Keren trip

Hannah and I were able to take a short day-trip to Keren, which is a town to the north east of Asmara yesterday. We took this trip simply because our travel permits were delayed the other two weekends we were in Asmara, and we really wanted to make the most of our time here while we were here. We decided to sort of "rough-it" on our Keren trip and did so by taking the public bus. The trip cost a total of $23 Nakfa (or about $1.50 USD). We showed up via cab at the bus station yesterday morning, and our cab driver made sure someone was there to help us. There were very long lines of people waiting for various buses, but somehow we were ushered on to one before it filled. We didn't leave right away, so I decided to get off the bus and use the bathroom before we left. This turned out to be an bad decision because the bathroom I ended up using was the grossest I have been in since the start of our visit (there was a lot of gagging involved), and because I also nearly missed the bus. Luckily, Hannah had the bus driver hold the bus while I emptied my bladder, and I did make it.

We made the 3 hour journey to Keren without any difficulty both of us reading our books on the way there. The bus itself was very old and worn out of course without air conditioning and the road was quite bumpy and curvy on the way there. Despite this, we did ok with the trip and enjoyed the undivided reading time that we had. I do have to add that I am reading Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (almost done now), which is such an amazing book although I don't think I would have appreciated it as much if I wasn't a doctor or if I wasn't in Eritrea.

On arrival on the city of Keren, we were guided by a young guy that we met on the bus. He was actually looking over Hannah's shoulder during the bus ride, reading her book along with her, page by page. He showed us the old and the new markets. The "old" market was really the reason we came to Keren in the first place. It was a Monday-only market with plenty of items including scarves, soap, and coffee, but also included the very large Camel market. We spent quite a lot of time taking photos of the camels, posing with them, and petting them until we were yelled at by one of the camel market men. I love camels--they are soooooooo cool.

After the camel market, we just made our way through the new market, which was an area with more enclosed shops containing very bright colored clothing. The overall appearance of Keren was very very different from that of Asmara. The people were all wearing more traditional clothing with the men wearing white gowns and the women dressed in bright colored gowns. There were many more women were burqas and the population was definitely much more Muslim in their faith compared to that of Asmara. The architecture of the city was clearly not as influenced by the Italians with most of the houses and businesses in the very plain plaster boxy look. Not sure how else to describe it. The city was quite a bit smaller than Asmara obviously and most of the roads that we walked on were unpaved made up of sand. The primary thing that I took away from the city was the colorfulness of the people's wardrobe, which differed quite a lot from the people of Asmara. I was very glad that we made it because it was so culturally different from Asmara. It was clear that the people don't get visitors hardly EVER because Hannah and I were the only white people we saw when we were there and we were a spectacle among the young school-aged children.

After a coke break (which we later learned was Sudanese coke) and a rest from the very hot sun in Keren, Hannah and I found an old Italian cemetery behind the grain market in the city. Behind the Italian cemetery was a hill on top of which we were able to see the whole of the small city. We then took a taxi to a sacred Baobab tree that was believed to be a tree of fertility by the locals around which a church had been built. Hannah and I made a point to touch the tree and to climb around hits huge base before taking the bus back to Asmara. On the ride back, we found that throughout the way, the bus would stop at random small villages along the way and just pick random people up that it would drop off after a short drive. I guess it allows people from these small villages to really hitch a ride to other nearby villages. We made it back to Asmara via the bus extremely hot, sweaty and tired, but very satisfied with our outing that allowed us to see a very different, and pleasant side of the country.