Happy Eid al Hadj

Hello from Eritrea. We are all fat and well rested half way through our week off of sleeping and feasting to celebrate Eritrean Christmas and Eid al Hadj.

Eritrean Christmas began with a meal at Lukas's buddy house. He has a lovely family with 6 kids. Mom and dad met as freedom fighters during the liberation war and their first daughter was born on the front. We were fed a big meal of taita and accompanying sauces, followed by a coffee ceremony. The dad talked a lot about his history as a fighter while mom spent most of her time preparing and serving the meal. Our experience as guests in Eritrean homes is that usually the women don't sit and eat with us. The dad and Lukas's friend joined us for the meal. It's a bit uncomfortable for us but is the custom here, so I guess we'll get used to it as they will get used to our way when they eat in our home. I probably shock a few of our guest when I sit down and eat with them!

After this meal, we headed off for a second one at our friend Dehab's house. This time, we picked up our VSO friend Phil along the way and Saba and her family joined us too, so I didn't feel bad about barely eating anything there as I was already stuffed.

That weekend, we also had two other VSOers staying with us, Kashka, from Poland and Dang, from the Philipines. They are two very lovely ladies who were very welcome guests! Our VSO friend Morven, who also lives in Keren came over with her computer on Christmas night and we spent an evening watching Bread and Roses. She left the computer with us for a few days so we overdosed on her DVD's and I realized how lucky we are not to have a computer with us all the time or we'd turn into DVD zombies! The new Harry Potter DVD will apparently be sent over as soon as it is available and that is the next big, much awaited movie event in Keren!

We had a day's rest on Monday then started feasting all over again on Tuesday as it was Eid al Hadj, celebrating Mohamed's pilgrimage to Mecca. We were invited to our principal's home where we were served the biggest feast we've had yet: several dishes made from lamb, along with a few veggie dishes and of course, taita. Our boss always has coke to serve as well, so the boys were in seventh heaven! We had a nice time pigging out and watching satelite tv. We also finally got to see our bosses two month old baby girl. We met his wife for a couple of minutes as well.

The boys headed home after this and Maya and I headed off to my student's home for some coffee and sweets and a bit more taita. This is the student who was expelled, and I was happy to hear that she was accepted into another islamic school. I was really worried about what would happen to here and am very happy that things have worked out, though I'll miss her in my class.

The next day (Eid is celebrated for three days) we went to a colleague's home for yet another meat filled meal. We got to practice a bit of Arabic with our collegue's dad, who only speaks a few words of English. He told us a bit about his father's history as chief of a Tigre clan when the Italians and British were in power here. Unfortunately our conversation was fairly limited, but it was inspiring to find someone to practice Arabic with and inspired us to keep at our studies.

Yesterday, Kim and I went to Asmara for the day to run a few errands. It was a nice visit but a long trip when you have to go and come back on the same day, especially the ride back, which involved squishing into a minute bus and paying double the fare which the drivers are able to charge because people are desperate to get one of the few available spots on a bus home. We had a few nice cappucinos and cakes in Asmara's nice cafes, a pizza lunch (not available here in Keren), and Kim got to visit his favourite bar for a big draft beer. It was a bit of a rush though. Visiting (unsuccessfully) a dentist for my chipped tooth (I'll see him when we have a few days to spend in Asmara), doing paperwork at VSO, and picking up our rations took up most of our time.
Foreign residents get monthly rations of oil, sugar, lentils, spaghetti, tea and coffee at a government run outlet for much cheaper prices than in the regular stores. We also picked up our travel permits from VSO, so now it is confirmed that we can visit Asab in two weeks for our semester break. Asab is a town on the coast in southern Eritrea. It supposedly has beautiful beaches with great snorkling. It's a two day bus ride down through the hot dessert, but then we'll splurge on a plane ride back.

Now we have another weekend off with the kids as our school is doing Koran exams this weekend, before we return to work on Monday to give our exams. They are very easy so hopefully everyone will pass! We'll try to tackle the famous mountain tomorrow or Sunday morning.

Oh, before I go, I'll tell you about a very fun coffee ceremony I had last week with the women teachers. They are really nce women and we had a great time talking about possible husbands for the unmarried ones. I matched them up with some of the male teachers but they weren't too thrilled with my suggestions!! (They're all very young and beautiful). We had a few laughs as we couldn't find the mugediboon (the morter and pestle to grind the coffee) until well into the coffee ceremony. It had been stowed away inside the charcoal burner on which the coffee is prepared, and was discovered when it caught on fire. I've always been told how serious and perfect everything has to be during this ceremony and it it was nice to see a more relaxed one. Now I know I can invite them to my home and gets things totally wrong and it won't matter!

Well, I'd better go now. Take care,

Barb