We're Back!

Well we’re back home after a wonderful vacation. We arrived Friday afternoon and Kim and I started teaching on Saturday, with no time to ease back into things. But we had a really good time and are all rested and refreshed and hopefully ready to start our final term of teaching.

The big highlight of our holiday was our trip to the Dahluk Islands. It was really incredible and though we had to dip into our savings to go, it was well worth it. We went there with our VSO friends Phil, Fiona and Charlie as well as Charlie’s parents and brother who were visiting. The island we visited was about a two hour boat ride through choppy waters from Massawa. I spent most of the time looking at the horizon and trying not to think about how sick I felt, but I survived the journey as did everyone else. Along the way, the crew caught a fish that they cooked us up for lunch and later they caught another one for dinner. They also served us tea and coffee and set up chairs and tents with mattresses on the beach for us, and made us a fire at night. So much for roughing it on a deserted island!

The island was beautiful. I wonder if there is anywhere else in the world that has such beautiful snorkling but that has been almost untouched by tourists. For once we appreciated Eritrea’s remoteness. The coral started at about a meter from shore and the variety of coral and fish was incredible. Luckily, Charlie’s family had snorkeling equipment and we all made good use of it, especially Simon, who spent most of the second morning in the water. We all managed to see a few scary looking stingrays and a puffer fish with a face like a gangster as well as a dead dolphin, which had washed up on the rocks. Simon and Charlie’s mom also saw an octopus. Luckily there were no sharks in sight and only tiny jellyfish. Aside from snorkeling we spent lots of time exploring the island, eating, and singing around the campfire. It was great. We didn’t see any dugongs (sea cows, very rare in that area), but on our way back, a group of dolphins followed along beside the boat for a while which was really special.

Before the trip we spent a few days in Massawa. It’s the rainy season there now and the coolest time of year so we managed to sleep with just our friend’s ceiling fan on at night. The water at the beach there was much cooler than it was last July when we visited and it was nice being able to wander the streets of Massawa without passing out from heat exhaustion. Massawa’s second island is very interesting to visit. The influence of the Arab settlers is seen in the narrow street ways and old buildings, but most of it is in a state of ruin as it was bombed during the war for independence. Incredibly, people still manage to live in homes that look like they are about to crumble into a million pieces. A lot of mangy looking cats also live there. We saw some pretty mean looking ones, which luckily the children didn’t want to adopt.

The trip to and from Massawa starting in Asmara is breathtaking. There is a very quick, curvy descent with stunning views over misty hills. It was the greenest we’d ever seen this area because of all the rain that’s fallen there lately and there was plenty of corn growing in the fields along the road. Half way down, we passed a bunch of cyclists completing probably one of the hardest stretches of a race around the country. With the heat and the steep climb it couldn’t have been easy. On our way back we also saw several baboons right beside the road, which was pretty thrilling for us. Eritrea doesn’t have many of the animals that Africa is famous for, so it’s nice when you see some.

Maya and I began our travels earlier than the boys and Kim. Before our trip to Massawa we spent a few days in Asmara getting my chipped tooth replaced. This time, it was done quickly and hopefully it will last until I get home. Then we headed off to the village of Zigib, one half hour outside of Asmara to visit some friends. This was the family whose daughter’s wedding I had so unsuccessfully attended a few months before and I was anxious to see them. It turned out that the grandmother was on our minibus and she greeted us warmly when she discovered we were friends of the family, then proceeded to tell our life stories to all the other curious passengers on the bus. She then led us at a frantic pace down the 2 km path to the village, carrying a huge sack on her back, which she refused to give up. We struggled to keep up with this 87 year old as she bounced along at an incredible pace! Once we’d arrived at our friends’ home, we were fed a huge taita breakfast and spent several hours visiting with them. Zigib is a beautiful, small town in the highlands. It has no electricity, though the residents have all chipped in several hundred Nakfa to come up with enough money to help pay for power lines to be installed there. We were taken for a short walk to the local water pump, which everyone uses since there is no running water. Everyone pays a small amount each time they use the pump and this is used to repair it if it breaks down.

The next day we took a longer, bumpier bus ride to the village of Makherka, where a VSO volunteer is working. It was incredibly beautiful there. The town is filled with huge candelabra cactii. Our friend’s home was set on a hill and had an incredible view over the surrounding mountainous countryside. We went on a walk to a small village nearby, passing a huge tree, which our friend explained was the site of town meetings because it offered enough shade for all of the town’s residents. We visited some neighbours there who live in a traditional hudmo, a house made of clay covered with a roof made of several layers of branches. It’s now illegal to make these homes because of the lack of trees in Eritrea, but they are really beautiful and very cool (temperature wise, that is). The beds are made out of the same clay as the walls, and the walls have spaces inside for storing grains. The mogogo (taita oven) is inside the house (in other places people cook outside) and a hole in the ceiling lets the smoke out. It was our first time in a hudmo and we found it really interesting. We finished our day by watching the sunset over the hills, perched on some rocks on the edge of town. It was a really nice visit.

So that’s about it for our holidays. Now we’re struggling to get the kids back on track with their home schooling and ourselves back into the teaching routine.

Guess that’s all for now.

Take care,

Barb