Rachel's Visit

As I mentioned before, Rachel came to visit for New Year. Here's some of her photos:

About to sample her first Injera !

Rach sees the tougher side of VSO

The queue for the bus (Asmara)

Authorised for travel (Tickets inspected, we get a red stripe on the thumb as confirmation)

Arranging the "bedroom" - Massawa

Supper - Massawa, New Year's Eve 2008

Jan 1st 2009 - Massawa

Tribesman and Camel

Rachel, with ruins of Haile Selassie's palace in background

Me, outside a (um) Wonderful shop

Coming towards Massawa

Massawa

The hardware store

Shop

Weaver (well you can see that!)

At my desk in work

Picnic in the mountains

Inside my compound on washing day

Mix it, ferment it and, yes - drink it!

The Nakfa tree is so called because it appears on the currency (Nakfa).

Rach and me on my bike close to the Nakfa tree.

"And we have this in your size..."

At the top of the bell tower, Asmara Cathedral

Rachel nearly gets to church

Green Island

Just before Christmas, my friends and I took a trip to Green Island, which is a wonderfully unspoilt island just off the coast at Massawa. We hired a small boat and headed off for a day of sunbathing, swimming and snorkeling - beautiful.


On the boat.
The ruins of Haillie Selassi's palace in Massawa, seen from the boat.
Shelter from the sun
Stones and Shells
The Pier
Evening

Christmas Photos (and New Year)

In Eritrea, there are two " Christmas' ": Christmas is celebrated on 25th December in the Catholic Church, but the main Eritrean Christmas (Orthodox Chucrh) is celebrated on January 7th - Christmas according to the Geez calendar! It is pretty quiet here before Christmas - unlike the UK - and to be honest, it's not exactly riotous on 7th. No matter - we made a go of it. I got together with most of my VSO colleagues in Asmara to celebrate. We started on Christmas Eve with an office party and then on Christmas Day (the real one on 25th. December) we went for a wonderful 7-course lunch at a posh Italian restaurant. Then for New Year we all headed off to Massawa - a beach resort on the Red Sea coast. Rachel came out to stay after Christmas and was here for New year. We slept out under the stars on the beach at Massawa. We got back to Segeneiti in time for the baptism of my neighbour's baby; baptisms are a big deal in the Orthodox Church and it seemed like half the town was there to greet me when we arrived home to our compound.
We celebrated Eritrean Christmas on 7th. with huge Injera lunches - three of them. My friend and fellow VSO colleague, Sami, slaughtered a chicken - this was a little disturbing but at least we knew the meat was fresh!

Louam and Embaba decorate my Christmas tree. Christmas at the VSO Project Office. We had a challenge to design and make the best hat - and I won it!

The last sundown in 2008; the first sunrise of 2009. And Rachel and me on the beach!

Photos - My House in Segeneiti

This is a photo of my house in Segeneiti. My bit is in the far corner. I have a living room / kitchen, and a bedroom. The "facilities" are outside.

This tree is close by - I pass it each day on my way to work.

But this is the famous Nakfa Tree which appears on the Eritrean currency. It is also in Segeneiti.

Christmas Update - December 14th 2008

Merry Christmas, everyone! I am writing this, sat in my house watching the lights on my newly decorated tree. Mum and Dad are calling later and I will dictate this over the phone for Dad to upload onto the blog. How great it is to have slaves. As I mentioned earlier, I am indeed, watching the lights on my newly decorated tree. That makes it sound rather grand but the tree is less than a metre tall, and the lights are plastic fruit in a variety of fluorescent colours. Add to that the garish tinsel and the wonderful snowflakes cut out of old newspaper and you really do have a festive tree. A couple of local girls came over this evening and helped to decorate the tree; Luon was rather more interested in dressing herself in tinsel and dancing around the room – some things are the same the world over. Umbaba, very patiently threaded tape through paper snowflakes and now the tree is barely visible behind the tat – wonderful! I think this is possibly the only tree in Segeneiti; it certainly doesn’t feel very Christmas-y. The weather is definitely colder – I wore a jacket and scarf yesterday evening but the afternoon it is still guaranteed to be warm and sunny. It is strange but I’m kind of missing the grey rainy miserable-ness of the Great British December. What I wouldn’t do for a stroll down the high street passing the twinkly lights, advertising and going for a lovely warm hot chocolate in Starbucks.

I’ve been doing a fair bit of travelling lately. Went to Adikeih (south of here) to work shadow another methodology trainer . It was really good to see another sub-zoba working especially as they are so much further along than Segeneiti in terms of organisation. I am now really hoping that we will be able to organise some funding to set up a PRC (Pedagogical Resources Centre ) in Segeneiti. It will be a place where students and teachers can come to read books and papers and watch videos. It will also be a great base for us when our work stops as at the moment were are having to make do with tiny staff rooms in a variety of classrooms. Anyway, whilst there I also had time to walk up the mountains to visit the Axomite ruins at Qohkito. The walk is eleven kilometres scaling the side of the mountain but the view is definitely worth it. The ruins are not much but the views from the mountain top are brilliant. We had two ten-year old boys as our guides and they did a great job pointing out Mt Antasoira (and that’s 3,013 metres tall - the highest peak in Eritrea.) As we scaled the mountainside, having a bit of difficulty but with the boys bouncing from rock ledge to rock ledge, we passed several Saho people, on their way to the market in Adikeih. They were not only scaling the side of the mountain, but doing it with bags, goats and donkeys – truly incredible. Also, when we were looking around the ruins, the ground echoed as some parts of the ground here are hollow – a very weird sensation.

Last weekend I visited somewhere rather different. Lying at sea level, Massawa is absolutely boiling. It is winter at the moment but it was still roasting in the shade. It was great after the chilly evenings here in the highlands. A group of us visited for the weekend. The journey is a hot stuffy bus ride following an impressive road steeply winding its way down the mountain. There is a steam train that runs alongside the road but only on Sundays if there are enough passengers and only as far as necessary usually. Massawa is beautiful; the old town is like stepping into a scene from the Arabian nights and we visited the best fish restaurant in Eritrea called Salen. You choose your fish then go into the kitchen to watch the chef cut it open, gut it and fill the inside with burberry. The fish is then lowered into a traditional oven on a long iron pole. The fish are placed around the outside of the cylindrical oven which is heated by the burning log in the middle. We bought five fish and served them, eating some and then passing the plates around – wonderful. On Saturday we went to the beach and swam in the lovely warm sea, floating easily due to the high levels of salt. On Sunday we hired a boat out to Green Island. The island is tiny – half is covered with a bird sanctuary, and the other half a thin strip of sand complete with beach huts which have certainly seen better days. There is a strange ruin here which looks like some kind of church or mosque and is made out of coral bricks. There are also ruins reduced to foundations, most of which are made up of thousands of beautiful shells. The shells on the island are amazing – apparently a reminder of the time when shellfish were caught and used in perfume (I am not convinced but that is what the fisherman said!)

Work has finally started to pick up. I was beginning to wonder what exactly I was doing here! I am working on a few workshops at the moment. Sami and I are running mini school-based workshops about games and pronunciation techniques this week and then Monday is a big cluster workshop about phonics. Hopefully it will go well as the teachers need a lot of support in this area. I am also currently rewriting the Grade-One Teachers Guide for teachers in our sub-zoba. Often Grade-One teachers have the least English but their book is the worst of all in terms of support and guidance. Lessons here last 40 minutes but one of the lessons I rewrote today had timings that added to just 23 minutes – not very helpful in a room of 80 children!

I can hardly believe that it’s nearly Christmas. At the moment the plan is to go to Asmara on Christmas Eve. Christmas is only a one day holiday here but I’ve asked for a bit longer and it seems to be OK. We are having a Christmas party at the programme office on Christmas Eve complete with Secret Santa. On Christmas day itself, many of us are going to a nice Italian restaurant in the town. Unfortunately it will be pasta and stuff as roast is virtually unheard of here. After Christmas, Rachel is coming out – I can hardly wait. It will be amusing to watch her cope without running water and stuff. We are planning to go back down to Massawa and hopefully sleep out on Green Island. There are no buildings so we will be under the stars (and our mosquito nets) and will bring in the New Year with a swim in the Red Sea at dawn. “VSO - Sharing skills – Changing lives" !

I have finally performed my first coffee ceremonies, roasting and grinding the beans myself and following the traditional procedures. The first was yesterday, when I was supported by Sami’s wife. It went well and the coffee tasted pretty good. Today I had a second go, this time all on my own. It seemed to go fine even if the coffee didn’t taste quite as good as yesterday – still no one has died yet!

I’m going to finish now. I am sending photo CDs home with Rachel so there should be lots of new exciting photos up by mid January. Until then, have a great Christmas and New Year.

Liz XX

An Update from me!

Life in Eritrea has been quite a rollercoaster so far! Had a few tough weeks in October - finding the lack of a friendship group in Segeneiti pretty tough - but I spent a week at an elementary school last week, teaching grade two, and I made a few friends there (teachers not kids!) so hopefully things will start to pick up. Have invited Feven (the grade two teacher) to dinner this week with her mum. She is in her first year of teaching. I went to her house last week for coffee which was really good. (More about coffee ceremonies later!) I was thinking of doing her a pasta and sauce type thing but have, this weekend, found out how to make baked beans so am now considering making her fried eggs, eggy bread, beans and fried potatoes with garlic - lovely! We did a great British Fry up this weekend - even had sausages, though we suspect they had been frozen at Senay supermarket for at least a decade! Senay supermarket is a shop in Asmara - supermarket is a little (a lot) misleading but you can get some British chocolate and toiletries if you're prepared to pay extortionate prices!

Coffee in Eritrea is like nowhere else. It's amazing, it’s everywhere and it’s a real social event. It’s so important it even has its own ceremony! You can buy macchiato, cappuccino etc. in Coffee shops and sit and watch the world go by; but the best type of coffee is the stuff you get at coffee ceremonies. During a coffee ceremony (performed by women, usually) the beans are roasted in a small pan over a charcoal stove - everyone wafts the fumes towards themselves and says "t'ohm". The beans are poured onto a woven mat to be checked. Bad beans which are still light in colour are discarded. Then the beans are ground, usually in a small pot using a huge metal bar. The beans are placed in a special jug type of thing called a ‘jebena’. Water is added and it’s placed on the charcoal stove. The coffee boils up and is poured back and forth between a cup and the jebena as necessary to stop it from boiling over. Once the coffee is cooked it is taken off the stove to cool a little. Loads of sugar is placed in small cups called ‘fingels’ and then the coffee is added. The cups are passed out and it is customary to compliment the lady on her coffee after a few sips. There are usually three rounds in a ceremony, although sometimes a forth (blessing) round may be given, and sometimes (I have heard) there can be as many as six rounds. The first round usually consists of two cups of coffee. The coffee is delicious - fresh and sweet (I like sugar in my coffee but even those who didn't when they arrived do now!!) Coffee is accompanied by salted or plain popcorn or bread. Sometimes the bread is ‘injera’,sometimes bread rolls, whatever people have. Ceremonies take about two hours and certainly never less than one and a half! They are lovely. I'm collecting a coffee set. When I come home I will try to re-enact the whole thing for you guys to experience. I think coffee ceremonies will be something I'll definitely miss when I leave - that and the weather!

I enjoyed my first Eritrean birthday a few weeks ago - thanks to everyone for the emails and stuff! A big group of us met up in Asmara. We had pizza and rather too much Asmara rum on the Friday night, ending up dancing in a bar at midnight - not really in keeping with traditional Eritrean female behaviour but lots of fun! Saturday was quiet for those of us suffering and the others had lunch somewhere. In the evening we went to the Roof Garden - probably the most expensive and posh restaurant in Eritrea. It serves Chinese and Indian and is based on the top floor of an office building at one of the highest points in Asmara. The views would be amazing if everywhere else had good lighting! They do a mean chilli lamb so I had that and noodles - yummy! Sunday was my birthday. Had yoghurt and honey for breakfast at Modern fast food which is friendly and cheap and has the best yoghurt in Asmara. (You have to get there early cos it usually runs out by lunchtime.) In the afternoon most people headed back to their placement towns but a few of us went out to the Escarpment. The Escarpment is at the edge of the city where the mountain kind of drops off and the views are great. You can see the steam train as it weaves around the mountains and through tunnels. It runs from Asmara to Massawa on a Sunday if there are enough people. A few weeks ago we met some train-spotters who had come all the way here just to ride it!

Monday was a meeting of volunteers based in my region. It was great to chat about the placements so far and ask for suggestions about how to organise my work. I pretty much make up my job as far as I can tell! Work has been difficult. VSO have changed the way volunteers work here. I'll try not to bore you all with the 'ins and outs' but basically the programme office is trying to make our work more sustainable in order that Eritreans are able to carry on our role when we leave – so rather than working on my own dashing about on my motorbike, running workshops etc, I'm meant to be working very closely with the supervisors (similar to county advisors), supporting them and helping them to observe effectively and identify training needs. The problem is that the supervisors in my area had already planned their semester work before I arrived and are not that keen for me to tag along every day. I've been out with one of them once. I was getting pretty down but things have improved. The PRC (Pedagogical Resource Centre) coordinator is keen to work with me and we have similar ideas about how to support teaching in the area so I think I'm going to work with him a bit more. Enough about that!

Just coming to the end of another great break in Asmara. Went out to the War Cemetery today which was moving, as you would expect. But one thing I noticed was that the graves were segregated. The British, Australian, Canadian, Senior South African graves were in three areas. And then there was a separate area for the East Africans and another for the Sudanese. I guess its not surprising considering the times but ... Anyway, we then bought tickets to go through to Asmara zoo. We kind of knew it wasn't going to be pretty and we weren't wrong there. The cages were tiny and the animals looked like they were going insane with boredom. It was really quite upsetting. British zoos have come a long way if this was the starting point. There were foxes, birds of prey, baboons, monkeys, ostrich, tortoises and hyenas. The tortoises actually had a bigger enclosure than the hyenas - not right if you ask me. It felt weird to be there but I guess it has reinforced my opinions of poorly kept zoos.

On the way back we decided to deviate from the path and have an explore. We came out near a checkpoint and wandered along the fencing, stumbling across a burial site. There were painted white rocks and flags. We went closer and in doing so found bits of fresh carcass where there had clearly been a huge slaughter. A small shack nearby had a moon and star and I guessed it was probably some sort of mosque. As we went to investigate we met an Eritrean man who told us that it was indeed a mosque and that a few days earlier there had been a big ceremony in which cattle were slaughtered and food made available for the poor Muslims that pray at the mosque. It had been funded by an anonymous Muslim and happened every two weeks in order that the poor people could eat. There were huge vats laid out in the sun drying. They were about a metre in diameter. The burial ground, he told us, was for the elders of the mosque and was very important to the people who pray there. They keep it clean and burn incense there in honour of the Hajj. The whole experience of being there was one of the best since I've been in Eritrea. I felt really privileged to have stumbled across such a wonderful community, and once again an open and friendly Eritrean who is only too happy to explain his/her customs.

Queuing for the Bus!

I am on the bus waiting to leave for Asmara. The queuing system is brilliant. It begins at an unmarked point in the dusty open space that is the bus terminal. People do not stand in the queue, they place an object to represent their place. It may be a bag, a stone, an empty bottle, anything. Everyone respects this order and knows exactly which object represents which person! Today I was a pointed rock! When the bus arrives the driver comes to give out tokens. I ended up being bumped up the queue and put in the front seat. They really will not take no for an answer. So, lucky me, I get a great view and loads of space! As I sit here I can see families selling belés (prickly pears) all in a row. Another queue waiting for the bus going the other way to Adi Keyh. Also some kids sitting on carts with donkeys taking flour and beans etc. back and forth. A camel just walked past heavily laden with God knows what. Yesterday I saw a camel taking a break in the petrol station – hilarious?

[Extract from letter received early October]