Asmara Eritrea - February 04 2017
After a short rest and a phone call to Eagle Travel for a meeting with Mussie, the tour manager, I leave the apartment to test my feet in the Nda Corea Housing Complex. I visit some nearby friends, who have their apartment in one of the concrete housing blocks.
On the roundabout near the Expo grounds I walk into a bicycle race on the asphalt road to Kushet. Cycling is very popular in Eritrea. The race is almost finished, the public is leaving and I have some time to have a chat with the cyclists to fill the gap to my appointment with Mussie.
I meet Mr. Tekeste, the owner of Asmara Grande, who picked my up from the airport yesterday. He sounds the horn, and stops his car to greet me, asking me if I had any success at the MoT to get an invitation for the Fenkil celebrations. I tell him the staff of the MoT informed me the invitations are prepared in Massawa and not in Asmara. He will do his best to check his network to get me an invitation for the Fenkil official ceremony.
In the SA building I meet Mussie in the Eagle Travel office and Almaz of Eritrean Airlines.
I walk to Godaif to visit the recently renovated and opened Tourist Hotel. A young man joins me, asking me where I came from. I tell him, I am from The Netherlands. He tells me he was sent to Eritrea by his parents in Germany because of bad behavior, to become more disciplined.
He wants 300 Nakfa. I tell him that I find his request a little strange. If he has parents in Germany, he should ask them for money, and not a poor tourist like me (just joking ;-). “Tourists can't be poor” he replies. He explains he needs the 300 Nakfa to buy a telephone card to make a call to Germany so he can ask his parents to send some extra money.
I suggest borrowing some money from friends, so he can return it when his parents have sent him the money. “I don't have any friends” he replies. It does not surprise me. I ask him why he does not have any friends. (I have many in Eritrea, and I do not even live there).
The young man keeps following me. I cannot get rid of him. Looks I am his last hope for a few hundred Nakfa's. I try to escape in the Tourist Hotel, telling him I have a job to do, asking him to leave me alone.
But he follows me into the Tourist Hotel, where I have a nice chat with the manager and take some notes to add to our hotels in Asmara page. The young man is doing his best to 'assist' and I am doing my best to ignore him.
I round the block to get rid of him and apologize to the hotel manager when I return a few minutes later. The hotel manager tells me the youngster introduced himself being a friend of mine. I explain he is not a friend of mine, and he is just following and begging.
Maybe I am a bit to hard, but there is a lot of people who need some financial assistance, and I think I should give it to those unable to work, like old women, or someone with a handicap, and not to a young boy sent away by his parents for lack of discipline. He may even need my Nakfa's for alcohol or cigarettes.
Leaving the Tourist Hotel I experience a local sand storm in the Bar Jima area. People cover their eyes, and hide their head in their jackets. Fortunately it is just a few minutes.
I snake through the streets of Bar Jima, an area named after a historic bar with the same name in Tegadelti Street, before returning to Tiravolo, visiting more hotels for data evaluation.
Today's walk ends in the house of Freweini and Haile. I drink a few Asmara beers with the priests who are also visiting the house, and listen to the prayers of the Keshi's. Rahel, the neighbor playing the Koboro with me last year is also passing by to greet. We have a small chat. She is happy I did not forget her, and the picture.
When it is getting dark we take a taxi to Nda Corea, where I wash the sand from my hair before going to sleep.
.
Block 105 - Dembe Sembel Asmara Eritrea.
Sembel Hospital - Dembe Sembel Asmara Eritrea.
Elementary & Secondary School - Dembe Sembel Asmara Eritrea.
Dembe Sembel Stadium - Dembe Sembel Asmara Eritrea.
Dembe Sembel Bus & taxi stop - Dembe Sembel Asmara Eritrea.
Bicycle race Road to Kushet - Expo area Asmara Eritrea.
SA Building - Warsay Street Asmara Eritrea.
Up to Date Internet Cafe - Mereb Street Asmara Eritrea.
Tourist Hotel - Bar Jima Area Asmara Eritrea.
743-2 Street - Bar Jima Area Asmara Eritrea.
743-2 Street - Bar Jima Area Asmara Eritrea.
Solar powered Embahara Street - Expo area Asmara Eritrea.
Expo Hotel - Expo area Asmara Eritrea.
Family Supermarket - Warsay Street Asmara Eritrea.
Family visit - Asmara Eritrea.
