Monday, September 15, 2003
A week later . . .
Friday, September 10th
We've had a week of in-country training now. The language lessons are hard work: we're learning phonetically which I find really difficult. Tigrinia's based on the ancient language of Ge'ez, and shares roots with Arabic and Hebrew. As such, the alphabet's completely different to Roman, having about 100 different letters! We're not being taught the grammar, so we have to figure it out as we go along.
A culture evening tonight at an Asmarino restaurant. Two long wooden huts adorned with pictures of Eritrea and the nine tribes, and scattered with cooking utensils and coffee pots. At the end, in the yard, is the kitchen: a couple of elderly women, one poking at the burning wood beneath a pot of popcorn, the other cooking meat under a corrugated iron roof. The smell of popping corn makes me impatient for the meal but first, the coffee. The coffee is lovely, and accompanied by the popcorn and three varieties of bread: a type of stiff popadum, a thick cake made from the inevitable injera, and a brown wholemeal-type flatbread. Delicious.
Next, we file into the restaurant and are treated to a presentation on Eritrean culture by Amanuel, the Tigrinia teacher, Eden and Sunait, VSO officers, and a local English teacher called Ma'lo. Apart from Ma'lo, they are all in traditional Tigrinia costume: white robes for Amanuel, simple elegant dresses with shawls for the women. Then there is the meal ...
(to be continued)
We've had a week of in-country training now. The language lessons are hard work: we're learning phonetically which I find really difficult. Tigrinia's based on the ancient language of Ge'ez, and shares roots with Arabic and Hebrew. As such, the alphabet's completely different to Roman, having about 100 different letters! We're not being taught the grammar, so we have to figure it out as we go along.
A culture evening tonight at an Asmarino restaurant. Two long wooden huts adorned with pictures of Eritrea and the nine tribes, and scattered with cooking utensils and coffee pots. At the end, in the yard, is the kitchen: a couple of elderly women, one poking at the burning wood beneath a pot of popcorn, the other cooking meat under a corrugated iron roof. The smell of popping corn makes me impatient for the meal but first, the coffee. The coffee is lovely, and accompanied by the popcorn and three varieties of bread: a type of stiff popadum, a thick cake made from the inevitable injera, and a brown wholemeal-type flatbread. Delicious.
Next, we file into the restaurant and are treated to a presentation on Eritrean culture by Amanuel, the Tigrinia teacher, Eden and Sunait, VSO officers, and a local English teacher called Ma'lo. Apart from Ma'lo, they are all in traditional Tigrinia costume: white robes for Amanuel, simple elegant dresses with shawls for the women. Then there is the meal ...
(to be continued)
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