Day 360 - Mexican Interlude

The littlest child with her new shoes
Photo by Stuart Gardner

Earlier this month, I spent a Saturday in Mexico. I went with a group from my church to a children's home where the youth of the church have been volunteering each summer for the past several years. The trip two weeks after Christmas has become another annual event for the church, an opportunity for adult members of the church to make the trip to share a meal with the children, to bring presents for them, and to learn the story of the home.

My motivation was to learn about the relationship between the home and my church. In Africa, I was one of many Americans who had opportunities to drop in on groups such as Akany Avoko or Centre Fihavanana in Madagascar, but not much of an opportunity to develop an ongoing relationship. I hoped to see more at Rancho Milagro. I was not disappointed.

Casa Hogar Rancho Milagro is the only children's home in Baja California that is not sponsored by a church organization. Situated on 120 acres just outside of Tecate, Mexico, the ranch is home to 22 children between the ages of 18 months and 18 years or even older. Cesar and Cheryl, the couple who have made the ranch their home for the 27 years it has existed, work through the Baja California Child Protective Services to accept children who need a place to live, but if a child isn't ready to move on to live independently when Child Protective Services support ends, Cesar and Cheryl allow the child to remain.

One of the church members holding
the "ten" year old with Alma in the
background.
Photo by Stuart Gardner

Half of the acreage is not being used at this point, but Cesar hopes to expand the olive grove that covers most of the remaining land. The olive trees provide income for the home. When picked green, the olives are processed on the ranch and are sold to a number of Mexican food companies. Barrels holding one ton of olives each nearly surround the building where the olives are soaked in lye before being thoroughly washed and eventually packed in brine. Olives that are left to ripen on the trees are picked later in the year when they are then shipped to Ensenada to be pressed to extract the oil which the home sells independently to earn income. The older boys at the home who are interested in learning more about agriculture take part in operating the ranch, the only vocational training opportunity the home has been able to develop thus far. But Cesar has plans to expand the vocational training to include woodworking in the future.

The children were doing their chores when we arrived which gave Cesar and Cheryl time to tell us their story. As the children began arriving at the main building, one girl, Alma, came up to me and put her arms around my waist and gave me a big hug. Cesar told them to tell us their names and ages. I was of course curious about the three-year-old boy whose name we had drawn to purchase gifts for. All the boys looked too big. Finally a boy about the right size for the 4T clothes we bought appeared. He told us his name and then announced that he was ten. Cesar chimed in with "in your dreams, little one."

Cheryl and Cesar, Photo by Stuart Gardner

Cesar and Cheryl are following a calling they felt when they met in Mexico City where Cesar is from and Cheryl traveled for a semester while she was a student at Augsburg College. They have lived in Mexico City and in Minneapolis, but in neither place did they find a way to start on the road they knew was theirs. But while in Minneapolis, they met the man who owned the land in Mexico who also had a dream. Their dream fit his and within a couple of years, they and their son headed for Tecate, equidistance from the two cities that had been their homes. Twenty-seven years later, they are still there.

Cesar and Cheryl have so many amazing stories of the joys and the challenges that have crossed their lives. More than once as they showed us the ranch and grounds, Cheryl referred to which chapter that story will go into when she finally writes her book. Before we left, I offered to help Cheryl in whatever way she would welcome - encouragement, editing, whatever. I look forward to hearing back from her.

Two girls from St. Andrews Lutheran Church and two girls from Casa Hogar, Rancho Milagro
Photo by Stuart Gardner

Day 355 - Nasser's Plans

Highly motivated and experienced secondary level teacher seeks opportunity to obtain PhD in curriculum development for visually impaired students in inclusion programs with goal of establishing a computer training center for the blind in Eritrea to improve educational, vocational, and professional opportunities in the increasingly technically advanced world.

Nasser

That is the lead paragraph in Nasser's resume - to introduce himself to those he hoped would help make his dream come true. He had succeeded in getting his Masters Degree in Curriculum Development for Special Needs, a necessary step in his long-term dream of establishing a program that would provide Eritrean children who were deaf, blind, and disabled in other ways with a solid education. He was dedicated to the idea of providing an education to all children in the same classroom, not segregating children based on their physical challenges. As a teacher, his classes were all inclusive, his term for mainstreamed. As a student, he had experienced both and he preferred inclusion.

Before I left Asmara, he asked if he could contact me for help in the future. I agreed. He had already impressed me with his determination. He had impressed the boys who agreed that I should communicate with them through Nasser. And he had impressed several people at the U.S. embassy who tried to help him as they could.

Nasser was able to meet with Melissa, the Community Liaison Office Coordinator at the embassy, to discuss possible ways to ensure support would continue for the boys. Nasser reported that the boys were able to get their team registered with the Denden Secondary School program. So long as Melissa was still in Asmara, she was my liaison with Nasser and the boys as I sent them books on soccer as well as simple English. That may not have been the best choice on my part, however, given the tension between the Eritrean government and ours. At one point not long after I left, Habtom, the team's coach, complained to the organizers of the Denden program that Nasser was keeping for himself what I had sent to help the team. Before they left, one of the team of inspectors who had been in Asmara for three weeks gave me an envelope with his spare nakfa and asked that I give it to the boys. I had a few other small items that I didn't think I could bring back to the U.S., such as a bracelet made from zebu horn, and Melissa gave those things for me to Nasser. In addition, I sent Nasser money through Western Union for his family. In order to clarify Habtom's complaint, Nasser had to provide a list of everything he received from Melissa - the nakfa, the bracelet, the books, and some DVDs on soccer - to the organizers. The result was that anything Melissa had for Nasser had to be turned over to this organizing group instead of being handed directly to Nasser. Not surprisingly, the team decided they needed a different coach.

I had expected to be in Nigeria for the three years after I left Eritrea and that offered the promise of my being able to get back to Eritrea now and then. But when the assignment to Nigeria was canceled, it was clear I would not get back to Eritrea. My attention then turned more toward providing support to Nasser and his family. One reason I was willing to provide him with support was that I learned so much from him. The other is that his requests were never for handouts. When he requested help, it was for a specific plan that he hoped would get his family into a better situation financially.

Tekelu and Nasser's children

The most important lesson I learned from Nasser is that sometimes it is better to ask for help than to continue trying to get something done on my own. Nasser had - and still has - big dreams. He knows that his dreams are more likely to come true if he is not the only person working on them. And I have learned through him that sometimes I could have gotten more done more quickly and better if I had just taken the time to ask for help.

An equally important lesson was the one he lived by never letting disappointments define him. When one approach failed to produce the result he hoped for, he took another approach. This was a lesson that I should have considered more when my plans to travel to Nigeria ended. I didn't bounce back quite the way I always saw Nasser do. I had to go through a short woe-is-me phase as I tried to figure out how to recover from the loss of what had been such a promising opportunity. But I hadn't known Nasser long enough to have seen that side of him then.

The first time Nasser asked for help, it was so he could buy goats for Tekelu and the other children to take care of. The family would get the milk to make cheese from the goats and eventually they would have the meat to eat. They bought the goats, but instead of having the children take care of them, Nasser and the children brought the goats to Nasser's family who lived outside of Asmara for them to take care of the animals. Months later, Nasser reported that the animals were doing what animals do - reproducing - so his family was able to bring one back now and then to get fresh milk and meat for holidays.

Next Nasser asked if I could send money so that Tekelu could buy items to resell to earn money for school supplies. I'm not sure how well that idea worked, but it was a plan, not just a request for money.

For the next three years, I continued to hear from Nasser by e-mail. He continued looking for ways to implement his dream and I did what I could to try to find an appropriate university program in the United States for him to explore possibilities. I even attended an open day at Catholic University in Washington, DC, on his behalf to learn more about their program. It was a struggle to get people to understand that a blind man wanted to obtain a degree specializing in teaching others with special needs. Programs seemed geared towards providing assistance to students with special needs to compete in other programs or for students without special needs to compete in programs designed to address special needs. But I continued to do research for him and to contact people to explain his goals. Perhaps Nasser put too much faith in me. But no matter what I did or couldn't do on his behalf, he never gave up on me, on himself, or on the future.

So maybe my calling to Africa was really for Nasser.

Day 352 - Final Game

Habtom Tekea, the coach

The boys knew I would be leaving soon, so they made one last request. They wanted new uniforms again. They really wanted uniforms that matched those of Manchester United, the favorite team of boys of all ages outside of England. But we had to settle for a more generic style. This time I went with the boys to buy the uniforms.

For the last game, I invited people from the embassy to come to watch the game and then to join me afterwards for refreshments at my house. Paula, the foreign service nurse practioner, agreed to make a cake for the boys in the shape of, and decorated as, a soccer ball. I wasn't sure just who would come. On the earlier occasion that I invited the Americans to join me for brunch, only Jewel and Paula came. But I tried again, hoping the purpose would be more appealing this time. I also invited Jane and Lisa.

Daniel Ghirmay

When the boys and I arrived at the Expo center for their game against Team Germany, several of the embassy staff
were there, including Melissa, the Community Liaison Office
Coordinator. Melissa had included an article about my adventures with the boys in the embassy newsletter. She had also asked me to speak to the American Women's Club. She hoped these efforts would encourage someone to step forward to continue supporting the boys or better yet supporting more teams.

While we watched the boys, one of the men who walked through the area that Sunday saw Jane and stopped. They worked together for the UN program. As they talked, an idea formed. They looked around the field and realized they could bring in equipment to level the field. They continued chatting away as the boys played.

Dawit Ababe, the translator

When we returned to my house, Jewel and Paula had everything arranged. The cake was there along with cupcakes that were easier for the boys to pick up and eat. There were sandwiches, chips, soft drinks, everything for a successful children's party. Daniel, the Human Relations Specialist, was also there, serving as translator, relieving Dawit of the responsibility. The ambassador and his wife as well as the deputy chief of mission and his wife also came by for a few minutes. I think the boys had been told to be on their best behavior by someone. I didn't emphasize the importance of the visitors, but someone must have. The boys were very subdued, although the sheer numbers of other visitors might have had something to do with their reactions, too.

Dawit Eyob

I took one last photo of each of the boys in their new uniforms and asked them all to write down their full names for me. I also asked them to include their mailing addresses, but Dawit told me I should just send anything I had for the boys to Nasser. It was clear that Nasser was a leader among the parents.

I have kept in touch with Nasser since I left Eritrea. He told me the boys decided they needed to change the name of the team from Team USA to Team Eritro-America, to acknowledge their Eritrean connection. I wasn't able to do much to continue supporting the boys, although I did send some English language books to Nasser for them - all children's books, many of them picture books that introduced words that start with the same letter as in A is for Apple, B is for Ball.

Ermias Habte

Through that correspondence, I know that Tekelu was unable to join Nasser and his family when they were settled in Syracuse, NY, as refugees because he had to spend his final year of school at the military training camp that precedes the period of national service all Eritreans must complete. Nasser asked me to write a letter on behalf of his claim to be Tekelu's adoptive father, but I don't know if that would have done the trick, especially since Tekelu's father's status was essentially that of a traitor. All of the boys have reached the age of national service by now, if they continued with their education and weren't forced to quit. Without Nasser in Eritrea, I have no way of knowing anything more about the boys. I imagine how tall they have all grown.

Henok Estifanos

Of the boys, Yohanna was the most talented on the soccer field. When he was in possession of the ball, I knew it would only go where he wanted it to go.  I hoped he would find the opportunity to play with others as talented as he, perhaps on the national team.

I wonder now and then how much good the four months I spent with the boys did for them. There were at just the right age to be able to ask for help without appearing to be demanding or cynical. Had all the boys been Habtom's age, I may not have felt so comfortable holding that first conversation.  I discovered in Yemen that what seems appropriate and even cute in pre-teen boys provokes a negative reaction in me from boys just a few years old. Maybe it is the innocence the younger boys conveyed. I was lucky the boys weren't older. But I wonder if they considered themselves lucky after I left.

Isaias Afewerki, goalkeeper

Medhane Gebera

Philemon Brehane

Philemon Habte

Roble Habtoom

Roble Sium

Samsom Habte

Samuel Kidane

Tekelu Moges, goalkeeper

Yohanna Gebra, the star

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.

.

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.

Day 349 - Bend It Like Beckham

Two boys in pinnies with the ball

Once the boys got used to watching the photos I took at each practice, I started taking a few videos as well. While my photos were improving - I got closeups of the boys, even some with the ball in focus and in the air - the videos were not so good. My camera was basically a still camera that took hundreds of still shots to become a video, but I couldn't zoom in or out while filming. The results were pretty boring.

So I started thinking about what other forms of entertainment I could provide. I had a copy of Finding Nemo and the boys seemed an appropriate age for an animated film. I don't know how much they understood of the language, but they enjoyed it. And it took the pressure off me to keep finding things to say for Dawit to translate.

  by  mlanghans 

When I learned a colleague had a copy of Bend It Like Beckham, I decided to try that film. The boys were very excited, although I think they didn't know much about the story. There were enough scenes of soccer to keep them entertained, but there was a great deal of snickering when Keira Knightley's mother-character started picking out frilly bras for her daughter.

Figuring out something new for the boys to eat each week was a challenge. One weekend I decided I would make sloppy joes. I had no problem finding the ingredients for the meat filling, but when I went for rolls, I discovered there was a flour shortage. I had never bought large quantities of rolls before, but I had seen others do so. But that day, there were no buns in the bakery. None. They sent me away and told me to come back in two hours. I did. They sold me three buns. No amount of cajoling convinced them to sell me more. They had no loaves of bread. I had already cooked the meat. I didn't know what to do.

So I called Jewel. I knew she had a bread maker. I asked for her help. And, as usual, she came through. While I was off watching the boys practice, she baked bread and delivered it to my house after we all returned.

Not long after I gave the boys money for soccer boots, I received a call from a man who told me he was the father of one of the boys. He didn't tell me his name or which boy was his son. He said he just wanted me to know that the parents appreciated what I was doing for the boys, but he cautioned me to be sure the boys were using the money as they indicated. I told him that the boys gave me receipts for everything they bought. He then pointed out that when I gave the boys money for the uniforms, Habtom bought himself a track suit and a few other things like his whistle and a stop watch. I thanked the man for his warning and I assured him that I would be very cautious if the boys asked for more help. By that point it was clear that there would be more requests.

by  fotoizm  The next request was for better boots. Dawit showed me that the boots they had first bought were falling apart. This time I told the boys I would go with them to buy the boots. A few days later, Dawit called me to tell me they had found the type of boots they wanted. He told me he and one other of the boys would meet me at the corner grocery store to bring me back to the shop with them. When they arrived, we caught a taxi in order to get back downtown before the shops closed, my only taxi ride in Asmara, I think. The owner of the shop had set aside the boots in the right sizes. All I had to do was hand over the cash. The boys were all there to take the boots away. The owner thanked me not just for the cash, but also for helping the boys.

Better boots meant more dirt came into the house with the boys. I decided to clean them one last time and then roll up all the area rugs and hide them away in one of the bedrooms. But the boots also had cleats so the boys realized they needed to take off their boots when they came in. There was quite a pile at the door each time they came over.

Dawit was a translator for me in other ways as well. For example, told me that the parents of the boys planned to invite me to the neighborhood so they could meet me. But then one day, I forget why, he was with me in one of the outbuildings behind my house. As we walked into the laundry room, he told me that most of the boys lived with their entire families in houses that weren't much larger than that room. And he then told me that although the adults wanted to meet me, they were uncomfortable inviting me to their homes because of how small they were.

Dawit also shared some of the same observations as the father who called me had. He told me that Habtom had in fact exagerated the cost of the pinnies. He also advised that I no longer give the boys money but instead buy what they need for them. Quite a wise young man was Dawit. Since he was giving me the same advice as the father, I asked if his father was the one who called me. He said the caller was not his father, but he didn't want to tell me whose father had called. So I remained in the dark for a little while longer.

Day 348 - English Lessons

Boys in Sandra's living room with workbooks

I decided to explore the possibility that the reason I felt a calling for these boys was to do with their need for English. I couldn't see into the future, after all, although three meetings out of three had led to requests for money, so I had that clue to the purpose. At the end of our third meeting, I decided to put together a workbook using some of their photos. I printed out selected photos and then drew lines at the bottom of the page where I wrote a sentence about each photo, leaving plenty of space for the boys to write more. Initially I asked the GSO staff if they could get 16 copies of the workbook made for me so I could give one to each boy the following week. I wanted the photos in color, but learned the cost would have been extremely high, about $400 for the 16 copies. I settled instead for black and white photos.

Even before I gave the worksheets to the boys, they had made a hit with the local staff of the embassy. Daniel, the Human Resources Specialist, told me the GSO staff who made arrangements to have the sheets copied were impressed that I would be doing something they considered so generous for a group of boys I hardly knew. 

After watching the boys at practice the second time, the first time when all the boys had uniforms, we went back to my house for popcorn and potato chips and I handed out the workbooks. Dawit was again my translator, although I suspect some of his translations may have been along the lines of "The joke is too long to translate. Just laugh."

The schools in Eritrea introduce English to students in fifth grade, at about 11 years old.  Most of the boys had told me they were at least that age although I learned later that the actual age of the boys may not be what they reported. All children in the same class were considered the same age. So whatever their real ages, all but the youngest of them would have been in classes with English instruction. Ironically, Dawit was among the youngest and yet his English was the best. The rest spoke English like I spoke German in 9th grade when I first was exposed to a foreign language - I only spoke it in class because I knew I didn't know enough to express myself. In addition, English isn't just a different language, it is written in a different alphabet.

It seemed clear pretty quickly that it was unlikely the boys would write anything themselves on the pages. And since I only wrote sentences on a few of the pages, there weren't model sentences they could copy.  So if improving their English was part of my calling, I didn't hit the nail on the head with the worksheets.

Cover of the photo book of Team USA members

Then Lisa told me about Snapfish. Since 16 photocopies of workbooks would have cost about $400, having three hard cover books of photos printed for about $50 was a better bargain, especially since it was clear that the photos were going to be the highlight of anything in the books. A few sentences in English provided some language.

The following week, the boys provided me with a photo of themselves that was taken in a downtown studio. That photo became the cover of the book. It took a few weeks to arrive, three copies, one for the boys, one for Jewel, and one for me.

By the time the books arrived, I had also purchased a dozen soccer balls and pinnies for the boys to distinguish themselves as two teams as their practices shifted into scrimmages after the warmup exercises.

Day 347 - Team USA

Asmara Expo Center

The following weekend, I met the boys at the corner grocery store and we walked together to the Expo Center. I knew there was an impressive entrance for that facility so I was curious what the boys had to do to get access to it. I didn't have to wonder long.

The Expo Center was about a mile from my house. That distance was nothing to the boys. They walked from their homes to the downtown shopping area of Asmara, at least three miles the opposite direction of the Expo Center and my house. Asmara had many characteristics that reminded me of growing up in my home town, including that it was apparently safe enough for pre-teens to walk downtown without adult supevision. It was also common to find children playing in the street. There weren't that many cars on the roads to make the streets unsafe as playgrounds, a lot like Dudrey Court, the street I grew up on in the 1950s.

Sheep on the field

The Expo Center buildings were impressive, but we didn't go into any of them. Instead, the boys led me to an area behind the buildings. There was a lot of land, but no soccer pitch, no goal posts, no lines chalked on the ground. But there were dips and valleys in the surface, lots of dirt and almost no grass, some standing water, logs and branches, rocks, and even cows and sheep. The boys zeroed in on a patch that was mostly level, without too many branches or rocks, and they set out to use the rocks and branches they had to move to identify the boundaries. They also found some timbers that they put into position to serve as the goal boundaries. And then they began to practice.

Sandra with Team USA

Habtom had a routine. First the boys warmed up by running around the field. Once they were warmed up, he had the boys practice dribbling and passing the ball back and forth as they ran in pairs from one end of the field to the other. After everyone had had a turn or two dribbling and passing the balls, they practiced kicking the ball at the goal with the two identified goalies taking turns trying to catch or otherwise stop the ball. Habtom ended the practice by having the boys follow behind him as he led a marching drill that had them raise one knee and slap it with the alternate hand as they did a slightly running march, alternating knees every four steps. Habtom used a whistle to indicate when it was time for the boys to raise a knee. Watching them march reminded me that not everyone has natural rhythm. Some of the boys looked like dancers. Some had two left feet.

Sandra with Team USA from behind with numbers to help
her identify who is who on the field

I stayed on the sidelines and took photos of the action. Those early pictures were pretty bad - lots of background with miniscule figures way in the back, too small to identify. But when the practice was over, they all came back home with me and I hooked up my camera to my TV to show them the photos I took.  On the second afternoon, I had made popcorn for the boys instead of picking up more cookies.  Spilled popcorn along with the dirt they tracked in on their shoes made quite a mess of the living room, but having them in the house was worth the mess. They told me they decided to call themselves Team USA because of the support I had provided. And before they left, they asked if I would give them money to buy boots, too. I did. How could I refuse?

Day 346 - A Sunday Afternoon in Asmara

boys in my living room

I was a little intimidated by the larger number of boys that Sunday afternoon, but I decided to invite them all home anyway since I had told the security guard to expect me to return with a group. Only Dawit Ababe, the smallest of the boys, spoke enough English to talk with me as we walked along. He explained that the boys had just practiced at the Expo Center, a space I had seen from a car window, but had no idea of what was inside.

The boys all found seats on sofas and chairs in my house. They were so small that two boys fit into most chairs and I think four or five sat across each sofa. I took a photograph of each boy in the order they were seated around my living room and wrote down their names, ages, and the school they attended. They said they all attended the same school, even Habtom, the oldest of the boys. He was 14. The rest ranged from 9 to 12.

Daniel

Dawit translated for me. After 30 minutes, I had a list of all their names and the photos I could match up their names and faces. There were Dawit Ababe (the smallest one and translator) and Dawit Eyob, Tekelu (whose face had captured me the previous Sunday; the reason perhaps became clear a few weeks later), Yohanna, Henok, Ermias, Medhani, Robl the elder, Robl the younger, Daniel, Samsom, Samuel, Philemon the elder, Philemon the younger, and Isaias Afewerki who shared his name with the President of the country. My mention of the President's name brought a huge smile to Isaias' face. Habtom, a full two years older than any of the other boys, was their coach.

Four of the boys had white and red uniforms, purchased with the money I had given them. Since I expected my 300 nakfa to purchase just three uniforms, I didn't know if they had overstated their need or if they had succeeded in finding someone else to "help" them the previous Sunday on their rounds with the T-shirt. I didn't ask. In the meantime, I had learned from Daniel, the Human Resources Assistant at the embassy, that groups of neighborhood boys frequently made pitches for donations by carrying around a T-shirt as if it were to catch coins tossed at them. That was the clue I was missing the previous week.

Henok

The boys told me they hoped they would be able to get their team to be part of the Denden soccer program. I learned much later that this program was set up by a Norwegian man who accepted a position in Asmara, probably with the U.N. or another aid organization. He set up the program because his own children said they would agree to live in Eritrea only if they could play soccer there. He promised there would be soccer, even if he had to do something to make it happen. What he did was to arrange for members of the Norwegian national soccer team to come to Asmara each year to provide soccer clinics for Eritrean children. For good measure, the Norwegian soccer players took part in a separate program for disabled players. Because of the 30-year-long civil war, there were many children and adults with missing limbs or who were deaf or blind. 

Those injured and disabled during the civil war, or from later explosions of ordnance that lay hidden in fields or wrecks of buildings, were considered martyrs and received praise as well as financial support from the government. Those with similar disabilities resulting from other causes, such as blindness or deafness from birth or as a result of illnesses, received neither. On the surface, Eritrea seemed progressive in the accommodations made for those with disabilities. For example, instead of bicycle lanes, there were wheelchair lanes in the major roads. But the impact of the distinction between martyrs and simple disabled was under the surface. I learned much more about that later.

Isaias

The Norwegian program was held at Denden Secondary School. I don't know how the children were selected for the Denden soccer program, so I don't know what possibility there was of a neighborhood team being included, but the boys were determined.

After an hour, I had been invited by the boys to attend their practice the following Saturday. We agreed to meet at 1 p.m. at the same grocery store so they could walk with me to the Expo. But before they left my house, they pointed out that only four of them had uniforms. They asked if I wouldn't help them get the rest of the uniforms. I asked how much they needed and willingly handed over the required amount in nakfa. After all, I was making far much more than I needed, and I knew there was some reason for me to take this assignment in Africa. These boys looked like they were it.

Day 345 - The Call

Israeli Ambassador in Eritrea
with Sandra

Jewel went out of town for a week. While she was gone, she let me use her car. I don't know if that is the reason she found that her tire was flat the Sunday morning after she returned or if something else caused the flat. But no matter what the cause, that flat tire was also an important event in the story of my calling.

On that Sunday Jewel and I were on our way to a barbecue at the Israeli ambassador's home when she parked her car on one of Asmara's main streets near the ambassador's house. When we got out of the car, she noticed the flat, but there was no need to get it fixed right away, so we walked down the alley next to the movie theater that hid the ambassador's house from view. The barbecue was a farewell event for someone Jewel knew. At the end of the event, Jewel asked two of the men if they would help change the tire. They agreed and we headed back down the alley to the street.

While they worked on the tire, Jewel remained available to find what they needed in her car and to answer questions, but I had nothing to do but stand around. So when a group of seven boys approached me to ask for help, I recognized that I had two choices: I could shoo them away or I could talk with them.

Two of the boys were carrying a T-shirt held horizontally between them. When I asked why they were holding the T-shirt, they said again that they needed help. Apparantly, the T-shirt was a sign I didn't recognize so I asked what type of help they needed. The smallest of the boys, Dawit, said they needed money. I asked why they needed money and they said they wanted to buy uniforms for their soccer team. The long and the short of it is that after I asked and they answered many more questions, I gave them 300 nakfa, about $30, so they could buy three uniforms. They accepted the money and then headed down the street.

Habtom

I saw them stop on the next block and talk together. They turned around and came back to ask me where I lived. I told them I lived in Virginia, in the United States. But that wasn't the answer they were looking for. They wanted to know where I lived in Asmara. Now I knew where I lived, and Jewel knew where I lived, and all the embassy drivers knew where I lived, but I had no idea how to tell someone else where I lived. And I wasn't sure I would tell a bunch of adolescent boys, even ones as cute as this group was, where I lived. So I told the truth; I didn't know the address. I saw puzzled looks, but they walked away again. For a few minutes. But then Habtom, the tallest, and Dawit, the shortest, came back and asked me what my telephone number was. As I told them, Habtom wrote it on his hand with a pen. And off they went again. I was certain I wouldn't hear from them again, as I was sure Habtom would either wash his hands or they would end up playing and he would get sweaty and the numbers would smear off.

On the next Saturday, the phone rang. I couldn't understand the person on the other end and was about to hang up when I heard "Habtom, 300 nakfa." At that point I said hello, but Habtom didn't respond. Instead, I heard some background noise as I learned later he handed the phone to a passing stranger who spoke English. The stranger explained that he was downtown at a phone booth with a group of boys who wanted to arrange to see me the next day. Since I didn't know how to give directions to my house, I asked if the boys knew the small grocery store on the main road near my house. They did and we agreed to meet on Sunday at 3 p.m.

Dawit Abeba

The next day, I told the embassy guard outside the house that I would be returning with some young boys in a few minutes. I told him that I planned to give the boys something to eat and drink, and that by the time the boys left I would know all their names and ages and where they went to school. I wanted to be sure the guard wasn't concerned about my safety or the security of the house.

When I reached the store, I bought some cookies and then waited outside for the boys. Instead of the seven I saw the previous Sunday, there were 14 boys. Four of them were wearing new uniforms. They explained that they had just finished practicing at the nearby Expo center. I invited the boys to my house for cookies and soft drinks.

That was the beginning of my calling in Africa.

Day 344 - Lisa's Kids

Lisa and her daughter at St. Maryam Deira
Chapel in Keren

My first trip to Keren was not our trip to the camel market. My first trip was with Lisa, another jewel in Asmara, as she traveled to meet with a group of children at the Keren library where the embassy had set up an American Corner. I don't recall how I met Lisa. Jewel probably introduced us.

American Corners were a new concept at the time. They were an approach to deal with funding shortages and to address the number of Public Diplomacy Branch Offices that had been closed over the years. American Corners have no American staff assigned to them. They also have no locally hired staff. Most of them are in public libraries where a room or literally just a corner of space is set aside for equipment, books and other English language materials provided by the embassy for use by anyone who visits the location. In Keren, the American corner had an assortment of English books for both children and adults as well as one computer for Internet access. And one Saturday a month Lisa traveled from Asmara to Keren to challenge the children who gathered there to learn English.

More camels in Keren

Lisa was in Eritrea as a result of a visit the previous year when she came from Texas with her daughter to visit her brother, the former Defense Attache at the embassy, and his family for three weeks. She fell in love with the country, applied for a job with a local interrnational school, returned to Texas, divorced her husband, sold her house, packed up everything she owned, and traveled back to Eritrea. She admitted later the divorce wasn't quite as capricious as that description of events suggested since she and her husband had been separated for more than a year, but it made a good story that quickly got across the depth of her feeling for the country and the people. 

Teaching third graders five days a week, however, wasn't enough to keep Lisa busy. She thought about how much her daughter had enjoyed going to the library for story time when she was younger, and that got Lisa thinking about how she could create that type of experience for the children of Eritrea. Initially she approached the British Council since they had an active English teaching program. They were happy to give her time and space to teach children, but they didn't give her the flexibility she was looking for. She just added evening teaching to her schedule, not the means to create something new.

After a few months, she approached Ilya, the public affairs officer at the embassy to ask if she could try something new at the American Center, across the street from the embassy. Ilya agreed. So Lisa put together a one page invitation that she handed out one Saturday morning to all the children playing outside the American Center. The invitation was for the following Saturday morning. She told the children to bring the paper with them when they came.

Tukul homes in Eritrea outside Keren

On that first day, there were only a few children who showed up. At the end of the hour, Lisa handed out invitations to all of the children again and told them they could bring friends, too. Each Saturday more children came, until Lisa was teaching more than 100 children at a time.

But what Lisa did with the children was much more amazing than what I expected from a classroom. First, there were no tables and chairs or desks. There was just a large room that Lisa filled with music, song, stories, and activity. The children weren't grouped by age or English ability. The children ranged in age from 4 to 14, boys and girls, and they were all in the same room together. Lisa used early childhood education methods which she made work for the entire range.

Early childhood education methods involve lots of activity. Lisa would sing songs to the children and then have them join in with her to sing the same songs. She used gestures to illustrate the songs and got the children to follow her lead.  It wasn't surprising to see the young children join in, but the older ones, even the boys, were moving right there with her.

After a few songs, she started in with books. The day I was with her in Keren, she had drawings of the characters in the picture book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, a book that is intended to introduce colors to preschoolers. The story goes like this:

"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see? I see a [character name] looking at me." That was followed by "[Character name], [Character name], what do you see? I see a [Different Character Name] looking at me." Other characters include Yellow Duck, Purple Cat, Blue Horse, White Dog, Green Frog, Goldfish, Black Sheep, and Red Bird.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?

She asked for volunteers for each of the characters and had them line up in front of the rest of the students with the pictures. She had them tell the story using the pictures to indicate the order of the characters and their memory of the words. I was amazed as the children repeated the story, although I knew it wasn't the first time they had heard it. Then she asked for different volunteers and the new group repeated the story for the rest. I could envision the next step being a change in the pronouns. Instead of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?" it would be "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what does she see?" Or "what does he see?" to introduce the third person pronouns and the third person form of the verb to do. And then next the whole thing could be made past tense. "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what did you see? I saw a red bird looking at me." And then future tense. "Brown Bear, Brown, what will you see? I'll see a red bird looking at me." Maybe that was Lisa's plan. 

After a few weeks of success in Asmara, Lisa asked if she could do the same in other towns. Since Keren was within the 50-mile radius of Asmara that didn't require approval from the government, that was the first town added to her program one Saturday a month.

When she and the driver arrived to pick me up, they were at least half an hour later than I had expected. When I got into the car, I asked Lisa what would happen if we arrived late. She assured me the children would wait however long it took for us to get there. She was right. We were nearly an hour late, but the library was full of children. And an hour later when we were done, they begged her to stay longer. These were Lisa's kids and they loved her as much as she loved them.

 by  brortao 

But Lisa's contributions to kids in Eritrea didn't end there. She knew that children needed shoes or they wouldn't be allowed to go to school. When she saw children on the streets of Eritrea without shoes, she gave them a voucher for a pair of shoes at a shop where she had arranged with the owner to pay for each voucher he returned to her. Soon children throughout the city learned of her deal and found their way to her door to ask for vouchers. She never turned any away.

Lisa's example reawakened the feeling in me that there might be some purpose, some calling, for my stay in Eritrea. I found it very shortly afterwards, but I think meeting Lisa was a necessary prelude to my recognizing my calling.