I love you teacher!

Where else but in Eritrea do grade 7, 8, and 9 girls tell you “I love you” and plant three kisses on your cheek? Despite their chatty ways in the classroom the children here are really sweet.

School officially started on Saturday but it took a few more days for enough girls to show up to begin teaching. There are now only one third of my students present, but at least it’s giving me a chance to learn their names slowly and get slowly back into teaching. Kim’s boys are a bit less eager to get started. He had one student in grade 8 today.

The kids have had an equally slow start up but their school started a week earlier. We let them stay home the first week since only one or two of their teachers were there but now they’re back to regular attendance.

It’s been good to start up slowly because it’s been a bit demanding around here. Our good friend Saba was sick in the hospital so we became parents of her two girls. Yasmin, 9, was easy enough and even helped out quite a bit. But Kelly, her toddler was a bit more demanding. I learned what it was like to have to hand wash diapers and it definitely wasn’t one of my favourite activities. But despite her diapers, it was great having her around. Kelly is now talking up a storm and continues to amuse us with her comments. Saba got home from the hospital several days ago and is slowly getting her energy back so life is returning to normal.

It’s great to be back in Keren. After a few weeks of scrambling for the permits we need to get by here: a work permit, a residence permit and a travel permit (Kim’s wondering when we’ll be needing a bathroom permit), we were happy to leave Asmara and get to our own home. Keren and the surrounding countryside are really beautiful now. After a few months of heavy rains everything is green, including tons of crops, which hopefully means that people will have plenty to eat this year. The only complaint is that it’s a touch on the hot side. But that’s easily solved by taking a nice afternoon siesta.

We arrived with the beginning of the month of Ramadan. This means that most Muslims over 15 aren’t eating or drinking between sunrise and sunset - no easy feat with these stifling temperatures. I feel like I’m constantly drinking to stop feeling dehydrated, so I’m in constant admiration of the strength of will of these people. A great part of Ramadan is that the streets of the market are filled with people selling treats like falafel, samosas, and various sweet fried bready things. We’ve been having some great afternoon teas lately because of this. In a few weeks it will be Eid al Fetr, which means we’ll have the week off school and hopefully invitations for meals at friends’ and students’ homes.

Sunday we showed up at some friends (non-Muslim) who had invited us for lunch. There were lots of people there when we arrived and as we were served and started eating someone approached with a video camera and started filming us. This felt slightly odd but we soon discovered that it was their nephew’s 1st birthday celebration. (As with many things in Eritrea, it’s best not to try to know or understand what is going on right away, with time things become clear.) We had a great meal of taita, zigne (meat in a spicy tomato sauce), aliche (curried potato and cabbage) and rice. Then we watched as embasha (a big round biscuit) was broken over the back of the boy, to the ululations of all the women present. The baby kept bursting into tears but everyone else had a good time.

A few days prior to that I had an interesting experience going to a funeral. The grandmother of this same family had died just before we arrived and one of her granddaughters invited me to the funeral. We spent about an hour getting ready to leave while first she, then another friend got ready. Her friend had had a bit of sua (Eritrean beer made from old taita…don’t ask) and was slow getting going. She really wanted us to have some taita at her house before leaving, but it was getting late so I convinced her I wasn’t hungry. On our second bus ride, I yelled for the bus to stop as I realised it was going past a checkpoint. Though they were letting me through they would probably stop me coming back. I had no identification and no money, so I could have been trapped between this and the Asmara checkpoint. Luckily, my friend talked the man into letting me through and we walked two blocks to the home where the funeral was to be held. It was now about 2 hours later than when we had started out. As we arrived, my friend’s sister and others were getting into a minibus. We’d missed the funeral. “Where shall we go?” my friend asked. “Let’s go home.” No big deal for them, that was just the way things go. I was a bit relieved. We’d spent our last week in Asmara listening to the goings on of a funeral for a neighbour. There was constant group wailing for the first day, and on and off individual wailing for the next several days. Most of the wailing was obviously false, but in Eritrea, you must cry and cry well or people will think badly of you. I didn’t feel up to wailing for this woman whom I’d never met and was relieved not to have to.

The other event since we’ve been back in Keren was Cross day, celebrating the day when part of Jesus’s cross was discovered in Ethiopia and spontaneously burst into flames. Last year we watched the recreation of this event as a giant cross was burned in Asmara. This year, we slept past the cross burning in Keren, but got to participate in some of the children’s activities the night before. Several small groups of children were building small fires in our lane and they invited us to dance around the fire with them and watch them swinging burning sticks around their heads. We were also invited to step over the flames, signifying stepping into the new year (Orthodox New Year had begun the week before.) There were goats and sheep slaughtered as with the New Year’s celebration the week before but we had a simpler celebration with Saba, eating some of the roasted corn freshly picked from her garden, which is another Cross Day tradition.

On the football front - I, Kimbalito, got to play with some superleague players here last night. Our school principal likes to play, so he and some friends get together from time to time to play under the yard lights at our school. Last night the regional Fifa representative was in attendance as well as many other teachers wanting to watch some late night football and have a good laugh at some of the football antics. Football is not an easy sport to excel at at the best of times, but in the near dark it becomes even more challenging. At least, that's my excuse for my lack of skill exhibited just when I needed to impress. And even though our team won the cup it was not do to my attacking ability. I am not expecting an invitation to play with a super league team in the near or far future. Maybe in my next life; inshala (if God wills it - a common Arabic expression). This would take a miracle! At any rate, the guava juice and a much appreciated and very rare Coke made everything worth it. Soft drinks are once again not being produced in Eritrea, but our school has a few cases in stock. It will not last long, especially after Ramadan!



Guess that’s all for now.

Take care,

Barb and Kimbalito