Various
vignettes of life in Eritrea from email exhanges with 'alumni'.
An informal 'oral history' project, capturing for all time (hopefully)
'the way it was'.
Dick Lillienthal, Aug. 4. 2007
I decided I had been there too long when one day I was walking
through a herd of sheep to get to the theatre ticket office and thought
that was perfectly normal. First day in New York it
took me five minutes to get up courage to cross a street where
there was no light. Old ladies with canes were hobbling across.
By Joe Nix
This brings to my mind that early in my tour I was walking
towards downtown and donkey drawn wooden carts starting passing me
with rather 'desert' demeanor drivers on each, carts piled up with I
believe goat skins. It was shortly after daybreak so obviously their
trek
had started in the night.
Ed Norris on the 'Massawa Walks' (my edit of his emails of August 2007)
'The Massawa walks' explanation. Probably in 1953 and overnight to
avoid the day heat. Walkers
had armed escorts and plenty of company on the way. "We had
telephone reports fron all towns along the way and they were broadcast
over WGN. The second walk had a lot more publicity than the first. And
was won by Nichola Bervinchak
from Minersville, PA. There
were prizes from: the Oasis club and probably top 3 club, plus the
PX and somehow a cash prize was gathered up. Not sure where that
came from. There was also
a third walk. They tried to make it an annual event. Several people
finished the 3rd one but not in a great time. A person can
walk 6 miles an hour at fast walk. it was 88 miles to
Massawa so seems like 16-20 hours would be a good time. I
know we discussed Bervinchek's time and agreed it was very quick and
unlikely to be broken. ".
Copyrght,2007
Joe Nix
where applicable Website compiled,
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