Good Weekend in Asmara

After a stressful week I had a very nice weekend in Asmara. On Sat Gabri (my room-mate) and I had a relaxing morning in our garden and gave ourselves pedicures under the sun. After we went to the market to get some vegetables, and other things we needed. Later in the afternoon we joined “the HASH” a weekly walking group that meets every Sat at 3pm to go do a hike somewhere around Asmara. It’s a funny event, as usually there are around 40 or so of us foreigners that gather together, we all pile into different vehicles and then lead a procession outside the city somewhere. After the hike, I recruited a date – Robert (another Canadian Intern working here) and together we went to a fancy going away party for a Canadian couple who have been working here for the UN over the past 3 years. It was so formal it almost felt like a wedding; it was nice though there was lots of good food and wine.
The next day early in the morning I took the train from Asmara to a village about an hour away. It was great, as the view from the train was spectacular. There must have been a couple hundred of us internationals that bought tickets. It was a fundraiser the Israeli Embassy organized for the Eritrean Disabled Fighters Association. In total40,000 Nakfa(about $2500US) was raised.
After the train ride, I went back home to relax, and afterwards at 6pm, got ready to go out again and went to my first Eritrean Wedding. It was Nebyat’s (my maid) son’s wedding. It was really fun to finally see an Eritrean Wedding, as the past two months it seems that every eligible girl and bachelor have been getting married, as you see the traditional wedding tents everywhere, see tons of wedding processions going down Liberation Avenue, and you definitely cant miss the drumming and loud Tigrinya music being played all night long at all the weddings. Its especially hard to sleep if you have a wedding going on in your neighbourhood, as they really turn into block parties, as the tent along usually takes up half a block. We had a lot of fun, me and Gabri were treated like royal guests at the wedding as the only white guests in attendance! Nebyat looked so gorgeous and was very happy and proud, she really was the queen of the party dancing all night long! The cutting of the multiple wedding cakes was amusing, as its tradition to feed your cake to someone else, so everyone was giving one another pieces of cake. After the wedding, I was pretty tired and went straight to bed -what another great weekend!