Binyam

In May, 1993, our family moved to Eritrea, East Africa, expecting many years of service there. We had three children (ages 5, 3 and newborn) when we arrived. In 1996 we came back for the birth of our fourth, expecting to return in six months. But politics in the land closed the door. We have not been able to revisit Eritrea since. Along with memories of its sweet hospitality, warm friendships, and God's faithfulness, I often have keen regrets and questions about my own contribution to the good of the people. This reflection comes out of that experience. The end is a reference to Genesis 35, which may or may not be used well, but it is intended as an expression of hope. Binyam would be in his mid-20s now, and likely forced into unrelieved military service, along with the majority of his peers.

The small East African nation of Eritrea ranks among the world's poorest, but it has a treasure that sets it apart: a capital city built above the clouds. Asmara sits on a plain at seven thousand feet. Palm trees line the streets, and gardens manage to bloom year round. You do not realize the height at which you live until you drive a mile or so beyond the last street. Then you can look down at a thousand rugged peaks in every direction. Moist air from the Red Sea gathers in countless valleys, filling them with white, promising clouds for this dry land.

Our family lived in Asmara for three years. Afternoon drives were our main source of diversion. When we parked our car to stretch our legs, we first stopped some local shepherd boy to ask if there were any land mines nearby. Eritrea had recently won independence from Ethiopia in what was called “Africa's longest war,” and the damage of those thirty years was everywhere. Tanks rusted on the roadsides. Shepherd boys were among the wounded. Our children could not race along a path freely.

In a freshly injured land the people often appear most beautiful. Captivated expatriates described the Eritreans as dignified and hardworking, handsome, courageous and hospitable. Outside of Asmara, herders and farmers lived much as in biblical times. In the city, young men and women craved exposure to the Western world from which they had been cut off. They had grown up in a besieged city—once described as the world's largest prison—and their older siblings had either escaped abroad or been killed, one by one, in the war. Relief groups were hurrying into the country to help rebuild. Missionaries forced to flee decades earlier returned, gray-haired, still in love with the slender, dark-eyed people of the land.

While my husband taught English and Bible, I carried my own small load, never more literally than on my weekly trip to market. I shopped mostly on foot. I knew my favorite vendors by name. Their one-room shops were crowded if three customers stepped in at once. Hefting five or more bags and baskets, I took home kilos of potatoes, cabbages, oranges, beef, bread, lentils, and imported canned goods. By noon my arms ached. I was dusty. The sun felt too direct, and I wished I had help.

Help stood on the street corner one Saturday. Catching sight of me from half a block away, a small boy ran up and stood in my path. He looked up expectantly, as though we were long familiar with each other. I smiled and tried to pass on my way. As slight as his figure was, his persistence was strong. He followed me and soon had grabbed the handle of one of my bags. His dark hand kept near my pale one, and he tugged for control.

I looked down and saw that the boy was barefoot. This surprised me. As poor as the nation was, the children of Eritrea usually wore shoes. Almost every family could afford the kind of sandal worn by the liberation soldiers, manufactured from cheap rubber. But this boy's toes pressed against the hot cement. The edges of his soles were ash grey.

“Hansab, hansab—Wait.” The boy's arm went slack for a moment; he stopped to listen to me speak his own language. “What is your name?”

“Binyam.”

“Binyam.” I let him take two of the bags—his weight in potatoes alone—and we walked together to the taxi stop. “Here is far enough,” I told him.

I had exactly ten birr left in my pocket, and I needed it all for my fare home. I wondered what to do with my unsolicited employee. Very carefully, he set my bags at the curb. His clothes were torn and unwashed. The dust of the streets had settled in his hair, so that the overall effect of his person was of a field in drought. His name meant Benjamin, 'son of the right hand.'

“Where do you live?”

“Akria.” It was a neighborhood far on the north edge, where no foreigners lived. I had been through it only once.

“Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“Eight.”

I thanked him for his work and said, “Binyam, I want to give you something. But I do not have it with me. If you come here--” I told him a familiar street address and explained it was a church meeting place--”tomorrow morning, I will have some shoes for you. I want to give you shoes. I want you to hear the word of God also. Your name is in the Bible, did you know that?”

Binyam came to the church, and I met him at the front steps with a pair of shoes. They fit him perfectly; as I had guessed, he wore the same size as my son. During Sunday School I watched for a look of pleasure on Binyam's face and for a new pride in his posture. He did not seem particularly interested in speaking with me; he quietly took his place among the other children and sang songs and heard stories. It was good for him, I thought, to be off the streets and in this crowded, happy room. Afterward I invited Binyam to come every week.

He came just once more; he came in the same dusty clothes, and he came barefoot. When I asked him, “Where are your shoes, Binyam?” he looked away and moved into the group of children out of my reach. All that hour I was distracted by his feet. When he did not attend the next week or any week afterward, I could not get him off my mind. The absence of the slight, shoeless boy was bigger than his presence had been. I kept imagining scenes of great turbulence for Binyam. Had other boys beaten him for his shoes? Had his father punished him for taking a gift from an unknown, condescending foreigner? I wondered if he had sold the shoes for money. I wondered what had happened to the shoes that I had given in the name of God. What had happened to the boy? Were his soles still the color of ash? What had happened, what had my own hands done, to his soul?

Many expatriates published articles on the virtues of this new nation, and many, like us, hoped to stay and work for several years. But the day came when the government, made up of the guerrilla fighters who had fought for independence, declared that all foreign relief agencies were illegal. Rumors spread about boxes of donated clothes arriving from the kingdom across the Sea, lined with militant religious tracts. The national press reminded the people that by their own will they had won independence, and by their own hands they would rebuild. The country was kicking off its shoes, and few outsiders knew where they went.

The people were left as poor as ever, but for a while the newspapers reported their jubilance. There were more battles fought along the border. My husband's work ended abruptly; we returned to raise our family in the States. But still I tell myself the stories of that city above the clouds. I think through the weighty times and the places we walked. And I remember Binyam, in the heat and in the dust, my burden upon his small shoulders, son of my sorrow, son of the right hand.