16/10/2017 21:48 PM
I love Asmara because
I love Asmara for its’ own counterparts.
I love Asmara because I see me, a girl in mini skirt walking with her friend wearing hijab.
I love Asmara because it is not Europe, nor Middle East, nor Africa but a blend of all…the Red Sea included.
I love Asmara because we acted as if we were going to live forever.
I love Asmara because I could feel the sun, the moisture of early morning, the smell of eucalyptus and our grandmothers’ kitchens’ preparing breakfast for the family and calling the neighbours to join.
Nowhere in the world had I seen such love. I love Asmara because it is so many cultures blended, but it kept our own as the most cherished inheritance.
I love Asmara because I am Christian and some in my family are Muslim and there was never a need to have an understanding of our love. We just loved each other.
I love Asmara because it gave us a political understanding and many did not believe us. But WE kept going and won.
I love Asmara because of all the conspiracies beliefs we were raised along, and there is nothing we can do to shake it off.
I love Asmara because I could just push the gate of my friends’ house and I was always welcome. My friends love Asmara because they did the same at my family’s house.
I love Asmara because we all know each other by first name.
I love Asmara because my classmate’ father asked me the reason I was out at 3 in the afternoon. I love Asmara because I lowered my head and asked for his understanding while stuttering a reason and hoped he would never tell my father. I love it because we all cared of one another.
I love Asmara because when my husband was arrested by the occupier Ethiopia, my best friend’s Mom came to my house and told me to follow her and we would go pray. We called her Umma and she was holding her “Sejadah Al Salah” (prayer rug,) she walked me to the Cathedral. Umma prayed the Muslim way inside a Christian church. I love Asmara because Umma gave me a strong message and at the end of her prayer, she was crying but told me “He will come back home. Have faith habebtee {my love}.
I love Asmara because we were so elegant and never dreamed of going to Paris…
I love Asmara because at Easter time my Greek Mom baked the “koulourakias” {Greek traditional Easter sweets} and made us walk to each neighbors’ house to deliver a basket.
I love Asmara because at Eid festivities, Umma sent her daughters to deliver her own baking and heavenly made “sambussa” to my family’s house.
I love Asmara because our ancestors created spirituality among our people.
I love Asmara because there is no city I travelled all around the world that makes me miss it so deeply.
I love Asmara because it is not the same anymore, but we all hope to re-build and bring back the dream that raised us.
We love Asmara because it’s the capital of Eritrea.
We love Asmara because it’s a driving distance from Keren and Massawa and Ghinda and M’Batcalla, and Nacfa.
I love Asmara, because I gave away my heart to Berhane at the gates of Asmara University and I am still longing for that love with no equation that became the price to gain freedom from occupation.
I love Asmara because of my people. Our families, our old schools, our streets.
We owned it and we still do.
See you soon in Asmara. Inch’Allah.
Kiki Tzeggai
September 30, 2017
TM
"Of all the forces that make for a better world, none is so powerful as hope. With hope, one can think, one can work, one can dream. If you have hope, you have everything."
" Peace is a wall we will all create by building it brick-by-brick together". (Trade mark)
See also Related:
Open Mic with Asmarinos (Voice of Eritrea)