Al-baldah Season Brings Business and Relief to Mukalla Beachgoers

MUKALLA, Yemen — Before sunrise, 15-year-old Abdulrahman Badr and his friend Tareq are already on the sand, brewing tea and kneading dough for bakhmari, a traditional fermented flatbread from Hadramout. Their customers are thousands of beachgoers drawn to Mukalla's Arabian Sea shoreline by Al-Baldah, a yearly climate pattern from late July to early August that cools the scorching summer for a few weeks. "Al-Baldah is a wonderful season.

Business is booming and people are coming from everywhere, Badr told Al Jazeera. He and four friends set up a wooden table selling bakhmari, sambusi, and tea, saving earnings for school supplies. Yemen's decade-long war between Iran-backed Houthis and the Saudi-backed government has killed thousands, displaced millions, and destroyed infrastructure, pushing many into poverty.

For residents like Fuad Hassan, originally from Taiz, Al-Baldah offers relief and joy. "We come to the beach after the dawn prayer and swim in the cold water for one or two hours, he said. But Hani Abdullah, an unemployed former college student, voiced frustration: Al-Baldah revives the city... But we do not benefit from all this traffic.