Day 351 - I Found Jane

It was fortunate that I had been able to travel to Keren early in my stay in Eritrea. As the restrictions placed by the Eritrean government on travel by foreigners became more strict, we had to look for options within the city or the immediate environment for entertainment. One of the options was the hash.

View while hashing in Eritrea

For those who haven't experienced the hash, let me provide some background. The full name is Hash House Harriers, abbreviated as HHH or H3. HHH is an international non-competitive running (or walking) group with a social element. The movement started in 1938 in what is now Malaysia and took the name from the informal name of the building where several of the original group lived, the Hash House. The run is modeled on a British game called paper chase, but I have no idea what that is. I always thought of it as modeled on fox hunting, but without the horses or the fancy riding outfits.  One member, the hare, sets out a trail using flour, shredded paper, gravel or something sufficiently different from the background that the runners, or hounds, can find the way. As the runners find the trail, they shout On on. I have seen bumper stickers and T-shirts all around the world with the words On on, making the two words one of the biggest inside jokes in the world. However, the hares also set false spurs on the trail to mislead the runners.  When that happens, the hounds are supposed to retrace their steps to get back on the track. To skip forward to where other runners are on the right track is cause for a penalty at the end of the run.

End of the hash in Madagascar

That is the non-competitive running aspect of the hash. When everyone reaches the end of the trail, the social part kicks in as consumption of copious quantities of beer follow.  All newcomers to a particular HHH group are required to drink a large mug of beer as quickly as possible. The winner gets to throw down his or her mug. The others must dump what remains of their beer over their heads. The penalty for failing to retrace steps is similar - drinking large quantities of beer or having beer poured over the head.  Some call the hash a drinking club with a running problem, although one of the original aims of the first HHH was to burn off the effects of too much drinking the weekend before.

HHH groups meet weekly, monthly, or at some other level of frequency. Some groups only meet on February 29. Each group sets its own schedule. In Asmara, the HHH was even less formal than elsewhere I had experienced. We met at that same corner grocery store close to my house. We never knew where we were going to go from there. And that meant there wasn't any pre-laid trail for us to try to find. The American woman who was by default in charge knew of many pleasant areas we could walk. She decided at the last minute where we would go based on how many people turned up, how many cars were available to get us there, and what news she had heard or found out by driving around herself to discover how far out of town the government would let us travel and where police roadblocks were set up.

In spite of those unsual aspects of the arrangements, I saw some beautiful territory not too far out of town. One walk brought us to the edge of a valley where low clouds over the mountains on the other side brought up the image of gorrillas in the mist, especial after people who had been there before pointed out there were large monkeys in the valley.

When we couldn't get out of the city limits, we had to find other entertainment. Friday evenings there was always a crowd at one of the UN peacekeeping locations that hosted a weekly barbecue. One Friday Jewel and I went. As we approached the building, a woman coming out looked familiar. I saw she was wearing a badge so I walked up to her, staring all the while at her badge, and discovered she looked familiar because I had met her in Sanaa. Her name was Jane.

The regional medical officer in Sanaa and his wife had introduced Alex and me to Jane very briefly when we made our get-acquainted visit the year before I moved to Sanaa. Their daughter and Jane's daughter were friends. 

Jane worked for a Swedish aid organization. She had been in Yemen for many years and had established lots of contacts among the local jewelry dealers from the souq, including several in Taiz. She frequently arranged for the dealers to bring jewelry to Sanaa where they could meet with westerners interested in learning about the various styles of workmanship and to buy without having to bargain. I attended in order to learn, although I would have preferred to bargain because I had come to enjoy the banter involved in establishing relationships.

Jane was set to leave Sanaa about the same time I left. She was heading to New York. I didn't expect to find her in Asmara. She must not have been in New York long.

When Jane recognized me, she turned around and went back into the building with me so we could catch up.

by  lode.rummens  In Asmara she was working for a contractor for the UN on a project for children. Many of the children she worked with had been injured when mines that had been left in the fields during the civil war exploded near them. If they couldn't walk, they couldn't go to school. So Jane had been arranging for the children to get donkeys so they could ride to and from school. I told Jane about the boys I was helping and she got very excited because she was hosting a dinner that week and one of the people she had invited was involved with the Norwegian soccer program that involved training disabled players as coaches. I told her about Nasser. She said the Norwegian Association for the Blind was a sponsor of the soccer program. Jane invited me to join her at the dinner to see if we could make some connections happen.

It was very close to the end of my time in Asmara, so it was a long shot that it would make a difference. I joined Jane's dinner party and I talked with the man with the Norwegian soccer program. I gave information about him to Nasser and I gave him information on how to contact Nasser. There wasn't more I could do as I was leaving in two weeks.

But all the strings seemed to be coming together. This had to be the reason I was called to Africa.

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