Bowling for Ali

Last week my dear sister Ali departed and left Eritrea.Her last week was a lot of fun. We visited all the fair trade gift shops and bought different souvenirs. We went out for lunch with my work-mates at the Blue Nile for some of her last Ingera for some time. It was a great lunch, as since everyone is fasting this days due to Lent, there is the most amazing vegetarian food, and to boot, we can now use the excuse we're fasting when offered meat, and that response is usually respected whereas the excuse I dont eat meat usually is met with strange looks and questions. And as a little farewell gift I took ALi to one of Asmara's finest restaurants -Roof Garden- for the East Indian Buffet- really its not much compared to Punjab Sweets or Bombay palace back home in Edmonton, but its Indian nevertheless. Finally, we had a little farewell party at Asmara's bowling alley- which was a hoot! The pins and balls are manually put in place through the efforts of a young boy at the end of the lane, as the machinery that once did the job no longer works. The place looks straight out the 1950s, as the decor has not changed, only aged since it was built. We ordered some Asmara beer and did a couple games, as some friends dropped by to bid Ali farewell. I actually won the last game, getting a strike every second round(the uneven flooring really worked to my advantage).