Long and Crazy Week!

So last week was the marathon week of my life! The lead up to the conference(NUEW's 25th aniversary) and the conference itself was overly exhausting - but also great fun and interesting! We all worked very long hours (usually 7am to 8pm- with no going home for lunch- in Eritrea its customary for offices to close over lunch 12-2pm).Thank goodness- I have the day off today(Monday) and maybe tommorrow its supposed to be a holiday(!)- I can finally catch up on things.
So, despite all the hard work involved, the conference was truly amazing, there were 400 women delegates from all over Eritrea who came to the capital to celebrate NUEW's 25 years of amazing work. The conference was a 4 day event, so lots of time to meet people and learn about the various issues facing Eritrean Women! There were lots of interesting speakers, mostly professors or ministers from different governmental departments, presenting on all sorts of topics, from the low education rates for girls, to prostitution, to HIV/AIDS and women. My laptop ended up being the official conference laptop, so I have all the papers and powerpoint presentations at my disposal, so I may post one or two, later, to give you all an idea of the issues that were discussed.

The conference, officially began Wed. night, with a wonderful opening ceremony held downtown in Asmara's Oden Theatre.The next day there was another opening ceremony, for the inauguration of the beautiful exhibition NUEW had organized, honouring the women who fought and died in the war. This second opening cermony was really something else, there about 300 Tigrinian women dressed in the traditional white dress who came - to march, sing and drum for about one hour, the leadup to when the president came and when he came it was nuts, as I learned what its like to be part of the press, as there were about 15 other camera persons there and photographers all trying to grab the perfect shot of the president, as he toured the exhibit and later stayed for a tradional cofffee cermony outside. It was a little hectic but I managed to get a couple good shots!

After the next day we had yet another opening cermony for the conference, this time at the Ministry of Infromation where the rest of the conference would be held. There were all sorts of music, dancing and singing by Eritrean youth, this event the president also attended!

From that point on, it was a little tough, as the conference was competely in Tigrinya, with the exception of a few powerpoint presentations done in English. Luckily one of my collegues from NUEW sat next to me and did a lot of translation for me. Sunday evening, the conference concluded with a big dinner and dance. I had made friends with a women who works for the British Council and she brought me some traditional clothing to wear, and that got everyone quite impressed- to see Laura dressed as a Tigrinyan Women! I also made friends with some women from Barento- from the Tigre and Soho ethnic groups that live in that area- they reserved me a spot at their table and so we all sat together for the feast of ingera, salades, spicy meat in red chili sauce and veggies. After we all danced the night away- to all sorts of women singers singing the music of the different ethnic groups in Eritrea. I got home late, and very much loved sleeping in today! I took tons of beautiful photos of the women I met over the weekend, so as soon as I figure out how to post them on this site, I will be sure to send them your way.