A Walk on the Wild Side

All cities have their murky, seamy side; their raw, dark underbelly and these need to be visited sometimes in order to get an idea of the way in which the ‘real’ people live. Well at least that’s the theory.

And so it was that I set out (with very little trepidation, really) earlier this week with a Habesha friend to visit the Abashawl area of Asmara and to sample some local Suwa in one of the many drinking dens to be found there.

Abashawl was known as “the Native Quarter” in Italian colonial times (Eritreans were not permitted to live in the main part of the Italian city at that time) and remains to this day a warren of unmade streets seemingly thrown down with little planning on a hillside on the edge of central Asmara. Its buildings are small and have painted plastered walls, with light-blue being the predominant colour, unlike the sherbet of the rest of Asmara, and with sometimes-rusting corrugated iron roofs.

It has also served as Asmara’s East End or Lower East Side with new arrivals from the country-side to the big city traditionally being able to take cheap accommodation here (often with many sharing a room) while they found their economic feet.

Suwa is a local alcoholic brew whose main ingredient is said to be sorghum. It’s really an unfiltered, cloudy beer and is typically not very strong although it’s highly variable in both strength and colour (from dark to a kind of muddy brown) since it’s home made.

Upon arrival it wasn’t long before my friend pointed out a few Suwa Houses. “How can you tell?” I asked. Well, it was explained that each has a sign consisting of an inverted metal drum with an inverted enamelled suwa cup on top of it just standing outside. So we stepped into the heart of darkness, where respectable Asmarinos fear to tread … actually it was more like stepping into somebody’s old and battered but very clean and well-kept front-room with the other (all male) participants in the drinking orgy sitting quietly on wooden benches sipping from suwa cups and being served by the very polite daughter of the household.

In general the occasion just seems to be a chance to catch up on gossip for a while – as far as I could gather subjects for conversation ranged from the current state of the harvests to the cold day that it had been, later the lady of the house came in with a charcoal stove, presumably to heat the room, and joined in the conversation. At one point the worry was expressed that prices would rise if too many “like me” came for suwa but it was agreed that I could come back provided I didn’t spread the word.

Later we went on a brief tour of Abashawl, before our return to downtown Asmara. The streets were alive with children playing and women with open fires preparing suwa and coffee and, in one street, there were girls standing provocatively in doorways; they were, perhaps, selling something a little different.

P

An Intake of Breath

I’ve referred to the Tigrinya language and its strangulated, choking sounds before – essentially a lot of it comes about by closing the airways (including making those harsh pharyngeal stops) in different ways to those used in European languages. There are also the non-word sounds, which are also quite different, to consider.

When we lived in Japan it wasn’t just the language that we got used to hearing but also the other noises that people make. For example, “ee-ee-ee-eh?” - starting high and rising, usually uttered by women - is an expression of surprise, the more barked “arey?” being the male equivalent. Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm accompanying what the speaker is saying is agreement and an indication that the listener is in fact listening.

Here, we have Wa! (can almost sound like Mwa! or Bwa!) for surprise or for when something is going badly wrong. A click made with the tongue against the roof of the mouth (which certain volunteers, who shall remain nameless, developed to an over-use extreme) is agreement, sort of like “yes you’re right”. But the most subtle one is the Habesha-intake-of-breath which is a kind of agreement as well, but on the lines of “I understand”.

This last one takes a bit of getting used to – you start by asking yourself “well what have I just said that this person should be so shocked, I was only explaining a mundane point about MS Excel why is he / she so surprised?” but then you realise it’s just an occasional interjection to show understanding and the paying of attention.

Language evolves, of course, and things move on and perhaps the need to have an actual person to listen to is disappearing as demonstrated by one of Caroline’s colleagues who has been known to use the intake-of-breath to himself while sitting at his computer, probably in response to a point he’s just made in a document.

The End of Summer Training

Well it’s late September and everybody really should be back at school and so summer ICT training has come to an end for this year.

All-in-all reasonably successful, about 100 teachers (known as Master Trainers since they’re supposed to pass on their skills once back at their schools) and school directors passed through our hands and most seemed to appreciate the training, though I seem to have become particularly sensitive to the few critical feedback comments we always seem to get … too few computers, the trainers didn’t take notice of the differing skill levels of the students – we will try harder next time!

I was also partially successful in my mission to get the schools wikipedia collection of web pages delivered out on DVD to schools for use as an e-learning resource and for internet practice, particularly relevant in this country given the lack of internet access in most locations. It’s not currently possible to visit schools outside Asmara to check on progress, however, so I have to rely on the enthusiam of the teachers in getting the package installed, along with Encarta, when they get back to work. There were even a couple of students who expressed an interest in learning how to program - so they were duly dispatched with CD's containing copies of the Python and Visual Basic programming environments - I'm not normally one to evangelise but Python is so good for those seeking a first programming experience.

I realise that this may be the end of my teaching career (such as it was) and it’s certainly been an eye-opener. In order to be able to respond to student questions it’s been necessary to have an idea of a broader range of the features of all of the Microsoft Office software and, due to my previous experience I came to be regarded as an Excel and Access expert (frightening really). What you realise is that, when using software, you tend to use the same small set of features that you know without needing to have comprehensive knowledge.

And, now it's all over and I don’t have to be quite so bright-eyed everyday it may be time to finally make that evening visit to Abashawul (known in Italian times as “the native quarter”) in order to sample the local suwa and meet some Asmara "characters".

In other news:

• The rainy season is just about finished, apart from an occasional downpour, and Asmara and its surrounding hills are really quite green. So hopefully there has been enough to ensure big harvests in the coming months – judging by the size of the corn in Asmara fields and gardens it’s looking good.


• Having previously said that Asmara is the world’s safest city I can now report that my bicycle was stolen a couple of weeks ago so it’s not perfect! No reason to change the safety rating, though.


• Asmara schools are back and the kids are practicing their English on us once again. At least the cries of “Tilian” or “China” (world geography is not a strong point) have reduced.

We also reached a milestone in the past couple of days – we booked our “final” flight out of Eritrea to Cairo on the 20th of December. We hope to spend at least a month in Egypt mainly in pursuit of antiquities but with plenty of chilling time for whenever we become templed-out. Following that we’re aiming for Morocco for a couple of weeks and then a ferry back to Southern Spain where Caroline’s sister will perhaps be able to put us up for a while.

It’s a strange feeling now, though, two years have flown by and already I can feel how I will miss Eritrea and its friendly people particularly those whom, for various reasons, I will not be able to bid farewell before we leave.

P

Happy New Year

I’ve worked this morning to the accompaniment of loud squawking complaints coming from a bag under my boss’s desk. The chicken was ignored for the morning and taken home at midday. I walked home for lunch surrounded by bleats and baa’s coming from compounds in all directions and had to sidestep countless goats and sheep, either being sold, or led home. In case you hadn’t guessed it’s a holiday tomorrow (Friday). A big one. The Ge’ez New Year or Ri'se Awde Amet. It occurs on September 11 in the Gregorian calendar, except for leap years, when it occurs on September 12. The Coptic calendar, has twelve months of 30 days each plus five or six extra days, which comprise a thirteenth month. The year 2002 will begin on September 11, 2009 in the Gregorian calendar. If you need any more clarification let me refer you to Wikipoedia, it gets pretty complicated.

Needless to say the celebrations comprise a lot of eating, drinking, coffee ceremonies and socialising. I’ve been told that as strict adhere rents to the Eritrean Orthodox church don’t eat meat on Fridays, a lot of the celebrations will take place on Saturday. That may account for why our invitation to a friends home is for Friday or Saturday, we have to wait for a phone call. Which ever day it is we’re looking forward to it.

C

Bits

We were stopped on the way to work by a taxi frantically blowing it’s horn, turned out to be a friend who, in spite of passengers, parked up and got out to greet us effusively and make arrangements to meet up for coffee. I can just imagine the reaction if a taxi driver did that at home. There’s 2 types of taxi here, line and contract. The contract fare is usually 50 Nakfa around Asmara and not for the likes of us – 50 Nakfa is a lot. Line taxis follow a set route in and out of town, you just flag it down when you want it to stop and shout out “hansub” when you want to get out. Costs 5 or 10 nakfa and is a good compromise between the contract taxis and the buses which can be very very crowded. Having said all that we usually walk everywhere.

Work permits for the next year have been issued so it looks as if we’ll be able to stay until our contracts end in December. It’s hard to believe we’ll have been here for 2 years

The storks changed their minds and abandoned their nest. In fact they all seem to have left now and moved on to wherever it they winter.

C

Rain

It’s been raining almost constantly here for 48 hours, unusual compared to the rainy seasons of the last few years but I’m assured by Eritreans that it is normal. Everyone is still very happy about the abundance of water pouring from the sky, but it is getting cold. The altitude here means that the absence of sun for even a short time makes the temperatures plummet and that they are doing. I’m writing this wearing 4 layers, a fleece jacket and a woolly scarf. Feels like a British summer.
The Eritreans, while welcoming the rain, also see it as valid excuse for not going out. Work, school, stops until the rain does. None of this braving it out, just stay at home until it stops. Fine when it does its normal thing of a few hours (see, I am adapting) but it should be interesting to see what happens if our present deluge persists for a few more days.

There was yet another wedding of a VSO volunteer to an Eritrean at the weekend. That’s 4 in the (almost) two years we’ve been here.

C

The Eritrea Festival

This week is the week of the Eritrea Festival at the Asmara Expo ground. It's a week in which Eritrean companies and organisations put on displays of their work and in which there are various attractions such as small reconstructions of village life and dancing by the various ethnic groups which make up the people of this surprisingly diverse country.

To our shame we failed to go along in 2008 (although we almost felt as if we were there as the music from the festival can be heard very loudly in our house,) but this year we were determined and so we duly set out on the walk to expo which only takes about 20 minutes from where we live - yes we were lazy last year and it only costs 3 Nakfa to get in.

It turns out to be a great way to spend a few hours - we were particularly impressed with the Rashaida and Kunama (two of Eritrea's lowland ethnic groups) music and dancing and, in true Eritrean style, everyone we met was very friendly. We also ate at one of the food tents - whole fish cooked over an open fire with flat bread.

Storked
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Last time we managed to write anything I went into a jumbled ramble about Eritrean birdlife and mentioned a slight altercation between a group of storks. Well there has now been a major development (our lives are so exciting just now). A pair of storks has selected one of our palm trees as a nesting site! So now there's lots of toing and froing and there's none of this pussy footing around with small twigs and feathers for lining - it's full steam ahead with whole branches and anything else they can find. Currently the nest is just taking shape - we'll keep you posted as to it's progress and if they are subsequently any young.

P