Thursday, September 25, 2003
First taste of village life
Gin. Asmara gin is a fine liquor. It's quite sweet and slightly oily, and goes well with Sprite -- the only alternative to Coke or Fanta here.
Wednesday 17th and Thursday 18th September
A visit to the home of a current volunteer! I'm on my way to Adi Gual, via Mendefere, South and a little bit West of Asmara.
Mendefere is home to current volunteer Jo. We don't get to see much because we're just passing through, but she makes us a cup of tea and we talk about life in Mendefere.
It's a spacious, airy town. Little vegetation, which is quite a shock after the fecundity of Asmara. Colours are all ochres and sunshine, with two-storey blocks lining wide streets that radiate from a central roundabout. Past the bustle of the bus station, there's very little traffic -- another contrast with Asmara.
Jo's landlord organises a minibus to take us on to Kirsty's village: Adi Gual.
After an hour or so, we arrive in Adi Gual. A tiny village clustered around a short dirt track, it's a jumble of stone huts and concrete shacks. Kirsty lives in a shack, in walled compound who's other inhabitants are the local bar and the village gossip -- an old woman with a sly twinkle to her eye.
The shack is very basic. When Kirsty arrived, she didn't even have a toilet and would have had to go in the fields, surrounded by curious kids, if she hadn't made a fuss. Now she has a squat toilet cum shower cubicle built onto the side of her hut. The estate is completed by a small space outside the hut that serves as garden and patio, through which the neighbour's chickens strut. There's no electricity, and she has to walk a kilometre or so for the nearest clean water. When we go to fetch water, we find that the pump is locked up, so we have to walk three times as far in a round trip until we finally get to a well of scummy green liquid.
There's no bucket, so we improvise with rope and the containers we're carrying. Graham climbs partway into the well to push the container under the water level, nearly slipping and falling in the process. I watch the hilarity from the safe distance of the nearby slope.
Wednesday 17th and Thursday 18th September
A visit to the home of a current volunteer! I'm on my way to Adi Gual, via Mendefere, South and a little bit West of Asmara.
Mendefere is home to current volunteer Jo. We don't get to see much because we're just passing through, but she makes us a cup of tea and we talk about life in Mendefere.
It's a spacious, airy town. Little vegetation, which is quite a shock after the fecundity of Asmara. Colours are all ochres and sunshine, with two-storey blocks lining wide streets that radiate from a central roundabout. Past the bustle of the bus station, there's very little traffic -- another contrast with Asmara.
Jo's landlord organises a minibus to take us on to Kirsty's village: Adi Gual.
After an hour or so, we arrive in Adi Gual. A tiny village clustered around a short dirt track, it's a jumble of stone huts and concrete shacks. Kirsty lives in a shack, in walled compound who's other inhabitants are the local bar and the village gossip -- an old woman with a sly twinkle to her eye.
The shack is very basic. When Kirsty arrived, she didn't even have a toilet and would have had to go in the fields, surrounded by curious kids, if she hadn't made a fuss. Now she has a squat toilet cum shower cubicle built onto the side of her hut. The estate is completed by a small space outside the hut that serves as garden and patio, through which the neighbour's chickens strut. There's no electricity, and she has to walk a kilometre or so for the nearest clean water. When we go to fetch water, we find that the pump is locked up, so we have to walk three times as far in a round trip until we finally get to a well of scummy green liquid.
There's no bucket, so we improvise with rope and the containers we're carrying. Graham climbs partway into the well to push the container under the water level, nearly slipping and falling in the process. I watch the hilarity from the safe distance of the nearby slope.
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