10 Days until Christmas

It's hard to believe that if we were back home now we'd be wearing coats and tuques, rushing around looking for Christmas presents, preparing for Christmas concerts.... here we really are isolated from all that stuff. Thanks to all of you who have written and let us know what is going on back there.

First a note to let you all know that we are safe and sound. We have not been asked to leave the country, only some of the UN troups have and I think that is being renegotiated. I may be totally ignorant but I am very hopeful that there will be no need to leave here. There have been ongoing rumours of war for the past few years and nothing has come of it. If something does happen we are a long way from the disputed zone and a two hour drive from the capital city. So please don't worry.

What I am worried about is some of my students. Many young girls (and boys) were picked up last week for not showing up at the military training centre as they had been requested to do. Some of them are now in prison. This is not because of a possible war, all students must do a year and a half of service when they finish grade 11 unless they get married. It is especially difficult on muslim girls whose regious needs for privacy are not always met. It's difficult for all youth and I worry about them.

On to brighter things. Christmas is coming soon. It will be simple for us, no huge presents for the kids, something small and simple as you can't get the fancy stuff that kids usually want in Canada and our kids are happy with volleyballs and soccer jerseys! We'll be spending the weekend with friends in their home at an agricultural college a bit outside of Keren. It's a beautiful site, with lots of fruit trees, birds, and peace and quiet (no mosque to wake us up at 5 in the morning!). It will be a bunch of VSO volunteers and our friend Saba's family. We're looking forward to it. There will be mashed potatoes but no turkey!!! We're contributing cookies, which a student of mine will show us how to make. They will be baked in one of the local bakeries as our only oven is a cooking pot on our kerosene stove.

Eritrean Christmas is celebrated on January 5th. We've been invited to some Eritrean friends for this, probably for injera! We went there last Sunday for coffee ceremony and ended up being served a huge meal and watching a couple movies on their satelite tv. The mom couldn't speak any English and I couldn't understand her Tigrinya, but her daughter translated for her. At one point she asked me how old I was and told me that I looked much older his isn['t the first case I've encountered of painfully blunt comments being made. A friend of ours from England is often told by her friends that she needs to take care of her dandruff problems.

Kim wants me to tell you that the famous soccer player, Zenideen Zedane may be coming to Eritrea in the spring to promote soccer. Lukas and Simon have an "in" and may get to meet him. If you don't know what I'm talking about you're not alone, but I guess this is a big deal for soccer fans. The boys and Kim go weekly to the local cinema to watch soccer games. The Eritrean fans get right into it. Maya has begun playing volleyball with some friends after school. This is about her only exercise as girls don't do many sports here, so she'll have her work cut out for her getting back into shape for skiing when we return to Canada!

Last Friday we visited a friend in Hagaz, in the western lowlands. She works at an agricultural college there. It's got loads of money from the Italian Catholic Church, so it was very lush and beautiful, a big contrast to the dry hills around it. It was also very hot and we spent much of our time vegging out at Rachel's place. She lives in a compound owned by a lovely Belen family (one of the smaller ethnic groups). There were 4 generations of women there, as well as two adorable baby goats. They offered us coffee ceremony and we spent the afternoon chatting (if you can call it that, with my broken Tigrinya). It was a lovely day and of course, Lukas fell in love with it and wants to move there! Kim liked it too as the the college there makes wine and we took home a bottle with us, along with a kilo of cheese, which is impossible to get elsewhere.

Kelly entertained us again this week, this time with her dancing. Saba and Yasmin sang a song, and she started dancing away with her hands in the air, looking a bit like Celine Dion doing a cheesy balad (no offence to C. Dion fans). It cracked us all up and cheered me up after a tough day of battling students trying to cheat on my test. Actually, the cheating was much reduced from last time as Kim helped me monitor it and the girls are realizing I won't put up with it, but I still gave a few "zeros" out to a girl who threw a paper to her friend and another who had the bottom of her test paper ripped off obviously it was given to a friend. Girls are very helpful here during tests!

Last Sunday, Saba and I spent two hours visiting every possible bakery trying to find bread. Saba is very beautiful and persuasive. She is also well known as she used to have a poetry program on EriTV. She is usually able to convince people to give her what she needs. But this time, we weren't very lucky. We finally found a bakery though that is willing to hold bread for us. Kim picks it up at 6 in the evening when the crowds have left. So for a while at least our bread problems are solved. This is good, as rice has gone up to over $2 American per kilo, which is huge on our salaries.

I guess that's about it. Oh, I had a lively discussion yesterday with my grade 12 boys about arranged marriages. This is how it is mainly done here, so I asked what happens if the girl isn't happy (as often the girl is much younger than the man). I was told that children accept their parents' decisions as they know what is best for them, but from the looks on some of my students' faces, I'm not so sure they all believed this! I was asked whether Kim and I married for love or whether it was an arranged marriage. Kim said he'd tell them on Monday that my parents had to give him 50 camels to take me!

Take care. Have a happy holiday season!

Barb