The beles are in town, in more ways than one.

Beles is the Eritrean (Tygrinya I think but I’m not sure) word for prickly pears. They come into season for a short time in the summer and have suddenly appeared in piles on every street corner. Often on all 4 corners of an intersection. You can’t move for beles. For 50 santeems your beles will have the top chopped off and be peeled and held out to you, often by a small child, and it’s absolutely delicious. Sweet, juicy and just what you need on a hot walk back to work.

However beles is also the word Eritreans use for members of the diaspora, returning for a visit to friends and family for a short time in the summer. I can’t vouch for them being sweet and juicy but there does seem to be a lot of them and I guess they will only be around for a short time. Judging by their accents a lot have come from North America. They bring a much-needed source of revenue into the country.

Although as one of my Eritrean colleagues remarked yesterday, the money is no good if there’s no availability and there certainly isn’t much availability here. She’s recently returned from her first visit to England (working) and was recounting her amazement at the abundance of foodstuffs available. And we’re not talking luxury items here, she has two very young children and talked about wishing she could have set up a pipe line to send milk and bread back to them. Apart from the milk and bread shortage, there now seems to be an acute shortage of cooking fuel, there’s no gas, kerosene or charcoal to be had. Our gas cylinder will run out this weekend and that will mean no more cooking until supplies become available. Rumour has it that supplies are being stockpiled but who knows.

C