Welcome to Massawa: Drive with Care, Life is Dear

These are the words that welcome weary travelers to Massawa after a harrowing drive down the escarpment from Asmara. I have no doubt that the greatest danger I've faced since arriving in Eritrea is riding without a seatbelt in a car or bus on one of Eritrea many mountain roads. As a rule, the roads out of Asmara are narrow and littered with sharp curves and steep drop-offs. But despite these obvious dangers, drivers here don't seem to think twice about taking turns at 80 kph (50 mph) or passing on a blind curve. Yet this past weekend, I somehow made it safely down and back up the escarpment road in an Eritrean minibus.

I know that I said a while back that I was going to write three posts about my last trip to Senafe, but before I tell you about the Stela of Metara, I need to do some research. So in the meantime, I thought I'd share a little about my brief weekend trip to Massawa.

Last weekend, Anna, Genet, James, and I took the bus to Massawa for a last weekend getaway before the hearing and my departure. For a foreigner, a weekend in Massawa is about as expensive as dinner and a movie in the states. The bus costs 30 nakfa ($2) each way, and the hotel we stayed in on the beach cost 132 nakfa (about $8) for the night. Of course even the Red Sea Hotel, the nicest place in Massawa, only costs betweeen $28 and $35 a night. We also went back to the Sallam restaurant for dinner, which cost something like 80 nakfa ($5). I think, percentage wise, we spent more money on Coke and alcohol than anything else.

The weekend was fairly relaxing after we got out of Asmara. I was stressed in the morning on Saturday because we left late, and it took us awhile to find a bus with enough empty seats for all four of us. But it worked out, and we were on the beach in Massawa before 3 p.m. We decided that being on the beach in late March meant that, although we're all out of school, we could pretend to be on spring break and start drinking then and there. It wasn't long before we all had a pretty good buzz going. And the result was Genet the mermaid ... well, that and a penis palace, but anyway ...



After spending the day swimming, we decided to check into the hotel there on Gergusom Beach so that we could do more swimming at night. I know what you're thinking: after the problems we had swimming at night on the islands, we should have been at least somewhat hesistant, right? Well, Gergusom beach is very sandy, and you can walk out quite a ways without encountering a rock, let alone a sea urchin.

But I digress. Anyway, we went into town for dinner and drinks in the evening. We returned to the Sallam Restaurant, the place where I had the giant fish head last time. Here's the kitchen at the Sallam. As I might have mentioned last time, they cook the fish by shoving into the fire with a stick. It's pretty weird to watch, but apparently that is "the way" people cook fish in Yemen.



From there, we headed to a bar by the water. On the way there, we some how decided that it would be a good idea to give each other piggy back rides. Some how I got out of giving rides, but I did get one from Genet. Nevertheless, by far the best picture is this one of Anna carrying James.



Oh, and have I ever mentioned how small Eritrea is? It doesn't seem to matter where you go in this country; you'll always run into someone you know or someone who knows someone you know. Anyway, during the course of our night in Massawa, we ran into this Italian guy we know who apparently lives in Massawa but is often in Asmara, and this Eritrean- American guy we saw on the beach earlier in the day and who turned out to be the ex-boyfriend of one of our friends. So, we decided to invite them back to Gergusum with us for some gin and tonic and night swimming.

Linguistic Barriers

It's hard to believe, but I only have a little over a week left in my Eritrean adventure. On Thursday April 13, I take off to the Hague for our hearing before the Commission. But before I go, I would like to share some more stories from my last few weeks in this beautiful country.

I think I'll begin by taking you back to Senafe and to a frustrating situation that I found myself in while I was there. One of the most difficult things for me about being here is that I don't speak the language. Although I have lived abroad before, this is the first time I have done so without speaking the native language of the country I'm in. Sure, I knew very little Swedish when I arrived in Sweden, but I picked it up pretty quickly because I was taking two Swedish classes and attending regular high school classes that were taught in Swedish every single day. But here, I have only picked up a very few words of Tigrinya, most of which are numbers or food names. And, I tend to be pretty embarassed to use the little bit I know.



Anyway, while I was in Senafe, I took a walk to take some photos of the landscape. As I was contemplating heading back to the hotel because it was close to the time when we needed to get back to work, a couple of women who were standing in their front yard, waved me over. I walked over and joined them, and began a very awkward conversation involving my few words of Tigrinya and their few words of English. Eventually, one of them asked me to come in and have tea. Although I didn't have much time, I thought I could afford a few minutes for tea, and I am always interested to go inside houses in the villages and small towns here because they are so much different than what I'm used to.



So, I followed them inside and sat down. One of the women began to, I thought, make tea. In the meantime, I sat inside the main room of the house, which was both a bedroom with two beds and a sitting room with a small couch and a few chairs. Two of the women joined me in there, but they seemed to be the two who spoke the least English. However, there were two little kids there, and I asked if I could take a picture of the baby (holding up the camera and demonstrating of course). They said yes, so I took the picture and showed it to them. Then they got so excited that the three younger women wanted to have their pictures taken. I was really excited about that because women here never want their pictures taken. Mostly its just the kids. Sometimes the men. But the women always say no.



Anyway, while all of this was going on, one of the women was setting up a little table in the sitting room, and as she started pulling things out and setting things up, I realized that she was starting to make coffee, not tea. Oh shit!! I definitely didn't have time foor that, considering that when the women initially invited me in, I only had 15 minutes to get back to the hotel for work. I tried to explain that I didn't have time for coffee, but of couse they didn't understand. So, I ended up just getting up and heading to the door. They again said to "drink tea" and then clarified "bun" (coffee). I tried again to explain, but they didn't understand. So, I left the house and the yard telling they a combination of "sorry" in English and "thank you" in Tigrinya. I tried to act courteous, even though I knew I was being rude to leave, especially considering she had already heated the charcoal for the coffee. But I didn't know what else to do.

Anyway, not being able to communicate in that situation really bothered me, and I missed the days when I lived in a foreign country where I spoke the local language.