i arrived in asmara...

at 4:30 yesterday morning. immediately luck was on my side. instead of having to pay 150 nakfa for a cab and hoping to find a hotel that was open and had space, i heard someone call my name. tabby! it was terje, the vso program director. he cracked, "you weren't expecting me to be waiting for your arrival, were you?" i knew it couldn't be, the story was i had arrived on the same flight as the last of the new bunch of volunteers. lucky me. got a ride to town and terje let me stay in the guest house of his beautiful home. after i passed out for a few hours we lunched on smoked salmon and had a nice chat. terje reminded me that i was now the lone volunteer remaining in the western lowlands of eritrea. something that i have vaguely recognized before, but this was the first time terje brought it up with me.

the western lowlands and the northern areas of eritrea are considered to have general low-level security risk. there were a few volunteers along with me in different cities of the lowlands last year, but all the others have left due to personal security concerns following a series of bomb blasts.

the western lowlands are also the muslim-majority area of eritrea, whereas the highlands, where most of the volunteers are concentrated, are christian-majority. so what we see in effect is VSO pulling out of muslim areas while remaining in christian areas. terje and i both agree that this is structurally problematic. my question is how is this dynamic repeating that of former colonial powers woho favored their christian subjects over their muslim subjects? to his credit, terje has said before that if it gets to the point where VSO works in the christian highlands but not in the muslim lowlands, it's time to close up shop. i wonder how far we are from that point.


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September 20, 2004

no parking no standing no photography. no flour no sugar no milk. no petrol no cooking gas no kerosene. driving from terje's house to the center of town, the streets were empty. eerie. as there was no petrol. is no petrol. or to be more accurate, there is a shortage of petrol, as well as flour, sugar, milk, cooking gas and kerosene. internet has been non-functional for 7 out of the 9 days i have now been here. and the no parking no standing no photography, that's just what the signs outside the american embassy say.

i felt a bit electric my first few days back. a little bit more aware, more plugged in, more alive. last year i was dead. now i'm emptying a 40 over my former grave.