Fuel and Food Again

We try to be positive about life in Eritrea and, indeed, there are many positives. The ICT training which I am in the middle of (this time it's for school directors) throws up positives all the time and is much appreciated by our students. For myself, I am finding I am having to go back to school myself in order to have the information at my finger tips so that I can field the barrage of questions. For example I have spent today (Sunday) trying to become much more familiar with the Microsoft Access database in order to be able to take a group through a simple design for a school database next week - it's one thing to be able to use software but quite another to be able to TEACH how to use it.

However there are negatives, and they are related to our recurrent themes of recent weeks. The few volunteers left in the country just now have increasing concerns about what the new volunteers due in September will find. Will they be able to cook for example? Rural volunteers all use kerosene stoves and there is very little kerosene around just now, it's rationed and you have to have a ration card and be prepared to queue for a long time once you know that there has been a delivery - not ideal for someone who is new in the country to face in their first days here.

Food items seem to dwindle constantly, bani (staple brown bread rolls) are in shorter supply than anyone can remember and, in rural areas, the variety of available food is really small. It is noticeable that rural volunteers lose weight in Eritrea and the teachers and school directors who come in for ICT training from the lowlands are almost all very thin - I'm not sure if it's malnutrition just yet but it hasn't been one of the great rainy seasons and Eritrea lives on the edge in terms of food production, if the crops fail ...

P

Due to worries about the incoming volunteers, existing volunteers have been asking the local VSO staff about the shortages, particularly the lack of cooking fuel, and their effect on the programme in Eritrea and we've not really received any reassurances (although to be fair there is very little that they can say). We're seriously starting to wonder if VSO will be able to continue here if at least the fuel shortages cannot be alleviated.

P and C