Virtual Eritrea

I’m (Mats) sitting on the veranda, half past five in the morning. It is very peaceful and cool (25 degrees !). Lots of birds are singing and some eagles are circling in the air just over me. The sun is about to rise and the sky has got a brighter shade. The first donkeys carrying water from the well are slowly passing. Dogs are barking in distance and a baby starts to cry. In front of me I see some of the round huts beside a huge Baobaob-tree.  A big fat bug five centimetres long is slowly crawling on the veranda towards me.

When he comes just about to climb me he stops and smells with his antenna then slowly turns around and start crawling the other direction. The sun rises and is greeted by a cool breeze. This is the best part of the day, before the gazing sun sucks all your energy out of you.

We started the day by going to the evangelical church to participate in the service. It was interesting even if we didn’t understand a word of what the preast said since he spoke Kunama all the time. No, not all the time, he made a summary for us in English. In fact, we thought that the service was a little bit to long, more then two hours... It was very nice to hear the Kunama-songs, and of course, to sing them. The little church was full with people and they all sang very loudly. When they should pray, they turned around and got down on their knees with their folded hands over the bench.
 
We and Lennses sang Swedish songs for the congregation. We hope they liked it... A child was baptised in the church and after the service they had a celebration for the baptised child which we where  invited to. The celebration was in a hut where we got some food, injera with a sheep-stew.

The sheep-stew was very good and not so hot. Then we went with Nilsson by car to Koluku. Nilsson is the organist in the church. He is a Kunama man and, in fact, Nilsson is his first name which he get from a missionary from Sweden. (!)
 
The way to Koluku was very beautiful and we saw a lot of animals. Many lovely birds in all colours, camels, goats, cows, donkeys and baboons! But the most exciting of it all was the natives. Real African natives of the Kunama people living the traditional way. They were in a dried riverbed watching their cows and camels. We sat at the pick up on the car all the time. It was bumpy because there were no real roads, just a track in the sand with lots of stones in it. But we had a really good driver. In Koluku we saw the church, the school and the health house. The surroundings are fantastic with mountains, fields with durrha and a lot of dramatic dried riverbeds. The children had up to two hours walking to school. And when they arrive there are no water because the war has destroyed the pipes from the river to the school and they did not have money to pay a man to fetch water.
 
Every term the headmaster has to convince the natives in the neighbourhood that it is good for the children to go to school instead of guarding the animals. This school definitely need support by money. The clinic was also run by the church and was very well organised. Their big problem was the lack of electricity. They had no fans to make the heat bearable and the thing they needed most was a car or a motorbike so that they could get help from Barentu if someone would become very sick.  Then we had to get back because we were invited for dinner. Some of the people on the missionary station had cooked us a really good traditional meal, ingera and zigni.

After dinner we had tea with Salomon and the other for the last time. The tea is spicy and boiled with sugar. Everyone has been so kind to us here in Barentu and when we sad good by we got gifts from the ladies in the congregation. The gifts were plaited  palm leafs and a skilled woman can make a basket that is so well done that it holds water.

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