Can You See Sana'a?

Happy New Year everyone! This post is a little late coming, but I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you about the work trip I took to Senafe, a town directly south of Asmara near the Ethiopian border, from December 16 through the 20th.

"The word Senafe derives from "San'a fen', which in Arabic means 'Where is San'a?' This is said to have come from the question asked by Middle Eastern (Yemeni) traders who used to pass through this area and climb the high escarpment to try and see their home--San'a." See Edward Denison & Edward Paice, Eritrea: The Bradt Travel Guide 193 (2002). Senafe is situated on the same highland plateau as is Asmara. This plateau runs south into Ethiopia around Zalambessa and then eventually drops off. Senafe itself is located in a flat valley surrounded by boulders, peaks, and outcroppings. Gorgeous!



Our group on this trip included Anna and myself, Yosief, and Amanuel and Isaias, two of the other attorneys in our office. Compared to our trip to the west in October, this trip was extremely productive. We took 35 or 36 witness statements and collected reams of documents. We also spent a lot less time driving around than we did in the west because we only had one town to visit. So, once we arrived in Senafe, we basically just stayed at our hotel. The witnesses came to us there, and we took their statements in the hotel restaurant.

But despite this high level of productivity, we still had a chance to get out and see a little of Senafe and it's surroundings. Anna and I took walks around town on both Monday and Tuesday mornings. Monday was really foggy, so we only got a few pictures. On Tuesday we went to take a picture of Senafe's large mosque. However, we got lost on our way back and ended up wandering through much of the town before arriving back at our hotel.



More than any other town I've visited, Senafe still bears its scars from the war. Former businesses and public institutions still lay in ruins. "Prime" real estate along the town's main road (the only paved one) remains unused. Instead, the remnants of destroyed buildings occupy those locations. This building (the TeleCom office), for example, was intentionally detonated from the inside rather being damaged during the fighting. My understanding is that Senafe does not have phone service today. Other buildings are now little more than rubble. Many of these could have just as easily been destroyed during the fighting as intentionally.



On Tuesday afternoon, after completing our work for the day, Anna and I decided to climb the Amba Metera, a large rock/mountain in Senafe. The Amba Metera is also a religious site, so there is a church about half the way up and a cross at the top. There are also a number of tombs located in caves, as well as in the rock face, all the way up the mountain. Many of these graves apparently belong to priests, but others clearly do not. We began to wonder who it was who got to be burried in the mountain. Unfortunately, we couldn't ask our guide, who showed us all the tombs, because he could not speak English. However, someone later told us that those were people who had fallen off the Amba Metera. I think I'm glad I heard that after we decided to climb it.

Before we went up, Yosief told us that we needed a guide to take us because the trail was not clear. So, we drove around in the car near the location and Yosief asked whether anyone would take us for a price. He finally settled on this older man who didn't speak English but who Yosief said he trusted. The man must have been in his late 50s or early 60s, and yet he almost ran up the mountain while Anna and I huffed and puffed along behind him. Since the sun was bright and it was pretty warm out, there were points where I really needed to stop and have some water. But every time we tried to stop, he would pressure us to continue on. And I couldn't explain to him that I was worried about heat stroke. So, we climbed quickly up the mountain, not really understanding what all the hurry was about and having to make sure we made the guide (Hadish) stop whenever we wanted to take a picture.



About 3/4 of the way up to the top, we reached the section shown below. It was so sheer, and as many of you know, I am such a clutz, that I was terrified that I would slip and fall while trying to make it up. So, I stopped there, and Anna and our guide continued up. The view from where I stopped was pretty impressive so, hopefully I didn't miss out on much.



When we reached the bottom, Hadish wanted to take a picture of us with some of the villagers. So we posed with the one woman who was willing to have her picture taken, and he took the photo with Anna's camera. But when he was done, he headed off at a pretty quick clip, and Anna and I found ourselves chasing after him, wondering whether he was going to give the camera back. We followed him down the road, for what seemed like quite a ways. The entire time we were about 20 feet behind him. Finally he led us up the steps to a house. We followed him inside, not really knowing what was going on. The house was small but well decorated. There was also a doorway that led into a very small grocery store (not much bigger than a kiosk, really). Hadish gestured for us to sit down and "introduced" us to the couple of other people there. Although we couldn't talk to him, we were able to successfully ask him whether this was his house and got an affirmative response.

Then he got up, and gestured for us to follow him back out. He was still carrying Anna's camera. Next we followed him to a small bar/cafe that was next door. It appeared completely empty other than the tables and chairs. But someone produced tea from somewhere, and Hadish paid a kid to bring animal crackers from somewhere--probably from his store. Then we sat there and drank tea and looked at the photographs we had taken. Then Hadish produced a piece of paper and wrote his name on it, and we wrote our names on another scrap. The next day, as we were leaving town, two boys appeared with the piece of paper we had given to Hadish. One of them told us that Hadish was his father. This was the end of our relationship.

But was it really...We are actually going to be going back to Senafe next week for a follow-up trip. So maybe we'll see Hadish again after all.