The differences between these two types of person rests on what their responsibility rest regarding the speaker. If I ask a Sudanese returned Eritrean refugee what is her ties with my mother or with her blood relatives, the answer I receive is different.
I will get an explan as differences in interpretation of what a relative means and is expected to b
Lucia Tesba Gilay spent most of her adult life in Sudan, a refugee but never lost her bearings as an Eritrean and her attachments to her family. In 2019 I visited Asmara and decided to invite some of her Sudan friends, Eritrean women who also returned home after 1991. These friends remember her well and not as a relative, a friend, with whom they shared a life in the diaspora.
Lucia, my mother raises many memories from people who are related and friends. What they differ is in what they remember and how they recall events and times. They all agree on who she was and what defined her, gentility, kindness, warm, hospitable, welcoming to the point of madness. They all agree that her house was ever open and no one was turned away no matter how busy the place was. Wa Ezghi, her neighbor called me form Addis to talk about her and he remembers how Lucia was neither the mom he did not have nor a wife. She always looked after people who were alone, she could not stand seeing people alone, and she had to have people around her always, they say “Lucia tifutwi Nas, she is needs nas (people) around her, nai nass ti delli-she always loves being around people”. He recalls how she would feed him and makes sure he was comfortable. He was a son to her. About her funeral he was upset that he did not attend he was out of the country. But he agreed that many attended her funeral because she was beloved by all. In fact he said I couldn’t find an adjectives to describe her.
Lucia since he came to know her was a patriotic woman, loved her country, her people, she often recalls the war and the sacrifice the people offered to the country.
Yes I agreed that if anyway was to describe her it would be that she is shabia number 1.
A compelling local point of view of family
I never met her but she saw that the house was lit and came to see us. She had warm feelings for Lucia, she moved to the house much after Lucia had bought her place, Whenever she came to the house she found it full of people friends, relatives and others. The house was the central meeting place for people who knew her, she simply collected them. If Lucia were at home people surely would come to see her and stay. People had no sense of time spent with her, a few would stay for months.
He told me a story about a woman who once came t the door of my mother’s house and sat in a corner and cried for over an hour, lit a candle and then she left. He ass= struck that a woman would do that. He knew it was for the kindness that mama had showered the woman and this poor woman felt this was the only way to respect and pray fro her. He regretted that he could not attend the funeral of mama, a woman who was a second mother to him. She fed and looked after him because he had no wife then living in the house. She cared for him along with many others relatives and friends or acquaintances from Sudan.
In a sense her hospitality was abused, she could not discourage the people from coming nor was she able to ask them t leave. Some would come for a month or more others would never leave. Her generosity was unequal to any other Eritrean woman.
Lots of discussion on the meaning of a family (sidri beit) seems to stand on two concepts in English blood and flesh – demi and segga. Family members share both demi and sega but in-laws not. A woman would birth a child who will share with his father’s demi and sega but so will he share with his mother’s sega and demi. So the birthing mother shares with the child though not her husband. When they discuss what is or who is a member of the family the main underlying principles of distinction is the shared sega and demi, which means the family tree adds the newborn to the line excluding the mothers/wives who in turn build a new line with the children who also hold a separate line.