SANA, Yemen — To blare the jingle that draws the children to his ice cream cart — in the midst of a war — Noah Taha has been forced to improvise.

There is rarely electricity here in Sana. Not for hospitals, not for homes, and not to charge Mr. Taha’s little blue MP3 player. To solve his problem, Mr. Taha put a solar panel on the front of his cart so he could play the jingle — a somewhat haunting tune he called the Na Na song, after an ice cream brand — as he peddled through the Yemeni capital.

It was clever, but Mr. Taha said he had seen better. “I saw solar used on an electric wheelchair,” he said. “That was the best idea.”

I met Mr. Taha on a street full of electrical shops during a recent visit to Yemen, my third since the signs of conflict began to emerge early in 2015. With each visit, people seem more put-upon: running lower on money, more desperate to find work, and struggling to find food, medical care or a safe place to live.