Photos

After two hours travel east of the city of Keren, driving across rivers and uphill sinuous gravel roads we finally arrive to the little village of Marat at 2700 meters above sea level. This area hosts the Tigre people a mixture of African and Arab people. For a while I thought I had arrived in Afghanistan, but I was still in Eritrea. The water is very scarce, and the geology of the area is amazing, huge outcrops of granites, granodiorites and gneisses make the area unsuitable for underwater reservoirs. The only hand dug well collapsed a week before due two heavy rains; today they collect water from a small fissure in the bedrock. A villager told me that it was almost four months ago since the last time he took a bath. Water is a precious treasure and its use is strictly for consumption. Twenty years ago this area was green and water was scarce but not as it is today. The climatic changes are felt everywhere…nobody escapes.

The picture was taken outside the village office and this man is one of the village leaders.