Things which make defining feature of Eritrea

In this post, I will write about Eritrea. Do you know where Eritrea is? I think most of you cannot imagine, so I prepared the map.


By the way, I think that Eritrean culture was made by two things, so I will introduce these things.


First is trade and colonization. Eritrea is near to the Red Sea, so its place is very suitable to trade with other country and Eritrea has long been colonized by other country like Italy. Therefore there is a lot of other country’s culture. So let’s look at these cultural things. At first we will look at Asmara area which is in center of Eritrea. Please look at these pictures↓

They are look like western style. Left photo is Geza Banda area which we can see a lot of western style houses and church. Right photo is Maria Copt shrine. We can see the wonderful fusion of western style and Eritrean style. Also we can see these culture mix structures in Massawa which is in south in Eritrea. In that place, we can see architectures like this↓

Left architecture is old Italy bank, it looks very luxurious and magnificent. It is very damaged by the war. However it is fixing and it will become an exclusive hotel, so we can stay at there in near future. The right photo is Hotel Torino which was built in 1930s. This architecture made in the western and Eritrean mixed style. Considering these architectures and areas, Eritrea has mixed culture.



Second is “coffee ceremony”. Do you know what coffee ceremony is? In fact, I don’t know at all, so I look over it. Coffee ceremony is a kind of ceremony likes Sado which is very popular in Japan. Through drinking coffee, people learn something like decency. They use these tools like this ↓

Only women, most case is housewives, can do coffee ceremony. Then, I will introduce how to do coffee ceremony. At first, prepare the law coffee beans, then roast them closely. Until coffee is made, guests eat bread and something like popcorn with good scent. After finished making coffee, you can drink it. However you have to drink three cups of coffee. Therefore, it will take about one and a half hours from start to end, so you have to be very careful if you visit Eritrean homes. I think coffee ceremony is very similar to Sado, so I think that coffee ceremony can make people learn hospitality and decency.



Third is war. Eritrea has long been colonized by Italy first. After Italy was defeated in the Second World War, Eritrea was dominated by England. Then Ethiopia dominated Eritrea. Then the war which seek for independence is broken out. This war had continued about thirty years. the war was very violent like these↓

Left photo is the place called Tank grave. These tanks are used independent war and rejected after the war, so we can see how violent the war is. Now that, Eritrea is independent country, but the country has many problems like autocracy.

　
Eritrea is mixed various cultures, so I think it is very interesting.