making sport on eritrea's body
"how come you're not making sport on my body?"
the question was asked as i lay in the dark of the night sharing a small bed with my teacher friend tesfu. it was asked by him, it must have been, as there was no one else in the room.
but sleazy invitation to a sexual romp this was not. making sport on his body is tesfu's description of my habit of slowly pushing my fingers back on people's bodies and cracking them. meaning, the fingers. not the body. i’m tough, no doubt, just not that tough.
not making sport on his body. tesfu was merely complaining that i was popping my knuckles myself, without the assistance of his body.
of course this wasn't the first time my sleazy mind had noticed the hidden, or not so hidden, sexual innuendo of his phrase. indeed, i had silently chuckled many times before at what sounded like a ridiculous sexual euphemism, or opposite thereof, to me. no, it wasn't the first time, but the circumstances--the dark room, the night, the sharing of the bed, the smell of our sweat wafting through the dark silence--all compounded the effect in a way not quite achieved before. in a way that is an epitaph, though coming in the beginning of the written remembrance and the middle of the actual experience, of the series of understood miscommunications, misunderstood communications, shoulder shrugs and accepted though likely undesired situations that have characterized my "farewell tour" of eritrea.
the tour, or more precisely, the series of understood miscommunications, misunderstood communications, shoulder shrugs and accepted though undesired situations, began at the heels of my recovery from dengue fever. i was ready to kick off the expected and experienced prolonged depression that follows as a symptom of the disease, and left agordat for a trip into the southern highlands of eritrea. i had not seen much of the southern highlands previously, having spent most of the past two years in the western lowlands. hadida, a small village off the main road between the towns of decemhare and segenety, was my first stop. i was stunned by the dimensions of hadida--maybe 50 or so houses, a few hundred people, tops. made me really glad to live in agordat, though
it's hot, i've capitalized on the heat as an opportunity to get naked, and besides the fun of that, it's a big town in comparison and i've actually come to believe i'm mr. social there. the likelihood that that particular belief is actually delusion, and mefloquine, working in conjunction on my psyche, we can ignore.
a telling tale about hadida: you can't get much food there, but you can get plenty of gin. a logic i perfectly understood after surveying the entire expanse of the town in a glance. in hadida, i enjoyed a prearranged get together with some teachers, complete with plenty of gin to pass the time and fire to give us light. the next morning i awoke to catch a bus to the main road, where i sat down waiting for a hitch east. it came quickly, as did the offer to take the sister (not present, of course) of the man in the passenger seat as my wife. the man must've taken a liking to me. as for how his sister would've felt about me, that seemed of less concern.
after a combination of hitch-hikes and bus rides, i reached the town of senafe by evening, exhausted. senafe is near the border with ethiopia, inside the temporary security zone, and has UNMEE (United Nations Mission for Ethiopia and Eritrea) personnel stationed there. entering the fenced off temporary security zone, one must pass through a UN checkpoint. "Yes, please show me your ID card," the Desi soldier assertively requested, looking at me. i almost wanted to reply in Urdu. but there was no need to reply. i had my card and my travel permits, and passed through smoothly. then glancing out through the window of the leaving bus, i noticed the building at the checkpoint had the inscription "Sindh Battalion," and smiled. my home state. it's easy to see small coincidences as big omens when you're traveling, alone. i'm a master.
entering senafe you see the tents of the refugee camps that line either end of the town. these camps were set up for, and are still occupied by, internally displaced eritreans from the border areas, as well as senafe residents whose homes were destroyed by ethiopian forces during the last conflict. the scars of conflict are visible throughout the town, either through signposts for the "temporary hospital," set up after the "permanent" one was destroyed, or through the sight of destroyed or altogether absent buildings. one particularly massive, waddling structure struck me. indeed, it would be hard to miss. what once must have been a formidable building, its structure reduced to rigid, opposing wave-like figures, the pillars refusing to collapse, but certainly no longer straight. it looked almost as if it came out of a surrealist painting, but in fact was sculpted out of the reality of war. the debilitated building a monument to the debilitated lives that surrounded and still surround it.
any affinity for the UN caused by the home-state coincidence at the checkpoint was wiped away during my first night in senafe, after i had the misfortune of attending a party hosted by the UN military observers. the food was a nice change of pace, but the highlight of the night came when the military observers turned off the lights of the compound and started flashing the headlights of their toyota landcruisers on and off to simulate a disco-like effect, in rhythm with the booming music that was also provided courtesy of the the landcruisers. two simultaneous and opposing thoughts occurred in my head: the first, if these are the people who are supposed to be saving the world, God help us all. and the second, if these are the people who are supposed to be saving the world, perhaps my career options don't look so bad after all. gotta look on the bright side of things.
in senafe i rendezvoused with another teacher and hung around for a few days. one morning we climbed emba (mount) metara, which scared me senseless. i was not aware i was going to be doing some hardcore mountain climbing, and for the eritrean kids who were running up and down the mountain as if it was nothing, i suppose it wasn't hardcore mountain climbing. on the other hand, i felt like i was scaling K2. at one point you have to grab a metal rope and angle yourself across sideways with, again, for me, steadied steps. i was trembling and shaking with fear, while the eritrean kids were still going up and down like it was an elevator, not a mountain. maybe mountain climbing, or even elevator riding, is just not my gig.
despite all shaking and trembling, i mustered to scale to the very top of the peak, where it suddenly occurred to me, oh hell, i have to go back down now?. but at least that could wait a bit. maybe a lifetime. but no, the descent came sooner than that, and when we embarked upon it, despite all assurances to the contrary, it was far worse than the way up. but i made it all the way down, and without falling. destined to join the twelve skulls of monks piled together in one open grave in the middle of the mountain, i was not. thankfully.
the rest of my time in senafe i traveled south towards the border with ethiopia, and visited a few villages in the area, some smaller than even hadida. this part of the country is absolutely breathtaking, and not just because it is elevated and difficult to breath because of the altitude. mountains, valleys, peaks and canyons all recede into and form the horizon, as far as you can see. apparently, along the border there are two villages, surha and zalembesa (hill of the lion), the former in eritrea and the latter in ethiopia, from each of which the residents can wave to one another. joined by sight and separated by an invisible boundary, and war. on the way back at night i felt dwarfed as i looked out onto the silhouetted "hill of the lion," seemed much larger than a hill.
i traveled on. and on and on. all along meeting teacher friends and having funny exchanges. i left senafe and traveled northwards. i passed through asmara, taking a break. i went on to elabered, where i met tesfu and spent a day and night with him. the night was much more interesting. as we shared beds and he lamented that i was "not making sport on his body."
i moved on, making sport all over eritrea's body. or at least select parts of it. i stopped in keren, the place to go for jewelry, to buy nicky a massive, i mean massive, nose ring for her birthday. i bought a pair, they can double as earrings. i befriended farah the jeweler, who was impressed by my arabic. is my arabic good or is farah easily impressed? i'd bet on the latter. i headed back westwards, taking a break in agordat. then moved further west, to barentu, where i had to present letters and collect letters for my exit visa, and of course, meet with teacher friends i know from agordat.
i finally made it to ali qidr, on eritrea's other border, with sudan. here i was meeting a good friend, mahmud. mahmud's friends and i sat around and drank a perfect concoction of sweet cold milk, bitter asmara beer, and gin. they were getting drunk before making the dangerous journey across the border to sudan later that night. a trip they could get shot for, as all of eritrea's borders are officially closed. mahmud was to make the same journey shortly. we spent a few more days together, traveling, eating strange combinations of food, and having funnily misunderstood conversations. from teseney, we said our goodbyes. and mahmud traveled west, escaping to sudan, while i traveled east, returning to agordat.
and now i feel like my description of the trip is longer than the trip itself.
i have 2 weeks left in eritrea. one for agordat, one for asmara. then i'm out of here. i think it's time. i think i'm clinging. time to bite the bullet. i've been finished with school for a month. what does that mean? it means i've been clinging for a month. time to let go. and see where my feet land next.
time to make sport, on someone else's body.
