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ERITREA: Incredible Tourism Treasure

By Luwam Kahsay H.

https://shabait.com/2021/12/29/eritrea- ... eaPrevails

GENERAL

Dec 29, 2021

This country is really underrated,

a German tourist told my tour guide friend upon seeing the fogy atmosphere around Arbe-Robue, a roadside village about 10 kilometers from Asmara on the way to Massawa.

Around the months between November and March, it is a usual scenery while descending to the port city. This is just before finding out about the immensity of the content of the Red Sea and the history it bears.

The Red Sea being the first sea to be discovered by humans, according to archaeological findings, the Eritrean part of the sea, around the Abdur area in particular, is said to be where the first seafaring humans had dwelt. It is also home to several marine species, seaweeds and around 1100 varieties of fish including whales, dolphins, sharks, sea turtles and others. Out of these abundant species, almost 550 are exclusively found in the Eritrean part of the Red Sea.

Eritrea is endowed with over 1000 kilometers of coastline, which include a variety of seagrass, mangrove trees and coral reefs. The existence of mangrove trees along the coastal area provides a breeding habitat for many bird species such as flamingos and other migratory birds.



The coastline is also home to ecologically and historically significant peninsulas, such as the Buri peninsula, which is one of the most important storehouses of biodiversity and the Dahlak islands, which is very significant home to the spread of the first Arabic cuffic scriptures.

The Eritrean Green Belt found about an hour drive northeast of the capital, contains different kinds of vegetation like huge sycamore trees and animals such as antelopes, gazelles, leopards, panthers, hyenas, baboons and hundreds of spices of birds.

Although farming, drought and war are the main causes for deforestation and the migration of wild animals; with the concerted efforts of the Eritrean wildlife and forestry authority and the government, several species have been returning after Eritrea achieved its independence three decades ago. The reservation of the Green Belt as a national park, has played a big part in this particular sector.



The mountainous landscape of most of the southern highland area of the country makes you enjoy cool breeze, with temperate climate in the settlements perched upon descending to the lowlands, which are mainly characterized by warm climate. Seeing is believing, and if you come and experience it first hand, you won’t be wandering why the tourism motto of the Eritrean Tourism Ministry is,

Three seasons in two hours.

Speaking of the mountains, apart from being a habitat to the growing fauna of the country, they have played a significant role in the armed struggle for the independence of Eritrea. The hundreds of kilometers of trenches that spread from Nakfa, served as a stronghold for the EPLF.

Animals such as the elephant, African wild [deleted], and ostrich are recognized among the large animals in the country. Most of us are not aware, that our country contains small animals first described scientifically from Eritrea as long ago as the 1830s such as the Eritrea Clawed Frog and Side-necked Turtle. There is also the Asmara Toad, the only toad in the world with a scientific name that includes the capital city Asmara. Some of these are found nowhere except in Eritrea and thus are National treasures that must be studied and preserved.



When it comes to the marine biodiversity as we have mentioned it earlier, the Red Sea marine biodiversity pans from, the unicellular phytoplankton seedlings to the enormous wales. Over 1000 different species of fish, 250 types of corals are found in the Red Sea. Besides, invertebrates, mollusks and gastropods as well as marine plants, such as the three different types of mangrove trees are among the major resources of the Red Sea. According to studies conducted over the past 25 years of independence, it has been confirmed that the depth of the Eritrean Sea is also a haven to 11 types of sea grass, five types of marine turtles, as well as over 72 different marine bird species. Furthermore, 17 different types of sea cucumber with high economic significance are found in the Red Sea.

What Eritrea has got is nothing short of incredible and a lot of times, we, being inside of it, miss the incredibleness of it and fail to tell the rest of the world how beautiful Eritrea is.

Amazing! A millionaire from USA wants to preach to Eritrean youth about true wealth! She was once a person who lived in their car because she could not afford a home. She worked hard to reach where she is now. But she did not show solidarity with her poor brothers and sisters. She sided with their oppressors. The Marxists have a word for what she did. I forgot it now. In Tigrigna we say ዘይ ስንኻ ሑጻ ቆርጥመሉ.

Learn.net: the product of Beautiful Minds

By Milka Teklom

https://shabait.com/2021/12/29/learn-ne ... ful-minds/

Q & A

Dec 29, 2021

Krubiel and Natnael are teenage brothers, who have developed a soft­ware at a young age. Their mentor and teacher, Yacob Merhawi, who is amazed by how quickly they make things, describes them as great teenagers Eritrea is blessed with. What they have created is an essential step, toward Eritrea’s digital education.

Thank you for your time, so let’s get to know you.

My name is Natnael Henok. I am 15 years old, a 10th grader at Keih Bahri Secondary School.

My name is Krubiel Henok. I am 13 years old and learning in seventh grade at Freselam Junior- Secondary School.

You guys are the founders of Learn.net and other many projects. Enlighten us, on your projects?


Krubiel Henok

Krubiel: Learn.net is a network software that aims to connect, elevate, and entertain and, above all, to create a platform for students and the young, in general, to gain knowledge. We started developing it on the 5th of January, 2021 and completed the project last May. The current version of Learn.net is a suite package, encompassing different web applications. The apps included are: Book Store, App Bank, Educational Videos, Educational Games, Ask How, Creativity Centre, Cyclone, Invent Box, Emergency Toolkit, Music Web, Life Tips, Quote Chart, What’s New and Wikipedia. Also, Learn.net is made available in two languages — English and Tigrigna. When we noticed that many students these days have access to Android phones, we made sure Learn.net has its own Mobile Phone Application compatible with Android OS to help users



connect to a server without any browsing app.

Our other project is the School Database Control (SDC), a web that enables a school to access its data digitally. We observed some technical errors in the database control system that is currently used by the Ministry of Education and set out to create a better version.


Natnael Henok

Natnael: Besides developing webs, we have created mobile phone apps. One of the apps is called Hagery; it’s a compilation of 15 poems by the famous poet, Awel Sied. The other app is Eri-Wallpapers; we collected many old and new photos of different sites in Eritrea and made an app that allows you to make them your phone’s wallpaper. Qenietat Tigrigna is our third app; it’s based on the book written in 1994 by Berhane Zerai. We thought of it as a game; it’s about sentences and words that have double meanings. It intrigues, informs and entertains users. We have two apps still in development — one is called Saida, the Tigrigna version of an app called Flow. It’s made, particularly, for pregnant women. The other app still in the making is a compilation of Abraham Afworki songs, including the lyrics. We believe he is a legend and his work should be made more accessible and preserved for posterity.

What inspired you, to create those projects?

Natnael: The main thing that inspired us to develop Learn.net is the limitations of analog tools and resources of connectivity and interactivity, that we witnessed. We wanted to accomplish an innovative digital learning, mentoring, and informal learning experience through our web. We also wanted to ensure that all young people, whatever their background, are able to thrive and use their potential. Above all, we wanted everyone to have easy access to educational materials.

Krubiel: The reason we developed those apps, is that they seemed very essential to our community. For example, we got inspired to build the app Hagery because almost everyone around us was collecting the videos of the poet. Imagine how much space that could take and the time and energy you spend, to search for each and every poem. So, we decided to collect them all and make them available to everyone.



Your skills are very visible in your products, which seem to have been built by a computer engineer. How were you able to achieve that?

Krubiel: When I was in the fourth grade, I enrolled in a basic programming class. Then Natnael joined me, shortly after. We did the four levels of the course and then proceeded to Robotics. But it was when we were in partial lockdown due to Covid-19, that we developed our skills further. We studied other programming languages, watched tutorials on video and our mother provided us with the books we needed. To showcase our capabilities, we made our first software based on our dad’s request. The software we developed was inventory report, controlling software for the Ministry of Finance.

Speaking of your father, introduce us to your parents and their role in your journey?

Krubiel: Our father, Henok Kudus, works at the Ministry of Finance and our mother, Seble Haile is a microbiology instructor at the Institute of Technology at Mainefhi. Our parents’ role, has been crucial. Since we were kids, they have bought us laptops and every gadget we have needed. They have been very supportive and give us the freedom, to try whatever we want to. When we learned how to program they were the ones who came up with the ideas of what to create and if we have an idea, they are the first to evaluate it. Overall, they have been our cornerstone in this journey.

What obstacles have you faced?

Natnael: Our main obstacle has been, Covid-19. For the websites to be usable we needed to do Meta tests, especially Learn.net, which was meant to be tested on students and we couldn’t accomplish that. Also, society’s knowledge about digital education is so low we need a platform to advertise and inform people on the importance of the web and we have not attained the platform until now. Of course, as we said our parents do their best to provide us with the resources we need but sometimes we do face a scarcity of resources.

Any other message?

We want to thank our parents, our mentors, Eng. Sham Mesfin for his guidance in every step, our uncle, Eng. Henok Haile, and our teacher, Yacob Merhawi, for tirelessly working with us on the mobile applications we are creating.

Thank you and good luck!

ድምጺ ሓፋሽ ኤርትራ- ንወያነ ምድሓን ዘይከኣል ዕማም