Chapter 3

Lineages of a multiethnic family: Eritrea

Visits and conversations started in Carrara continue in Asmara, Eritrea.

In the background are colonial histories and policies, the role of fascism, Italian immigration, road/rail/public works, creation of a unique modern city to benefit the Italian homeland. The rise of separate identity among the local people, the position of Italians who married Eritreans and stayed. Ethiopian imperial designs and the subsequent 30-year liberation struggle culminating in Eritrean independence in 1991.

Asmara town civilian cemetery Asmara, 2006

Silvio Fruzzetti's final resting place. Lucia his wife, and daughter Lina visit his grave. Most graves in this section date back to Italian colonial times, the architecture and design are recognizably Italian, distinct from the later graves in the cemetery. Notable are the inscriptions, names, and the more elaborate mausoleums.

Asmara vegetable, fish and grain market Asmara, 2006

Known as the mercato, the innovative architecture conforms the entire square still in use today, where mother and daughter do their shopping for the week.

Lunch at Lucia’s house Asmara, 2006

Lucia’s apartment near Asmara airport was built after Independence by South Koreans. Lunch with friends, relatives, and visitors is a daily event, open to surprise visitors. Lunch is a mix of Italian, Eritrean, and Sudanese dishes ending with freshly ground coffee brewed three times in increasingly weaker yields. Discussion of family stories, Medina, Lucia’s closest friend from Sudan days, a Christian married to a Sudanese Muslim General, who took his wife to church every Sunday.

Medeber Workshops Asmara, 2006

Medeber was built as a caravanserai during colonial times. Now housing a series of workshops where almost everything can be manufactured by hand. Lucia’s youngest brother Berhane has a shop of metal works here where his sons first went to work.

Discussion with Berhane and Lucia Keren, 2006

Berhane and Lucia recollect life during colonial times. Berhane’s good-humored comments on the lack of Eritrean resistance in colonial rule. The discussion ends with the customary coffee ritual.

Aderada, scenes from Lucia’s ancestral village Ader Ada, 2006

Much like villages in the Eritrean countryside buildings of wooden pillar and post constructions filled with locally fired bricks laid out around the central commons dominated by an Orthodox Church. Lucia’s father and grandfather are buried here. An afternoon in the house of one of Lucia’s relatives, the priest offers his cross for veneration. “Ingera” unleavened bread is made for the main meal. The priest displays icons in the church. Gezai, Lucia’s eldest brother, hosts a wedding reception.

Discussion with Gezai, his daughter, and Lucia Ader Ada, 2006

Gezai’s house with kitchen, porch and living area in the ancestral style with the addition of a concrete and brick reception room. Gezai reminiscences about his life as an Askari (native militia) under the Italians, and then as an indigenous soldier with the British and American administrations. Both Gezai and his daughter participated in the thirty-year struggle against the Ethiopian occupation.

Journey to Keren where Lucia and Silvio spent their married life Keren, 2006

Keren like other major towns was built by the Italians, post-independence constructions have expanded it considerably. Lucia and her best friend Medina meet Tewalde her cousin who takes them on a commented tour of the town.

Mariam Darit pilgrimage place outside Keren Keren, 2006

Mariam Darit is a popular pilgrimage place dedicated to the Virgin Mary with many miracles attributed to supplicants. The Cistercians monks built a church there and administer the site.

Simon Mahari and his wife Woini speaking about family and the diaspora Krefeld, 2009

On an earlier visit in 2006, Lina, Lucia and Akos meet Simon Mahari in Frankfurt on an overnight visit. Later, in 2009, we meet him and his wife Woini in Krefeld and have a conversation about his aunt Lucia. He relates his fraught departure from Eritrea to Sudan and eventually to further studies in Germany. He emphasizes the support he received from his aunt Lucia throughout his journeys.

Milion, son of Mahari’s sister Ethiopia, speaks about family and the diaspora Krefeld, 2009

Milion talks about his life with his mother in Ethiopia and his marriage to his Danish wife in Copenhagen.

Abraham Tesba and his wife Saba chatting with Lucia and Lina about family and the diaspora Malmo, 2006

Abraham like several other Eritreans made the journey from Eritrea to Sudan and eventually to Sweden with Lucia's support. Sweden at the time had liberal immigration policy for asylum seekers.

Intertwining Families

Kinship terminology of the Tigrinya family:

Father = abo

Father’s father = abehago

Father’s mother = abay

Father’s father brother = howaboy

Father’s father sister = abayna

Father’s wife = aadena

Father’s sister = amona

Father’s sister husband = sebya amon, seb i amoy

Father’s sister son = wedi amona, wedi amoy

Father’s sister daughter = qualamona, gual amoy

Father’s sister son wife = sebayti

Father’s brother = howa abona

Father’s brother wife = adena

Mother = adena

Mother’s husband = abo

Mother’s father = abehugona

Mother’s sister = abayhitinana

Mother’s sister husband = sebay hitnana

Mother’s brother wife = sebayti akona

Mother’s sister husband = hatino

Mother’s father brother = amona

Mother’s father sister = abayna

Mother’s sister son = wedi hatno

Mother’s sister daughter = gual hatno

Mother’s sister daughter = sebay guel hatno

A Discussion of Family and Kinship in Eritrea: Indigenous Meanings

Blood, flesh and the construction of the person: ciga, dem and mobokol give meaning to a person.

An Eritrean family is one that rests on clearly culturally defined shared notions of identification. When a person is asked as to what the family means or who is a relative, their answers elicit shared criteria’s regarding a relative. A relative also shares distinct rights within the family. Additionally, we ask if the definition of a relative would match similar meaning to those who have lived more than forty years aboard? If not, what are the glaring differences when one addresses a displaced Eritrean person or a political refugee? Using Lucia Tesba Gilay, who passed away eleven years ago, I encountered multiple meanings according to how one behaves in the company of relatives and friends, or how these situations initiates and creates social spaces that situates the person accordingly. What is imposed on the children of Lucia Tesba Gilay, simply because by extension we are relatives and we need to follow the same expectations placed upon us as well.

Those from the diaspora quickly recognize how their relatives accept them or refuse to do so what are the ground rules for how one should behave. Take the example of Lucia Tesba Gilay who understands who she is and what is the root of her mobkol is; yet she has to activate some initial understanding and see what that implies.
Here we move away from emotion and feelings or the attachments to family. One often hers a sentence that makes you wonder to its true meaning. “Lucia is not my relative but she is a sister, our mother, one who helps us” is this what they expect of a non relative simply from a friend? How does friendship compete or contrast with a relative?

Family and Friends' Interviews

Abba Restom on Mama Lucia “who was all kindness to him”, and always welcomed people who were struggling

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Semrate Gezai on making of family, sidra beit, connection through blood and flesh, lineage, close and distant relatives. Diaspora life, cultural differences, and respect for relatives

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Father Simon

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Discussion with Nigisti, Alem Khsay, friends of Lucia

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At the cemetery: with Nigisti, Alem Khasay, Mebrac, Woyni, Ethiopia and Maakele, visiting Lucia’s and Sylvio’s graves. Making coffee and conversing about the past

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