Sigh, and here’s the best I found. Apparently, there is a whole series of videos called “The Country You Hate the Most [fill in random country], Yemen must feature in several of the ones that are not about it. There are a lot of conspiracy-type videos on the country (why it’s about to die, wars, oh and it’s the MOST DANGEROUS country). Very special.

Continuing on, with a not particularly Yemen recipe…

Yemen Unit recipe: Martabak Manis

These are essentially a specialized pancake, that’s really what this recipe is. But, that being said, it does taste pretty good.

Martabak Manis ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons tapioca flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 tablespoons water

Making the recipe

1. In a bowl combine the flour, sugar, and tapioca flour.
2. Add the eggs, vanilla, and water. Mix until completely incorporated, set aside and let rest for an hour. (I have to admit, I am not sure I remembered to build in enough time to let it rest)
3. After it has rested, start heating the pan on moderate-high heat. While the pan heats, mix together the baking powder, baking soda, and water.
4. Add this to the batter, stirring quickly.
5. Pour the batter onto the pan, let it cook until the batter is covered with bubbles, then sprinkle sugar over the top, and put a lid on the pan to keep it cooking.
6. Martabak manis do not need to be flipped if cooked right. This is where I did not do it right, I thought, I’ll just use my griddle, and that will cook it just fine, but that did not trap in the moisture and heat like cooking it in a pan with the lid. I also did not cook the full-sized version, which was in the original recipe, and were closer in size to a dinner plate.

Yield: 2 dozen

Martabak Manis

Print

These martabak manis are a great twist on the traditional pancake to cook when cooking around the world.

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Additional Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour 25 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons tapioca flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 tablespoons water

Instructions

1. In a bowl combine the flour, sugar, and tapioca flour.
2. Add the eggs, vanilla, and water. Mix until completely incorporated, set aside and let rest for an hour.
3. After it has rested, start heating the pan on moderate-high heat. While the pan heats, mix together the baking powder, baking soda, and water. Add this to the batter, stirring quickly.
4. Pour the batter onto the pan, let it cook until the batter is covered with bubbles, then sprinkle sugar over the top, and put a lid on the pan to keep it cooking.
5. Martabak manis do not need to be flipped if cooked right.
6. Pour condensed milk over the top, then add any toppings you desire, see notes.

Notes

Possible toppings: mini chocolate chips, shredded coconut, sprinkles, and more

Yemen notebooking pages

We filled out the Africa notebooking pages.

Here are the facts I found interesting from the videos I found:

• It was once known as the land of happiness and was a fertile land, obviously not so true now
• It has the oldest skyscraper, from the 1500s
• There is a dragon blood tree
• The Queen of Sheba from King Solomon’s story, might be from here
• The first Arabian country to let women vote

So, that’s our Yemen unit, it went fine, but was not super memorable, sadly. Like none of the things we found really mentioned this amazing site, so I didn’t find out about it until I was writing this post.

More learning for high school

• Good Omens book club
• Wordsmith Craftsman
• Raphael artist study
• Bolivia Unit
• Estonia Unit

• Almuhammedi, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
• Antti Salonen, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons