Sunday

Sunday morning in Asmara dawns very chilly as usual, but a completely blue sky and sun means the temperature rises pretty quickly. A bit of a lie-in this morning, seems to be the only day we get one. I spend half an hour preparing my writing lesson with Henok while Phil does some revision for his Tigrigna lesson. Both of the lessons are an hour and a half from 11 and then we’re free for the day.

We decided to go for a walk today and follow the old railway line through Asmara. The railway was built by the Italians and originally ran from Massawa on the coast up to Asmara, looped around the city and then went to Keren. The only remaining functioning track is between Asmara and Nefasit (about 10k down the escarpment). We did the steam train journey there and back six months ago and a memorable journey it was. Today’s outing was a bit more mundane as very little of the track remains, in fact we only saw a couple of feet of it where it broke the surface of the dirt track, or in one case the sealed road. The most common use of the old track bed seems to be as a thoroughfare or makeshift football pitch. We almost managed to follow the track to the station but then were stopped by a stone wall which the track had no problem disappearing under so decided to call it a day and go for a cappuccino. The steam train coming up from the coast and winding its way around the art deco buildings of Asmara must have been a wonderful sight although unfortunately probably only the Italians rode the train. I don’t know this for a fact but as only the Italians were allowed to use the main Asmara roads (the Eritreans had to use the back roads) it is probably true. Another method employed by the Italians to keep the locals in their place was that Eritreans were not allowed to study beyond Grade 4 in school. The only positive thing that the British ever did for Eritrea was to include Eritreans in the full educational system.

It’s Christmas in less than a fortnight, I keep forgetting and then get reminded by a decorated Christmas tree in a shop window. It’s a strange thing to see as the Coptic Christmas, which is celebrated here is not until January 7th. The 25th December is a holiday as well so we sort of get a double Christmas.

C

A Busy Weekend.

It was a three day weekend due to the Muslim holiday of Eid and a very sociable one for us what with an invitation to Dawit's place for coffee on Saturday, a final farewell to John the outgoing VSO Country Director, my Sunday Tigrinya lesson, Caroline's Sunday English lesson (in different directions, of course), the arrival of a 14-year old boy on our doorstep with a new-year present and the arrival of Cliona for her last few days in Eritrea with her Hagaz (Anseba) days now behind her and South America on the horizon.

Dawit is our polio-victim friend (on whose behalf we're collecting for a motorised tricycle - we still need more money by the way!) and we went to his house on Saturday afternoon. Really we knew that we wouldn't get away with just a coffee it's not the Eritrean way but, in denial, we ate a Massawa Fast Food lunch shortly before going. Of course it wasn't long before we realised lunch was a big mistake as fresh papaya juice, injera, two types of goat stew, fried potatoes were laid before us, followed by coffee and popcorn - all delicious and we couldn't really do it justice.

So this is one of the problems (this time it's a good problem) with Eritrea - house guests are treated like royalty no matter how poor the family (a goat was probably killed on Saturday in our honour) and so feelings of guilt creep in once more. However, I was told by another Eritrean friend not to feel guilty about taking food and that in fact one must accept what has been prepared and be enthusiastic about it (this latter is not difficult).

Due to friends and family being around as well we learned a little more about Dawit's history and the total lack of funding available for any kind of help. He was unable to attend school after the age of 14 due to lack of facilities. He is, indeed, not eligible for any support from the government or any other funding body.

From the rest of the discussions it is apparent that this is going to become a full-blown Dawit-mobility project and that we will be involved in the purchase of whichever vehicle is selected. I am starting to feel that we may get out of our depth insofar as Dawit should possibly be assessed for ability to be able to handle a motorised vehicle in the first place and should definitely receive training so the whole thing could take a lot of time. Still that means more possibility to gather more contributions ... you'll be hearing more about this we're not going to let it drop!

P

We had to leave in time to meet up John at Cinema Roma (lovely old Art Deo cinema built by the Italians) for the football and then he was caught up in meetings and couldn't make it so I ended up watching a very boring game of football (Fulham and someone else) with Phil. Slept a bit too. Saw John later and he gave us a lump of Waitrose strong Cheddar cheese. Delicious, salivating at the thought of it now. He's off to work in South Africa for a few months and we, in Eritrea await the arrival of a new Country Director.

Re my Sunday English lesson - its academic writing to a young colleague of Phil's who's just starting a distance uni. course. It gives me someting to do while Phil has his Tigrigna lesson.

C

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

Mai, Mai everywhere

Eritrea is part of the Sahel, a zone of scrubby semi-desert which lies to the South of the Sahara and, despite heavy rains at certain times of year (the actual time varies depending on the zone within the country), water shortage is a constant fact of life.

Such shortage and a creaking water delivery system mean that water is never constantly available even in Asmara and, to act as a reservoir for the majority of the time when mains water is off, Asmara houses usually have large water tanks somewhere on their roofs.

Given that water is so precious you can imagine our consternation last Saturday when we came home to find it cascading onto the tiles at the side of our house. After clambering onto the roof in the dark I managed to ascertain that the ball-cock in our tank wasn't working properly and the tank was overflowing onto the roof. So, I thought, let's just shut off the supply at the stop-cock further upstream. That wasn't working at all so the flow couldn't be stopped now panic was setting in.

Back on the roof I managed to break the arm of the stop-cock completely in an effort to force it shut and in the meantime our reserve-reserve chemical-drum-tank was nearly full of overflow water collected in a bucket. Eventually I managed to stop up the leak with a rag.

What I couldn't believe was the feeling of guilt at letting so much water run away and this was compounded this weekend when the valve on the toilet cistern failed to close and we failed to notice it resulting in an empty roof tank this time. Then the tank filled to overflow again. I'm actually aching from carrying buckets and shinning up onto the roof repeatedly. Yet our water access is really easy compared to most of Eritrea where water comes from boreholes and often has to be carried home several kilometers.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that leaks and spills can turn into major events here. Now if only that plumber would actually come and do the repairs as he said he would ...

P

Solar Power in Eritrea

I read a BBC article this week which was a report on an interview given by Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life virtual world, in which he was asked what his technology dreams and predictions were. His response centred on electricity and the changes which will have to be made in moving to a more distributed model of power generation if the world is to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. This in a week where we have seen more power cuts than usual even in Asmara (we don't know if this is policy to reduce oil consumption at Eritrea's only power station but it could be).

In a way it's good to be part of a shift to Solar Power in my (minor) participation in the Rural Schools' Solar Power Project but it represents a lot of work for quite a number of people just to get a few panels out to where they are needed. The BBC article indirectly raises a lot of questions for the poorer countries in Africa, particularly those who don't have a great relationship with the world's biggest technology country, the US.

So here's the fantasy. Here, in Eritrea, there are two observations that you can make - the sun shines a lot and the country cannot afford to buy much oil on the world markets no matter what the prevailing price is. It is also true that large numbers of Eritrea's people are off the grid in any case. So wouldn't it be great if a mega-rich (fortune from technology?) philanthropist were to step in and fund the Solar Power Revolution in Eritrea? While we're at it we could introduce other technologies in a big way - Geographical Information Systems to find the optimum sites for larger installations (the intersection of maximum hours of sunshine, land unused for anything else and proximity to population centres). Internet centres and libraries throughout the country.

The reality? This region is perceived as being too unstable for investment of such enormous magnitude. Eritrea also feels the need to control information and movement of people (just try using a GPS device as a foreigner here) so internet access and the gathering of data will remain difficult. Furthermore countries who owe Eritrea big-time in terms of assistance with previously-arbitrated border disputes and (in the case of UK) in terms of technology removal as unmerited war reparation will continue to fail to provide official support.

But we can all dream.

P

Monday morning

I’m sitting in the office by myself, working, after a weekend of sickness and feeling sorry for myself. Feeling better today but slightly resent the wasted weekend. Everyone else has gone to collect the Grade 4 cassettes which we’ve just been told are finally ready for collection from the studios. I’m not sure why all three had to go but I guess I might see them later.

Killed a cockroach in the bathroom, eight hours later the ants had dissected it and carried it away. Good creatures ants. Very organised. They seem to be everywhere at the moment. Any crumb of food that gets dropped soon develops several pairs of legs and starts moving across the floor.

Phil has a grazed nose from playing football, a wound he wears with pride.

C

Christmas Appeal

Please read further this is not one of our pathetic requests for chocolate, neither is it anything at all to do with VSO's programme in Eritrea we just thought we'd try and help someone whom we meet most days, who always greets us happily and who lets us practice our bad Tigrinya on him but who has never been able to walk in his life and, incidentally, whose father was an amputee, a victim of Eritrea's war of independence.

First a little background; Eritrea has conducted annual vaccination programs against preventable childhood diseases since 1980 gradually reaching more and more of the population and has all but succeeeded in eliminating the common ones - neonatal tetanus, diptheria, measles and so on - including polio which has not been seen in Eritrea since 1997 apart from isolated imported cases.

Unfortunately vaccination programs came too late for Dawit who is now in his late twenties and who now gets around his local neighborhood in a wheelchair due to childhood polio. Furthermore he does not qualify for any government assistance in the same way that war veterans do. He has, however, ambitions to be able to travel further afield and is hoping to be able to raise the money to buy a motorised tricycle (40,000 Nakfa - a small fortune in Eritrea) via donations.

However 40,000 Nfa is only around 1,500 GBP so we thought we'd try and raise it from people we know (we don't really expect strangers to put their trust in a web appeal but if you feel you can trust us ...). The main problem is collection of funds but, given we have time, this is what we've come up with as a plan of action:

• We will contribute the first 500 GBP from our savings to get the ball rolling.


• Please send your donations to us at the VSO address to the left.


• Please send cheques ONLY - please DO NOT send cash as it is illegal to import undeclared currency into Eritrea.


• Please make cheques out to either Phil Appleby or Caroline Holden or both.


• We will then send donated cheques to the UK for payment into our UK bank account (you'll have to trust us on this one).


• Then we will draw Nakfa in Eritrea by changing UK bank cheques at a foreign exchange bureau.


• If we have funds in excess of what we need it all goes to Dawit to cover running and maintenance costs.


• Once we have reached the stage where the tricycle has been purchased we will try to post photos to show the money has been well-spent.

We realise that times are harder for everyone just now and that the response to the discreet appeal for funds for VSO which has been on this page for a long time has been less than stellar (apart from two gentlemen who live in Singapore and Tokyo - THANKS GUYS!). But, we're not asking for all that much from each person and you'll feel better we promise.

One last thing - if you do feel that you can contribute then please let us know via email when sending a cheque so that we can follow-up and check our post.