ERRATA

Unless you're an anthropologist, this probably won't mean much to you, but I thought I would clear up a mistake I made in a previous post. In my discussion of my trip to the west, I stated that I saw people who were "Tigray," a group common in northern Ethiopia. In fact, the people I saw were Tigre, an ethnic group native to Eritrea.

The Tigray in Ethiopia actually speak the same language as the Tigrinya people in Eritrea. A little research has revealed that "Tigrinya" actually means "the language of the Tigray" people, but in Eritrea people who speak Tigrinya are referred to as Tigrinya. On the other hand, Eritreans refer to people in Ethiopia who speak Tigrinya as Tigray. And in Ethiopia they refer to their Tigrinya-speaking population as Tigre. Nevertheless, they all seeem to be the same ethnic group.

The Tigre in Eritrea, in contrast, are a different ethnic group who speak a different language. Although not as populous as the Tigrinya in Eritrea, they occupy or are native to a larger percentage of the geographic area of Eritrea. While Tigrinya women traditionally wear clothing made from a light weight white cloth with embroidery on the edges, Tigre women wear bright colored cloth and large rings in their noses.

Unfortunately, people here don't like having their pictures taken (particularly by gawking foreigners). So, I was unable to get a very good photo of any Tigre while I was in the west. The picture above is really the best I could do.

At home in Asmara: Part 1

With the first filing over, my life is slowly returning to normal. But what is "normal" for an American living in Eritrea? That is not an easy question to answer. Although my daily life here seems fairly dull and not particularly noteworthy, it in no way resembles the life I lead in the States. Therefore, I thought I would use this post to show you some of the fixtures in my daily life in Asmara so that you might better understand what I mean when I say my life is back to "normal."

I'm not sure which building, my house or my office, is the more important fixture in my life is Asmara. For the past three weeks, it has certainly been the office, but I decided to go ahead and put my house first. So, the photo above depicts the unit Anna and I occupy in a triplex in the Tira Volo neighborhood of Asmara.

Tira Volo is a very nice, fairly quiet (except for the Orthodox church) neighborhood. It is well established but at the same time, not one of the oldest neighborhoods in Asmara. As a result, it happens to be nice without being particularly noteworthy. Some of the older Italian neighborhoods, for example, stand out because of their Italian art deco architecture and colonial history. There has also been a lot of new construction on the outskirts of town, and many of these houses are very nice. They are noteworthy both because they are being bought by members of the Eritrean diaspora to be used as retirement or vacation houses and because they resemble suburban sprall in southern California. (This, of course, is helped by the fact that the climate and vegetation here are so similar to those found in southern California.)

The picture above is the street I live on. It is either called Baqala, Baqla, or Baqal street. I honestly have no idea because people don't use street addresses here. I think I have an address because this small shop down the street has its address posted outside. That's how I have some idea what my street is actually called. But I receive my mail at a P.O. Box, and when I give directions to my house, I tell people that I live between Alfa Supermarket and the Lion Hotel.


This other photograph is of two Eritrean women walking on a street that deadends at my house. These women are pretty typical middle-aged Tigrinya women. I suppose they are out running errands.

The population of my neighborhood seems to be dominated by Eritrean government employees, who live in government-owned houses like ours, and foreigners. As a result, several of the businesses in the neighborhood tend to cater to expats. The owners of Alfa Supermarket, for example, have made a killing ripping off foreigners. But even though I am totally aware of it, I still shop there.

That's all I have for now, but next time I'll tell you a little about my office and its environs.

Caterpillars and other creepy-crawlies...

As many of you know, I have been working virtually non-stop for the past three weeks, so I haven't been getting out of the office much. Consequently, there really isn't anything new to report about my own life. (Oh, other than that I made a smart decision not giving my phone number to this guy who works for the UN Mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE). Apparently he has been calling this friend mine every morning and waking her up.) Yeah, that's how dull my social life has been.

But, anyway, I thought this might be a good opportunity to talk a little bit about all the creepy crawly things that wind up in our house here in Asmara. Number one by far is caterpillars. I have honestly never seen so many caterpillars in all my life. They are everywhere. We find at least one in our house every day and sometimes more. And they're not small. They average about 2 to 3 inches long and maybe a 1/3 to a 1/2 an inch in diameter. Of course, the worst is when I accidentally step on one when I'm walking barefoot in the dark. Think furry and squishy. Ewww!

We try to take them outside when we find them in the house because we think they are turning into moths that are eating our clothing (and, of course, we have no idea where to find mothballs in this country). I usually dump them out the back door in our little yard. But because this is usually at night, I tend to want to stay inside, so I dump a lot of these caterpillars right outside the door. Well, now, I am not sure if these are the caterpillars we put out there or if they are others, but we now have approximately 20 caterpillar carcuses right outside our backdoor. I don't know what their deal is, but they're all dead and pretty gross. They are also in various stages of decomposition. Some times I can't tell the newly dead ones from the live ones. But the carcuses that have been there a while are all dried and shriveled up.

In addition to caterpillars, we also get an occasional gecko in the house. I actually really like the geckos, and because they move so fast, we typically let them be. They eventually find their way out. And, in the meantime, they're entertaining. Diane says she has a disabled gecko at her house; the only color change it can make is to speckles.

I have been told that in the past both rats and cockroaches have been spotted in our house. I'm sure glad I haven't seen either of those yet. I also haven't seen a cockroach in a restaurant or a hotel, which sounds like it is kind of an amazing feat. For example, Diane tells me that when she sits near the wall at this "Chinese" restaurant near our office she often leaves with cockroaches in her purse. Ew!

Finally, we have this cat that has moved into our backyard. People don't keep cats as pets here, but there are tons of wild ones. Some look like housecats in the states, but the one that lives at our house does not. I feel like she must be descended from one of those native Egyptian cats or something. Anyway, she's kind of creepy looking and super demanding. In order to get into our kitchen, you have to go out the backdoor and then in through another door off of the backyard. And whenever we do this, that cat is right there. She immediately starts in screaming and begging for food. And, of course, I'm such a sucker that half the time I give in and feed her. But she's never satisfied.

Unfortunately, the caterpillars we get in our house are not nearly as pretty as the one in the picture above. I took that picture while on a hike outside of Asmara. On the upside, the brown variety we get aren't as big as this one was; it was at least 5 inches long and almost an inch in diameter.

Hopefully my Eritrean wildlife photos will eventually include more than insects, but for now, I thought you might enjoy these. So, on that note, I thought I'd leave you with a photo of a beetle that I took while in the west. We found this one on the steps of the Zoba (state) administration office in Barentu. I had to take its picture because it was so prehistoric looking. It looks like it should be indestructable, but I have a feeling that probably isn't the case.

Of goats, agdus, and Leonardo Di Caprio...

A couple of weeks ago--I honestly can't remember when since all the days have been blending together--I traveled to western Eritrea with Anna, our paralegal, Yosief, the most senior Eritrean attorney in our office, and Simon, who can do anything. We were there to pick up evidence for our case in The Hague. Us Americans were there primarily to take witness statements.

But it was really just an adventure for me. Although we didn't see any wildlife other than insects and a lot of birds, the west is far more what I imagined Africa to be like than is Asmara. Most people live in huts with grass roofs and consider donkeys to be "vehicles." There are two kinds of huts that are common in the west: hidmos and adgus. We saw mostly agdus, which are typically round and have pointy grass roofs. Of course, sometimes they're square, as in the case of the Tabaldia town administration office below:



In Guluj, we ate breakfast at a "restaurant" constructed from tree branches, straw mats, and UNHCR plastic sheets. Don't ask me how, but they could still produce an iced cold Coke.



When we left the restaurant, we found a goat standing on our Land Cruiser! Goats are crazy, and they are everywhere here. Actually, goat is probably the most common meat in Eritrea. Zigni, a spicy goat stew, is always on the menu. In fact, there is a restaurant near our office in Asmara that serves a Zigni pizza.

The heat and the dust in the west are brutal. Fortunately, there were no dust storms while I was out there. Despite carrying my Camelbak around with me everywhere, I was still constantly dehydrated. The only thing that saved me was the steady flow of sugary tea. It seemed that where ever we went, people brought us tea. Some times we had to pay for it and other times it was free. But it was always at least half sugar! They actually like the sugary tea in Asmara too, but here people tend to ask you how much sugar you want before serving you.

But the most difficult thing about being out there is seeing and hearing about all the damage that was done during the war. Six years later, there is still quite a bit of rubble around. And people are really struggling to put their lives back together. But it's difficult because they have nothing, and inflation is through the roof, so many people can't afford to replace the things they had before the war. Several businesses have not been rebuilt and farms produce much less than they used to.

On a positive note, one of the more interesting parts of the trip was seeing people of multiple ethnic groups. Almost everyone in Asmara is Tigrinya, the most common ethnic group in Eritrea. But in the west and the south, we encountered people who were Kunama (the original inhabitants of Eritrea), Tigray (an ethnic group common in northern Ethiopia but also Eritrea), and Rashaida (an ethnic group decendant from Saudis who settled in Eritrea and Sudan a couple hundred years ago). The picture below is of a group of Rashaida children at their market outside of Tesseney. The Rashaidas have lived in Tesseney for 50 years, but now that there is peace in Eastern Sudan, they are returning to Sudan. There are also Rashaidas in eastern Eritrea, but they are apparently Eritrean while these Rashaidas are Sudanese.



Unlike most Tigrinya children, the Rashaida children clamoured to have their photos taken. This is probably because they are more familiar with technology than are other Eritrean children. In fact, in that market you see behind them, their parents sold products such as DVD players, microwaves, and satellite dishes.

Another interesting thing about the journey was that we had to pass through a number of check points to get where ever it was that we were going. Most of these were Eritrean military checkpoints, but in the south we also went through a UN checkpoint. At two of these checkpoints, on the same day, we saw soldiers wearing T-shirts bearing giant photos of Leonardo Di Caprio under their fatigues. Anna and I could not help but laugh and really wished that we could take pictures. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to photograph military subjects here.

So, instead, I will leave you with a photo of me and Yosief in Barentu.

Welcome to Asmara! Thanks to the astonishingly slow speed of the internet in Eritrea, as well as limited access, I unfortunately did not get this blog up and running as early as I was hoping to.

But here it is. So, I'll start out by explaining the title. I imagine most of those reading this already know that I'm writing from Asmara, Eritrea, and probably think that Eritrea is as close to the end of the world as one can get. I personally discovered this when Worldspace satellite radio, which theoretically provides global access, suddenly decided that Eritrea was no longer part of "the world."

But, really, Asmara's not as backwards as one might imagine. My office just got wireless internet, which is why I can finally post something. Most people wear pretty westernized clothing, other than the thin white shalls that are common among women. And we have electricity 24-hours a day, which is more than I can say for the rest of the country. Of course, some times we wish the electricity would be shut off at night, because the local Orthodox Church projects music and chanting from a loud speaker starting as early as 2 or 3 a.m. every night!!

On the other hand, cars share the city streets with donkey and horse drawn carts and people regularly herd their goats and sheep past my house. In addition, as some of you have already heard, people ride bikes with goats tied to their backs!!

Unfortunately, I really need to make this first post fairly short because I am really busy with work. We have to file our memorial (brief) in The Hague next week. Anna, our paralegal and my roommate, is already there, along with Prof. Brilmayer's assistant. The rest of us are busy working from here. But, when I have more time, I will tell you all about my trip to the West.

Ciao,

Hillary