The Ghosts of Famine and Drought I could not find in Eritrea
Part V: Again, Ghosts of Famine and Drought, where art thou?
On Sunday September 18, we were busy with the wedding; the same for Monday and Tuesday (September 19-20) with the aftermath of the wedding.
During the afternoon of Wednesday September 21, right after lunch, I had
some free time and decided to drive to Dekemhare to visit a friend. We hit the
road with one of my old friends and headed for godayf. We took the
Asmara-Dekemhare road, leaving the Asmara-Mendefera road to the right. We
enjoyed the harvest of the season on both sides of the road. Once we reached
the location where Asbeco Construction Company is, the scenery in front of us
started to change. The hills and plateaus of Adi-Hawesha were beautifully
decorated with green trees. We passed a beautiful hotel on our left side in the
town of Adi-Hawesha and made a
right turn facing the hills of Imbeyto. The road dissecting the hill going all
the way to the edge of the town was covered with various densely grown wild
flowers. Once we finished the short meandering road, leaving the town of Imbeyto
behind us, we were pleasantly surprised by the barley and wheat fields of
weQerti. The green farmland stretched all the way to the village of weQerti and
its stunning church that embodies the Tower
of Pizza in Metairie;
albeit, the church of weQerti looked as if half of its base was standing on the
air, suspended by an imaginary rope held by the Divine. Once we finished
driving up one hill another one blocked our view of weQerti from the left side.
Along the way, we picked a young man doing his national service who asked for a
ride. Since I always wondered where the expression “Lamza-seHarti ms seleste
weQerti” came from, I asked the young man about it, hoping he was from the
area. He was actually from weQerti and started telling us about the fascinating
story of “seleste weQerti”, but that story is for another day. For now, let me
focus on the other discussion: the harvest of this autumn season. The young man
told us that he was stationed at serHa, a border town between Eritrea
and Ethiopia.
According to him, the wonderful crops we were seeing were nothing compared to
the ones in the plains of shimezana and the border villages, including serHa.
To come back to the Asmara-Dekemhare road, the scenery from both sides of the road was just out of this world. On the left side, all the way to the road leading to Deqi nazo, there was nothing but densely grown and mature plants of wheat, barley, and hybrid (HanfeS). On the right, the roads leading to the rest of seHarti were covered by similar crops, making it impossible to distinguish from afar which path led to which village. The roads were densely covered by wheat, barley, and some corn. Before our appetite for the green farmland was satiated, though, we started driving down the hill of Dekemhare and soon we arrived at our destination.
On our way back to Asmara, we
decided to take the Dekemhare-Nefasit road and enjoyed the site around the village
of QeyiH kor and the famous and historic Ala
with the ready to harvest corn crop spread all over the plains at the bottom of the mountain. Further along the way, we enjoyed the site of cactus fruit in the surroundings of Gadien. Finally, we
fared well with the papayas of Mai-Habar and made a left turn leaving behind us
Nefasit and the time-honored monastery of Debrebizen and heading towards Seidici. We finally
arrived in Asmara after enjoying
the bounty of cactus fruits of ArberebuE, in the sight of the ubiquitous
congress of baboons of the area on both sides of the road.
On Thursday September 22, there was one vital chore I had to do before
returning to the US;
visiting a bed ridden great aunt who lives in tera-emni. That Thursday, right
after lunch, my mother and I left Asmara
and headed to the Asmara-Mendefera road. In the interest of time, I will skip
Adi Guadad, Adi-qe, Ademzemat, Adi-gombolo, selaEdaEro, and start from the
plateau overlooking shiketi, the border between Central Zone and Southern Zone.
Most people are aware of the fact that when you decide to leave the Asmara
plateau you have to negotiate your way down along three equally challenging
drives. On the South is the Monguda curve of the Asmara-Mendefera road, in the
East is the nail-biting drive along the Asmara-nefasit-Ghinda road on your way
to Massawa, in the North-East is the newly constructed serejQa-shebaH road with
its remarkably meandering drive of Anagule, and of course to enjoy the view of
Keren (um-serayir) you have to make it down libi-tigray to habrengeQa.
In my case, the Menguda drive that greeted me today, thanks to the major work that was done on it, was far easier to negotiate than the Menguda I remember for its tragic memories of childhood. On the right side of the drive, behind Menguda, is a place referred by the villagers as “dur” (forest) and thanks to the conservation efforts the virgin forest that was lost is on the rebound. The entire mountain ring of Menguda is now covered by thickly populated indigenous trees and shrubs. If you look carefully you will be rewarded by a site of several beehives and if you decide to stop anywhere along the road, get ready to be overtaken by the congress of baboons that will take no time to greet you hoping to get a bundle of banana from you. On the left side of the road, the path heading towards A’sahlai was as densely wooded as the one on the right side of the road. According to the passenger riding with us, who happened to be from shiketi, the forest on the mountain ring stretching from selaEdaEro down to A’sahlai is believed to have become a breading place for the Cheetah, and African wildcat, some even claim the leopard and stretching it a little too far to “the king of the beasts”. Once we finished driving through the twists and turns of Menguda, we were pleasantly welcomed by the healthy crops of wheat and barley on the left side of the road. On the right side of the road, the farmland was covered by full-grown sorghum and maize plants.
To be continued…
dawit
----[Mailing List for Eritrea Related News ]---- Received on Fri Oct 28 2011 - 06:08:52 EDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Oct 28 2011 - 06:08:53 EDT