Virtual Eritrea

At five o’clock in the morning we stood up to start our travel to Barentu on the western  lowlands. We had made an appointment with a minibus driver to come and fetch us at five. The reason why we had to leave so early was that it is to hot in lowlands at daytime. But, there were no minibus. Waiting and waiting, still no bus.

Finally we found another minibus but now we were late. The first part of the road was very good and we thought that this was a simple trip, but soon it was only sand or stones instead of a way. The bus driver had big difficulties to find a derivable way and the speed was seldom over 25 km/hour.

Once the way was so bad chosen, so we ended up in a wadi (dry river bed) and we all had to go out of the bus and push. When he looked to tired of the hot sun and the sand dust we offered him water and dried dates. They tastes much better then the sticky ones we have in Sweden for Christmas. The views from the window looked more and more like the traditional picture of Africa with round huts, red soil, and a lot of natives with camels, sheep ore goats in big herds.

Suddenly the driver stopped and sad it was time for water. Just out in nowhere there was some tiny tents with warm Coca Cola.
 
After six hours in the hot bus we finally reached Barentu and the Mission station. We were expected and very much welcome thanks to phone calls and letters from Ingrid Hjalmarsson, one of the former missionaries. The new missionaries, the Lemse family, invited us for tea and we met a lot of Kunama people. The local priest, Keshe Salomon, showed us around in the compound and he was very proud over what Hjalmarssons and the Kunamas had built. We surely were impressed. There were a kindergarten for 56 children in a little soil hut, huts for women work, for praying and for health care.

These three huts were named Martha, Maria and Lazarus from the Bible. To complete the picture of the compound there also was a church and two newly built training centres. These centers are for educating people to teach adults to read and write, to take care of new-born babies in the best way and much more.

After dinner (goat stew, capretto) we ended up drinking hibiscus tea in the warm and dark African night. There where six Kunamas and eight people from Sweden plus the three children of Lemses, cicadas, lizards, huge praying mantis and the cry of donkeys in distance. Nine o’clock in the evening it is still over 30 degrees and we are supposed to sleep in the guest hut under mosquito net. You can get swet just to think about it .

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