Beautiful Trip to Keren
On Saturday I got a wonderful opportunity to visit the city of Keren.At 6:30am in the morning, my collegues at NUEW picked me up, and together we travelled to Keren, to participate in NUEW's 25th aniversary celebrations that were taking place in this city. We took a small winding road for about 2 hours and arrived in good time, to have a quick breakfast near the market. We ate a popular tasty breakfast called "Foul",which seemed to consist of a slip pea soup base, with chopped onions, tomatoes, green chili peppers, cayene pepper and topped with sour cream and melted butter, and was served with bread.
After something to eat, we made our way to the city's Stadium which was packed. At the Stadium there were all sorts of women's groups, doing presentations and marching around the stadium. There was a musical concert,singing, dancing, followed by several speeches and awards for best women worker, best sportswomen, etc.
After we visited NUEW's women centre in Keren for a feast of all sorts of good foods. And after lunch I got to partake in my first Eritrean Coffee Ceremony, where I had about 5 cups of expresso-like coffee, not realizing there were several rounds of coffee included in the ceremony. All in all, its about a 2 hour ordeal. Great fun, drinking lots of freshly roasted coffee,combined with lots of socializing...
After we went to an exposition the women from the centre were hosting in another area of the city. There I joined in the women's drumming and dancing circle and I must say they all loved my dancing, as following their tradition they kept putting dollar bills in my shirt and on the side of my glasses, to keep me dancing. At the exposition they also had three traditional huts set up, representing three different ethnic groups in the area of Keren: Tigre, Tigrina, and Bilenin. In each of the huts they had a real bride and a groom you could meet and ask questions of.
After, the exposition we had to leave in order to get back to Asmara before it got dark, as the roads are not too safe at night, as they wind up and down the highlands.
After something to eat, we made our way to the city's Stadium which was packed. At the Stadium there were all sorts of women's groups, doing presentations and marching around the stadium. There was a musical concert,singing, dancing, followed by several speeches and awards for best women worker, best sportswomen, etc.
After we visited NUEW's women centre in Keren for a feast of all sorts of good foods. And after lunch I got to partake in my first Eritrean Coffee Ceremony, where I had about 5 cups of expresso-like coffee, not realizing there were several rounds of coffee included in the ceremony. All in all, its about a 2 hour ordeal. Great fun, drinking lots of freshly roasted coffee,combined with lots of socializing...
After we went to an exposition the women from the centre were hosting in another area of the city. There I joined in the women's drumming and dancing circle and I must say they all loved my dancing, as following their tradition they kept putting dollar bills in my shirt and on the side of my glasses, to keep me dancing. At the exposition they also had three traditional huts set up, representing three different ethnic groups in the area of Keren: Tigre, Tigrina, and Bilenin. In each of the huts they had a real bride and a groom you could meet and ask questions of.
After, the exposition we had to leave in order to get back to Asmara before it got dark, as the roads are not too safe at night, as they wind up and down the highlands.
posted by Laura | 10:51 PM
1 Comments:
Hey cool,
sounds like lots of coffee and dancing, just what you like :) I'm still trying to dial the #, talk to you later (vadim)
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