The Way Home

Hannah and I wrapped up our trip to Eritrea yesterday with a driving tour around Asmara with Tsige, Melles' wife. She showed us one of the three dams that is responsible for collecting the water supply for the entire city. The water at this time of year in the very small "lake" formed by the dam was extremely low, which indicated to me just how dependent upon the rainy season the people are. She took showed us one of the engineering colleges that reminded me of the food science campus at the University of Arkansas with basically a high fence around a field containing many small buildings that served as the classrooms. The drive from the city to the college is quite long and not practical on a daily basis, so the 2000+ students that go there live in the dorms on the campus, which are radically different from what we think of as dorms. All of these things she showed us were down the path of a dirt road and lead to many small villages that comprised the population of Asmara.

Tsige was very excited to take us out for some reason. I felt sorry that we had not been able to spend more time with her while we were there, but the time just got away from us. Talking with her, she explained much more to us about the culture and the battle for independence. She explained how the guerilla fighters were finally able to capture the city of Massawa which served as a major port for northern Ethiopia in 1990 after fighting since 1961. Then gradually some time later the Ethiopian fighters left the city of Asmara and independence was declared in 1991. She also explained, however, that Eritrea was not recognized as a country by the United Nations until 1993. Hearing her story about the country and how there was virtually no support from the western world gave me a better understanding of why Eritrea is the way it is now, limiting the outside world in an effort to do things on its own (though I still don't think this is the best for them).

We said our goodbyes to the hotel staff and gave our last tips to the restaurant personnel and the doorman (who was at the door literally all day long every day with a smile on his face). We had our last meal of shiro, addis, injera, and a spinach dish I still can't remember the name of. We ordered our last B.P.W. or big plastic water and finally our trip came to an end with Melles and his daughter picking us up to make our trek to the airport. We were sad to go but were thankful to be finally heading home after a month. After a good 20 checks of our passports by nearly ever person we ran into at the airport, we made it to our gate and eventually onto the plane that took us from Asmara then to Jeddah then to Frankfurt. Hannah and I both got our long-awaited coke zeros on the plane, which we found weren't as good as we had hoped. In the Frankfurt airport I went a little nuts and bought a good $60 worth of German and Belgian chocolates. I do plan on giving some of it away though--at least that is what I keep telling myself to feel better about the ridiculous amount of money I spent (the weakness of the dollar over her really inhibited my chocolate buying abilities).

Hannah and I are planning our last 2 days of freedom before heading back to the ICU and the every third night call schedule requiring a good 90+ hours a week out of us. I'm afraid it will be a bit of a shock after the relatively relaxed schedule in Eritrea that gave us the weekends off and 2 hour lunch breaks. But it will be bittersweet--the ICU is a lot fun and I am very much welcoming back the practice and plentiful resources that make American medicine possible.