Ciao Asmara!


Hello everyone! I hope all is well outside my little world. I have been extremely busy the last couple weeks, but I apologize for not to update this blog more frequently. It seems like something always gets in the way.

In any case, I am no longer in Eritrea, and at some point in the next couple of weeks, I will get around to discussing what I've been doing since my departure. Oh, and of course, I still owe you all a post about the Stela. But in the meantime, I thought I would share a couple of thoughts and some pictures in order to bid farewell to Asmara and my life in Eritrea. I think it's going to be a difficult transition. The outside world already seems extremely intimidating. I almost went into sensory overload on Sunday afternoon when I went shopping in The Hague with Anna and Julie, a paralegal for our office who works from the States. But life goes on, and I will certainly adjust to the outside world. Or maybe I'll decide to return to Asmara. We shall see.

I thought that this post would be focused on my going away party that I had at the Albergo Italia (shown below), one of the nicer hotels in Asmara. The party was such a disaster that I have no desire to rehash it. But just so you all can imagine something far worse than reality, I'll just say that the hotel called the police and tried to kick all of us out.



In general, my last couple of weeks in Asmara were bitter sweet. It's hard to explain exactly why, but somehow in those last two weeks, I faced an overload of all the good and all the bad things about living in Eritrea. And so when I left, it was very hard. At the same time, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I know I'm being really cryptic. Actually, if you've paid much attention to this blog, you might have realized that I always am. And I thought I would get over that once I was out of the country, but I so far I haven't.



In any case, I think the main thing I want to do at this point is share some photos of Asmara so that maybe you can empathize with the nostalgia I am already feeling. And those of you who are reading this from Eritrea, I want you to know that I will miss all of the people I met there, and hopefully I will return one day.