22nd. September - (via Dad, again!)

On Monday (22nd) Liz and her luggage went to her house in Segeneiti where her placement is. Segeneiti is about an hour or so south of Asmara (by road and reasonable transport); unfortunately, they were stopped and their travel visa’s were declined for some reason, which meant they had to return to Asmara and get them amended. Three hours later she got there! Nonetheless, the scenery etc was very impressive. She will stay for a few days and then return to Asmara to complete motorcycle training. Then it’s back to Segeneiti to start work properly.

The house appears to be some sort of rendered breeze-block structure in a compound with 2 other houses. It has a reception and bedroom – each about 4 metres square – and a bathroom and toilet “out the back”. She has electricity and water (which needs to be filtered), but the toilet is flushed manually! She will be cooking on a kerosene stove. The house “needs a good scrub” but she seems OK with it. Liz hopes to add some pictures to this blog. She has met one of the families in the compound and they are very friendly; the guy has a photographic shop (there are actually 2 in Senegeiti!) and the wife is a teacher in the local Catholic school. They have a few children as well.

Segeneiti is a small town / village based around a main street with shops and a market. On Saturdays there is an outdoor market. Liz says it’s really a lovely place and the people are “so nice and friendly”! People approach her to ask if she is from VSO – Eritrea is not open to any other NGAs nor does it provide much by way of opportunities for ex-pats, so people tend to know that most foreigners are likely to be VSO volunteers. The people react very positively to Liz’s attempts at Tigrinyan (local language) but she now realises how essential a good grasp of the language is going to be if she wants to get anything done etc.

The weather remains very hot indeed but she is getting used to it now. The only down side seems to be the fact that the harvest has suffered from a drought so they’re waiting to see what the impact is going to be. ….. sooner her than me!