Day 350 - On The Playing Field

Tekelu behind Sandra with other spectators

On the sidelines and on our walks from the Expo Center to my house, a few of the boys told me a little bit about themselves, although English was a challenge for them. We would trade words, Tigrinya and English words, as we pointed to objects along the way. Houses, cars, trees, flowers, and the many things we carried or wore such as balls, boots, shirts, shorts. I don't remember any of the Tigrinya words.

Eventually the boys began to line up other neighborhood teams to play against. There was Team Germany. I never learned if that team had any German benefactors. And there was Team Blanco. These teams also had uniforms, or at least T-shirts with numbers on the back. Habtom and whichever boy served as the coach of the other team served as the referees during the game. Somehow they kept track of time, although I don't know how closely they kept track of the score.

Team Blanco vs Team USA

There were always groups of spectators around as the boys played. Sometimes an adult who walked or rode on bicycle through the grounds would stop and watch for awhile. Many times adults with small children would be on the grounds and would watch. After a few weeks of regular practice, I noticed another group of boys kicking a ball around casually near Team USA. The next week, they were there again. That time, one of the boys started leading the others through some of the same drills as Habtom had used with Team USA. The following week, I saw that the boys all had matching T-shirts, not quite uniform quality, with numbers written on the back with black magic marker.

One afternoon as I was sitting on the field, a few of the boys sat down with me. We leaned against the big nylon bag that held all the spare soccer balls. Tekelu, the boy with the face that caught my attention most the first time I saw the boys told me that he lived with his adoptive father and his wife. When I first saw Tekelu's face in that group, there was a connection that I couldn't explain. I wondered at that moment if Tekelu might be the reason I was in Africa. I had the hardest time saying his name. I could barely hear the difference between the "e" and the "u" of his name.

Team Germany vs Team USA

Tekelu also told me that his adoptive father taught English and his adoptive mother taught history. Later I learned that his adoptive father was really his uncle. Tekelu's mother's sister was the uncle's wife. Tekelu's biological father had been killed during the civil war but since he had not fought on the side of the Eritrean winners, he was considered a dead traitor and Tekelu's mother received no support from the government. Without either a husband to support her or an education to fall back on to get employment, Tekelu's mother had little choice but to move in with her sister, Elfay, and her husband, Nasser.

Nasser was the father who had called me to warn me to be careful about the money I gave to the boys. Before I left Eritrea, I met Nasser for dinner at a restaurant in a hotel just down the street from the corner grocery store. He brought Tekelu and his daughter Saron with him.

Tekelu

Nasser had told me he was blind when he called to arrange to meet with me. So is his wife. The evening we had dinner he told me the rest of his story. Nasser had been born into a Muslim family. When he was 9, he contracted measles and lost his eyesight. Since Ethiopia didn't provide education for deaf or blind children in the government schools, Nasser was sent away to a boarding school for the blind. It was at that school that he met Elfay.

When Nasser and Elfay finished secondary school, they went to Addis Ababa to attend university. They both became teachers and they were assigned to separate parts of the country when they completed their studies. The only way they could be assigned to the same area was if they married. But Elfay is Christian. Nasser's family was against the marriage and even more against Nasser's decision to become a Christian to be with Elfay. 

While they were in Addis Ababa, Nasser became active in the Ethiopian National Association for the Blind. He became interested in the concept of mainstreaming children with disabilities instead of segregating them in separate schools. 

Once Eritrea became independent, the Ethiopian government expelled anyone who was originally from Eritrea. Nasser and Elfay moved to Asmara where they eventually were assigned teaching jobs. Nasser became one of the founding members of the Eritrean National Association for the Blind. Life started looking up for Nasser, even though by that time he and his wife had responsibility for their own children as well as Elfay's sister, Tekelu, and Elfay's mother.

But things began to change in 2002. First, the discrimination and persecution of followers of denominations other than the four recognized by the government began. When Nasser converted to Christianity, he joined the church of Elfay and her family. It was not one of the four recognized by the Eritrean government. Also in 2002, Nasser was selected by the Ministry of Education to study for his Master's degree at a university in South Africa. This seemed like a step forward for him, but when he returned, at about the same time as I arrived in Eritrea, the Ministry had no teaching assignment for him. His hopes for establishing an inclusion education option - we call it mainstreaming - was against the direction the Ministry was taking the country. Even more distressing for Nasser was that during his absence the Eritrean National Association for the Blind shifted its emphasis away from addressing the challenges of all blind people and instead took an interest only in addressing the lives of those who were blinded during the civil war, those considered martyrs.

That was Nasser's family's situation when I left Eritrea at the end of June, 2004.