My first football game

Hannah and I have stayed busy being here in Eritrea. This morning we both woke about 9:30 after we independently stayed up too late reading (books for pleasure!). We opted for a light breakfast, skipping the usual continental breakfast at the hotel and then headed out to the zoo. We went to the main street which is just a block from our hotel and found ourselves a taxi driver. His name was Tsehhye and he ended up being our tour guide for a couple of hours. He took us out to the outskirts of the city where we drove through areas of untouched land that were nothing but dry soild and cactus. It was the closest that we have come thusfar to seeing African the way that I had pictured it in the rural areas.

At the zoo Tsehhye agreed to wait for us while we looked around so that we would have a ride back into the city. So, the zoo here isn't ANYTHING like it is in the US. I would instead compare it to a small playground with a few cages with some animals. The cost is $10 Nafka (about 67 cents) to get in. There is a gate around the area and the whole zoo area is certainly no larger than probably half of a baseball field. At the entrance to the right is a concession stand and straight ahead is the playground. I will give their playground some points for having what looked like some pretty fun slides and swings. Nothing like what is in the US since everything there is "safe". Then to the left are all of the animals.

So what animals did we see at the zoo today, you ask? We saw a small little nervous fox pacing around his cage that was probably 10 ft by 10 ft in size. We saw a falcon and a couple other birds. We saw 3 white rabbits. We saw 2 hyenas. We saw some large turtles. We saw 3 different kinds of monkeys. And, we saw....nope thats it. That is all of the animals. I would also like to add that this is the only zoo in all of the Eritrea.

Our taxi driver ended up walking around with us and showing us the way. As if we would get lost or something? He had some bread with him and this made for the highlight of the affair. We took the bread to the monkeys where we were able to feed them--something absolutely not allowed at the zoos in the US. The monkeys had such small little hands and would reach out with them to grab the bread. There was a cage with some a large baboon in it whose name was apparently Thomas (per the taxi driver) who would do flips for bread. The real fun cam when one of the monkeys in the cage with the baboon climbed to the top f the cage and peed straight out nearly hitting Hannah and very likely did hit one of the little kids down below. I'm not sure if he was mad that he didn't get as much bread as the baboon or what, but it made for a good laugh.

So, after the festivities at the zoo, we headed back into the city, but not without first having Tsehhye stop a few times so we could take pictures of the country side with all of the cactus. He also drove us by the president's house and the US embassy here in Eritrea on our way home. Back at the hotel, we went to the roof where we both wrote in our journals and I read some more (I'm currently reading and almost through with A Thousand Splendid Suns--its really great and I think maybe better than The Kite Runner.

Our afternoon then started at 2:30 when Hannah's intern who took us for a coffee ceremony yesterday, picked us up at our hotel and took us to an Eritrean football (soccer game). I have never watched an entire soccer game in my life and I don't really know all of the rules except that you can't use your hands and when the ball gets in the goal, you get a point. That's really enough to know I think to be able to watch a game. So, we went to the Eritrean stadium, which I would compare to the University of Arkansas Greek Theater--concrete seats surrounding a field. Henoch got us into the game through his cousin's husband who works for the Eritrean sports team. The field was plain but nice with the two short ends and one of the long sides around the stadium with concrete bleachers.

The game was Eritrea versus Kenya with Eritrea wearing blue and Kenya wearing red uniforms. When the teams lined up on the field to sing their national anthems, it was interesting to see the difference in the people from the two countries. The Kenyan people are much darker with very round features while the Eritrean people are much lighter with more Caucasian features. One of the referees, presumably from Kenya, we could see even from the back of the bleachers was extraordinarily dark and at least 6 foot 4 inches tall with very long legs. We got to hear both the countries national anthem and to hear the Eritrean people sing theirs.

The game was actually quite entertaining; much more entertaining than watching on television. The field doesn't look quite as big in person as it does when watching on television. I was blown away by the athleticism that is required for soccer because they run the whole time. People were very into the game focusing on it without too much else going on during the game. Whereas in the US there are concessions and people getting up and down to get food and drink during the games, there is no such think here, so the people simply focus on the game. The one thing that they did have were little kids with large bowls of peanuts walking around selling them. You could buy about a half a cup of peanuts which were dolled out with soft drink lid--2 scoops for 2 Nafka. Later in the game there were children selling gum and tissues, a common thing for ladies on the street to be selling. Finally, toward the end of the game, there were women with glasses selling some sort of tea colored drink--either tea or whiskey. Probably whiskey. During the game, Hannah noticed that the children were all wearing some sort of tall green ring on their hands. These turned out to be palms for palm Sunday which were braided and formed into a ring for the children to wear.

We were lucky because early on in the game, the Eritrean team scored, so we got to experience the excitement that comes with a score here. Eritrea ended up actually scoring 3 times while we were there, and then presumably winning although we left a little before the end. We left early because Henoch, her intern, needed to get back to work because he is on call tonight. Somehow he was able to take off while the other intern worked by himself so that he could take us to the game. Of course, being on call here means something very different from being on call at Barnes Hospital or any other US residency. He walked us the entire way back to our hotel because we weren't sure of the way with the route he had chosen.

So now we will likely go have dinner somewhere before bed and starting the new week. We are both very excited for this week because Dr. Windus and Henish will both be getting in tomorrow. We are eager to see how the trip changes with them here, though they will both only be staying a week. Also, Easter is this coming Sunday and is the biggest holiday celebration here. It seems the tradition will include late Saturday night mass from 8pm to 2am followed the next day by cooking some sort of animal--most commonly talked about is goat and lamb. I'm hoping this next week will be as good as the first.