Easter eve

Today Hannah, Henish, and myself spent our time walking around Asmara through the markets and going in and out of little shops along the way. The market was busy like last weekend, but in contrast to last weekend, we noticed that there were a lot more people with animal. There were a lot of women with live chickens, holding them upside down, and men leading goats around the streets by their ears. All of these animals are in preparation for tomorrow's Easter Sunday feast the the people will have. Even yesterday at Melles' house, he had a lamb in his back yard for tomorrow. Basically all of the people here unless they are Muslim, have a celebration on Easter that starts with the sacrificing of an animal--sheep being very common. Usually the man of the house is supposed to sacrifice the animal, but some have people come into the home to do it. Children are not supposed to watch this tradition, and as we learned last night most of them don't want to watch any way. Then the animal is cut up by the women of the family, some of it stored, and some of it cooked for the day's celebration and end to the vegetarian diet they had all been following.

The people here are very religious with most everyone that we have encountered being either Catholic or Orthodox Christian. The religious nature of the people here is something that I wasn't expecting coming from the US. There are four religions recognized by Eritrea: Catholicism, Orthodox Christian, Baptist, and Muslim. The people essentially have to be one of these 4 recognized religions. Although Baptist is apparently recognized, I have yet to either see a Baptist church or meet someone who is Baptist. It seems that most of the people here we have spoken with are Orthodox.

On our wandering around the city today, we found the main Orthodox Christian church that people have been telling us about--St Mary's. We went around the back of the church and found a conference hall and a Sunday school classroom. There were some children who were getting a lesson it appeared in the conference hall and we were able to snap some pictures of them. We then went and had lunch and took our daily afternoon nap in preparation for this evening.

The festivities in the churches--both Orthodox and Catholic--happen mostly at night. Around town during our walk, there were people with palms tied around their heads, the palm-made rings they had made the week before, and just pieces of palms everywhere. There is service at both churches from 8pm until apparently 2-3 in the morning. The three of us decided this is something we should go and see since we are here. We hit the town tonight around 8:15pm and hit up the Catholic cathedral on the main street where they were holding mass in Italian. After a few minutes there, we eventually made our way back to St Mary's Orthodox Church where there were people--mostly women--lining the gates to the church and the outside of the church dressed in all white. The speakers for the church were broadcasting the singing from inside the church and after going in we realized why there were so many people outside--it was wayyyyyyy hot.

In the church, men and women were traditional white clothing, but women cover their heads. Since we are foreigners, we get a pass, but Hannah and I did wear skirts and covered our heads. She was lucky and was wearing a white shirt with a hood that she wore into the church while I wore a blue scarf that I bought the first day I was here. We looked like a pair of idiots, but no one minded. At the entrance to the church, which by the way has very plain architecture on the outside, there were palms over the ground. We had to take our shoes off at this point and we stepped into the church barefoot. Inside, was quite the sight--everyone was wearing white with most of the men on the left of the church and women on the right and everyone was standing throughout the service. The women were heavily clothed with their traditional white robes despite the heat. There was singing unlike anything I have heard, and which sounded much like I imagine the early churches many millenia ago would sing. Of course both the singing and the service were conducted in Tigrinya, so we didn't understand anything. The non-singing part reminded me some of Catholic mass, but was a little less scripted. In true Eritrean style, it didn't seem to be quite as organized as church usually is in the US. We did notice that they kept bringing in lots of candles throughout the service, which will presumably be used for the midnight service with lights off and candles on (sounds like a real fire hazard). The church was pretty packed already and it no doubt will continue to fill all night until the services end.

Now, I am sitting in my hotel room with my window open listening to the Orthodox Christian church singing that can be heard throughout the city. The Catholic cathedral church bell tower just rang, and I imagine will continue to ring periodically throughout the night until Easter Sunday finally arrives. We are very lucky that we are getting to experience this country's most beloved and serious holiday. Tomorrow, we will go to an Easter Sunday lunch where I believe a goat is on the menu.