Eyob

The pool hall was filled with men. Samara went in and came back moments later with a tall man in a baseball cap with an Alaskan company’s logo on it. He was tall and strikingly handsome. He introduced himself as Eyob. He would be serving as our main liaison and translator for the afternoon as we collected data from parents and children about their reading interests, goals and habits.  He asked me if he could have a few minutes to finish up his game. When he came back, we started walking to his home.

He told me about his life in Eritrea.  He was Tigrinya and he lived by the ocean. He was forcefully conscripted into the military and served in the trenches during the border war with Ethiopia. After that, he went to university and studied IT. As per custom, upon graduation, the government assigned him to a civil service position, where he served for 13 years without remuneration. “I was like a slave.” He said.  To make ends meet, he worked in an Italian restaurant where he cooked seafood, and primarily shrimp and lobster. He preferred shrimp, he told me, because lobster was such a common food in his seaside town. He used red and white wine in his cooking, he told me with pride. His home, which he shared with his wife and two children, had a small balcony and faced the beach. He and his family went swimming in the ocean on a frequent basis.

Upon arrival at his new home, in My’Ayni refugee camp, we settled under the overhang of his stone house. His wife set about making a coffee ceremony and he gathered his son and some neighbors to sit with me. I began asking about the ages of his two children and some basics about their education status. His daughter, he said, was 14. His son was 10. She was in grade 6 and he was in grade 2.  His face changed a bit as he explained that they were both two years behind because of the process they went through to arrive in Ethiopia.  He went on.

In 2007, Eyob’s friend was murdered by government officials. For what reasons I do not know, but I assume he presented some kind of a perceived threat to them. Eyob began to plan his escape, fearing the same outcome for himself. He sold all of his belongings, raising USD3,000. He paid a friend to fly him and his family to the Sudanese border. He intended to get to Ethiopia but he explained that if the Eritrean military caught him at the Ethiopia/Eritrea border, he would be killed. If he was caught by them at the Sudanese border, he would be put in jail. The choice seemed obvious to him.

Once in Sudan, he paid an additional USD1K to smugglers to safely secure his and his family’s entry into Ethiopia. He and his family were some of the first arrivals in My’Ayni and he had become a community leader as a result. He proudly showed me the notebook he bought for his son to encourage him to do extra English practice outside of school.  His dedication to his children was obvious.
He talked about how he was called to the camp’s primary school one morning because his son had gone missing. He was later found in the river that runs behind the school, swimming. In seeking an explanation for his truancy, Eyob’s son told him that he missed their old home and the ocean water that was only a few meters from their balcony. I could tell that Eyob was not sure how to explain to his son that by forgoing the ocean water off the coast of their homeland they were safer and laying the foundation for a new and better life.

Politics in the camps

The father sat squatting on the ground facing his only child, a daughter. His left hand was on her knee, as she turned slightly to answer Costantinos’ questions. He seemed to be assuring her that these questions would end up being helpful to her and that she shouldn’t be afraid. Costantinos was an education officer for the organization I was working with and part of the team responsible for providing educational opportunities for the refugee camp, called My’Ayni. He carefully went through the questionnaire that I had prepared, translating my English into his native Amharic and then to Tigrinya, the girl’s mother tongue,  when he could, and turning to Eyob or Samara, our Tigrinya speaking camp liaisons, when he needed translation help. The purpose of the questionnaire was to triangulate data I was collecting in classrooms regarding perceptions and capacities around reading.

Boys and adolescent males gathered around us, keen to listen in on what was happening. One young male wore pants with the word “Obama” lining the left leg. As Costantinos asked the girl questions about her fluency in her mother tongue, Saho, and her access to reading materials, a man rode up on his bicycle. He was wearing blue wind pants and a commemorative t-shirt from a strawberry festival somewhere in the US. He was frowning.

He, Costantinos, Eyob and Samara engaged in a terse conversation in Tigrinya. His facial expressions made it clear to me that he was saying threatening things. Eyob stood up and got closer to him. They exchanged terse words and then he bicycled away. I could tell that the conversation had not ended well.  He circled around and came back.  He began focusing his attention and words on Costantinos. Suddenly, Costantinos switched to English.

With the tense conversation now taking place in my mother tongue, I was able to confirm my assumptions but also to gather more details. This man came from an indigenous Ethiopian NGO that was responsible for child protection in the camp. He was not pleased that we were interviewing children in the camp.  I wasn’t clear on whether or not he felt we should have informed him or asked his consent, or if he felt it was out of our entire purview. The communication was not nice. I stood up and walked over to him. In English, I told him that if he wanted to express frustration toward anyone, he needed to do so toward me, as it was because of my visit that we were searching for and interviewing students. He ignored me and continued to scowl at Costantinos. He got back on his bike and left. I didn’t want to push what had happened, so we continued with the interview.

The next day, we went to find and interview unaccompanied minors who attended the school that we ran. The man with the bike was summoned. Costantinos stayed in the car and, this time, the acting camp manager of the INGO I was working for came along to speak with the man. They had some words in private and the man came out smiling and welcomed me into the space…their main office in the camp and supposedly a child friendly space. This child friendly space, however, had only two foosball tables, some loose stones in the courtyard, piles of wood and an old satellite dish. He gathered three girls and two boys and invited us into his office. We sat down to conduct the interviews, when suddenly we were told to stop.  This time, the Ethiopian government agency responsible for refugees had called a halt to our interview, stating concerns for child protection.  I left the space, only to be pelted with rocks by a three year old boy named Mesfin who was paid, as I later learned, by local community members if he was successful in hitting me.  It was proving to be a challenging morning.

While I was avoiding the rocks flying in my direction, my colleague went to the local refugee office to speak with the head of the office about the challenges we had faced. The reason behind all of the frustration? The head of the government office in the camp had failed to share my introductory letter and the outcomes of the meeting I had had with him the day prior upon my arrival at the camp: no one had been apprised of my visit.

Regardless of what could have been done, I was frustrated by the lack of collegiality and professionalism displayed by the local NGO and the Ethiopian government representatives in the camps. When working for the benefit of displaced persons, the last thing that the response agencies should be doing is fighting with one another. Unfortunately, the politics of humanitarian aid are not that different from other sectors. It’s about resources and survival of self and sometimes the refugees’ well-being is not prioritized the way it should be.

Efrem

When we walked into his compound, Efrem was sitting on a chair under the shade of his tukul’s overhang. He had on Ray Charles sunglasses, his shirt was hanging open and he was listening to a radio.  His gray hair was cut short, but still showed signs of youthful curl. As we approached, he turned off his radio, slid it into his shirt pocket and we were introduced. He stood up and we greeted each other in Amharic-I showed my respect  by putting my left hand under my right elbow as I shook his hand and offered a “selam no.” We played musical chairs as his deputy Dawit came to join the conversation. With Efrem and me sitting next to each other, Dawit, Kahasa and Getachew sat facing us.  Efrem folded his slight body upon itself, crossing his thin legs and placing the whole of his left hand on his face. His nose rested on his ring finger and his remaining fingers splayed across his sunglasses.  He was ready to hear about the reason for our visit.

The conversation began in Tigrinya, the language of the region of Ethiopia I was in, but, importantly, the language of the nation of Tigray, which crosses the UN-demarcated border between northern Ethiopia and southern Eritrea.  The topic of the conversation was my purpose for being where I was: the Shimelba refugee camp not far from the disputed border. Shimelba was established in 2001 to host Eritrean refugees fleeing political violence in their home country. Shimelba looks nothing like what you would expect a refugee camp to be.  Homes are made of stones, brick and mud, sometimes with tin roofs and other times with thatched. There are cafes and roads. Most of the population has been here for a good part of the past nine years.  Most are on their way to resettlement in the US, Norway and other Scandinavian countries in a year’s time.

So there I was, sitting next to Efrem as Getachew, my colleague, explained that I was there to conduct observations of language teacher practices in grades 1-4. My goal was to establish a component of a baseline that would lead to an early grade reading teacher training program. We were seeking Efrem’s approval for my work, and specifically the video taping of the classrooms. Efrem was the head of the PTA for the school.

The conversation continued in Tigrinya with some English words like “baseline” and “videotape” thrown in. As I watched their expressions and tried to follow the tone of the conversation, a little girl darted in and out of Efrem’s compound, grinning at me, and a donkey chased a chicken past the tukul. Efrem and Dawit nodded throughout the conversation. Efrem asked a few questions and Getachew confirmed for me what was being discussed and the conversation continued.  Then came a pause and Efrem turned to me.  “We have not any objection.” He said to me in English. I thanked him in Amharic and English and reiterated, stammering a bit from surprise, that we were thankful for his approval and looked forward to bringing a program to Shimelba that would help improve the reading of the younger children of the camp.  Efrem went on in English.  He told me about his life in Eritrea—a teacher in Asmara, the capital, he was forced to flee from the country in 2000 when his brother, a prominent official, was arrested in a coup d’état and thrown in jail. Efrem fled to Sudan, where he stayed as a refugee until the conflict in Southern Sudan forced him to flee again. He settled in Shimelba three years prior to my visit. His brother died in prison last year.

“We have not any objection.” He said again as we began to wrap up our conversation. “We have not any objection.”  My heart soared to see this man, nearing the end of a challenging life and blind to his visual surroundings, living with hope, dedication and vision for a better future for the young children of his nation.