Virtual Eritrea

We are 10 000m above the Mediterranean Sea in a Lufthansa Airbus.

We left Sweden 7.27 and made a four hour stop in Frankfurt.

After another stop in Jeddah near Mecka in Saudi Arabia, for one hour, we are going to arrive in Asmara at 10.00 PM. During the flight we have some time to answer some of the questions from the pupils in South Africa.

>From St George’s Grammer School in Cape Town:

John Logue:

What is the capital and some of the major cities there?

-The capital is Asmara and has about 450 000 inhabitants.

Some other cities are: Keren, Massawa, and Assab.

Roland, Nick Solomon:

What is the main religious body and what rituals do they have to go through?

- 50 % are Christians and are baptised.

- 50% are Muslims and the boys circumcised.

What language do the people speak?

There are nine ethnic groups in Eritrea, and nine different languages.

The main working languages are Arabic and Tigrinya.

The other are Afar, Bilen, To Bedawi, Kunama, Nara, Saho and Tigre.

Ebrahim Ally:

What do all of you people intend on achieving by the end of your stay and what is your main reason for going to Eritrea ?

Our main reason for going to Eritrea was a exhibition about refugees in Alingsas.

The organization behind it wanted the engagement achieved by the exhibition to extend and therefore they decided to offer some students and their teachers to make a journey to Eritrea.

They chose Eritrea because some refugees in Alingsas came from that country.

Asmara 28th of September

Finally we reached Asmara airport about 10.00 PM. When we left Asmara airport it was 11.00.

That was because of our gifts to the school in Keren. To be more exact they took our calculators.

They were very suspicious and they thought that we would sell the calculators without paying taxes.

We could keep the rest of our gifts and a letter which said that we could contact the ministry of education in Eritrea and with their permission we could get the calculators from the airport. One other problem was that the pass control did not believe Fredrik to be Fredrik. The photo was 5 years old. When he shoved them his diving certificate with a newer photo it was OK.

Then we ordered two cabs but they insisted in getting us three. We tried to explain that six persons don’t need three cars.

The hotel was no problem. We just had too fill in some papers. Goodnight...

After our first breakfast in Eritrea we walked around in Asmara. On the September square, a big arena where political and religious meetings are hold, Mr Lemse suddenly showed up and asked us if we where swedish. We surely looked like Swedish tourists! Mr Lemse is a missionary who is going to work and live in Barentu. He invited us for coffee in his home and he and his wife gave us some information about Asmara.

Then we met the president (the bishop) of the evangelic church. He was very nice and wished us good luck.

On our way back there were some kids on the street who screamed: -Ciao, Italianos. They think that all Europeans are Italians.

We had a lunch on café Vittoria, it cost 15 birr for all of us (one us dollar is 7.20 birr)

Some of our comments after the stroll on the Liberation Avenue: -We felt very white, there where almost no other tourists.

-They all looked at us.

-The streets looked clean and there where many people out sweeping the streets.

-The people looked nice and many of them smiled at us, especially the children.

-Many of the houses were beautiful, built in an Italian colonial style, but they needed paint and reparations.

-The people are beautiful and look proud. Many of the women still wear the traditional clothes.

-The weather here in Asmara is pleasant, about 25 degrees C and a cool breeze.

Information Contact: Patti Weeg, Title 1 Computer Teacher, Delmar El. School, Delmar, Maryland, USA. Home Page: http://www.globalclassroom.org

Created by Diane Smith
Created on 9/28/97 11:48 PM