By: Abdulhak Raja
Khoukha a Yemeni fishing village on the Red Sea teaches the world the meaning of tolerance and humanity!!
4 centuries ago the fisherman who got up on dawn on their way to the sea, found a wooden coffin on the beach!! They opened it to find a corpse for a male covered with rotten flowers… They delayed their journey and cooperated to dig a grave away from the water next to the village. They buried the poor dead and gave him the name The Flowers Man.
As you may imagine, the wooden coffin and the flowers man remained the subject of tales and news among the locals in Khoukha and the neighbouring counties for months!!
After a year passed, the fishing season was good, the dates and grain harvest were excellent!!! The locals suddenly remembered the flowers man and a talk of him being a saint and a blessed person started circulating!!!
The second year was as good as the first year if not better. The villagers donated money for building a tomb for Saint Man of Flowers!! Ever since then an annual visit for the Saints Tomb was created where residents of Khoukha and far away communities participate in a ceremony hoping for more blessings from the Saint of Flowers!!! This is still going on up til now!!
