Eritrea Frustrations (Part 1)

One of the problems with living in what amounts to a Military State is that foreigners have to obtain permission in the form of travel permits in order to go anywhere of any distance from Asmara. It's quite strange that volunteers living away from Asmara (who are only here to try and help, after all) have to apply to be able to travel between the capital and their placements.

For us it's not just a matter of "let's just pop down to Massawa this weekend" (lack of a bus notwithstanding) such excursions have to be planned at least 10 days in advance. Furthermore there are desinations in the country which are, arbitrarily it seems to us, out of bounds.

We thought it would be OK at first but it's starting to feel confining now and it's one of the things that we would change about Eritrea if we could.

The travel permit situation has got worse since we've been here I think. When we arrived it was "up to 10 days" to get one, now it's definitely "10 days". Volunteers working outside Asmara used to be allowed 6 months permits, this has now been reduced to 2 or 3 months which means they have to come back into Asmara to get new ones. Without a valid permit army checkpoints will make you get off the bus and not allow you to finish your journey. Thid could leave you stranded in the middle of the country, something which happened to Richard. He had a 3 month permit but unfortunately the stamp on the permit had changed over the three months. A lot of the checkpoint soldiers cannot read and so only have the stamp to go on and if that doesn't look right you're off the bus (no arguing with an AK47.) Luckily for him a VSO vehicle was coming along the road and was able to pick him up and take him back to Asmara. It is a reminder (if you needed one) of the amount of state control.

C and P