Virtual Eritrea

Early in the morning we went up. Five o’clock its still dark and cool in the air (25 degrees). You can sit outside the hut and see the sun rise over the landscape. After a short breakfast with tea and bread we left to Auskunama.
The sandy road was better then the one to Barentu. We sat outside on the pickup. It was funny, but you got to hold on. Auskunama is an old missionary station. It is placed on the top of a mountain, so the driver had a tuff job. Beside the road there was a lot of  huts and we had the opportunity to see the people and how they lived. The huts was round and made of stones and clay with a roof of think layers of grass. Four men can build one hut in one day. If the grass is of good quality it will last for ten years.

They had three huts for each family and one of the families had ten children. They had one hut for kitchen, one for the male and one for the female. We took a closer look at one of the huts, which was a kitchen.

Inside there was a large basket with clay on the outside to keep the sorghum, a kind of grain, away form insects and rats. The old priest, 85 years old, lived in his own hut beside his daughter.  He had big problems with termites eating up his roof and building a nest inside. To get rid of them he must dig a deep hole to find the queen.

After that we visited the  school and the church in Auskunama. They where well built with classrooms and rooms for women’s meeting. Beside the church there was an old missionary station which had been destroyed during the war.

The church and school was also damaged during the war, but are now rebuilt with help from the Swedish missionaries Per Gunnar and Ingrid Hjalmarsson.
From the church you had a fantastic view over the lowlands. It was like a big field, edged with low mountains and hills. In the middle of the day it is too hot to do anything but rest and sleep.

In the afternoon we walked down to the centre of Barentu. The walk lasted twenty minutes and after that we needed shadow and lots of cold Cokes. We were asked to have a look in the hospital by a nurse called Signe. She showed us the hospital and told us that they get some help from A nearby community in Sweden. It is a state hospital and they also have free help to pregnant women and delivering.

Signe had an important task to inform the women about birth control and propaganda against female circumcision. They really did a good job in spite of bad conditions. It ended with a walk in the local market where we became the big attraction. Some times they just stood and stared at us and laughed .
 

After a walk back to the station in total darkness, we used the satellite telephone to contact the
former missionaries. Keshe Salomon, the priest, and the other Kunamas where happily experiencing the new technology. We will answer more of your questions when we get back to Asmara where the weather is a bit cooler and we might be able to think again.

Greetings from Mats, Kerstin, Ida, Maria, Fredrik and David