u/SOSXCTRL

Now that diplomatic relations have been fully severed on both sides. The Ethiopian army seems to be having an easy time advancing towards Mekelle without much resistance and whether this is a trap being set by TPLF or they’re just not the fighting force they were before, that remains to be seen. The question is whether Abiy will be reckless enough to ignite a full blown war especially if TPLF collapses.

I’m seeing many Eritreans, especially the diaspora ones, arguing ‘it’s Qudus Yohannes in Eritrea not new year’ without actually knowing what the holiday actually is and why it is celebrated in Eritrea. The day marks the start of the new year in the Ge’ez calendar and is the most celebrated religious holiday among Eritrean Christians (Orthodox and Catholics) after Lidet and Fasika. The reason why it’s a major public holiday unlike let’s say St Michael’s Annual Day of Celebration is because it marks the start of the new year. Eritrean Christians in the past exclusively used the Ge’ez calendar which is why the Gregorian calendar is referred to as the Ferengi (foreigner) calendar in Tigrinya. Most elders even now still tend to primarily use the Ge’ez calendar because it dictates the rhythm of traditional life. When you can farm, when you can wash clothes, when you start fasting or even when a woman braids her hair depends on whether the day is a Beal (a day that’s dedicated to God or the Virgin Mary or any of the angels/saints and thus certain activities are prohibited) or Srah (a day that isn’t and literally means a ‘work’ day). It is no different to how the Han Chinese people have a traditional new year but the Chinese state follows the Gregorian calendar officially.

They swiftly removed my recent post when I pointed out that Ethiopians (with clearly Ethiopian) names are posing as Eritreans in Europe to claim asylum and doing a lot of f*ckery further tarnishing our reputation. Is that sub being run by Ethiopians?

This Azerbaijani tourist visiting Eritrea is approached by a diaspora Eritrean man who tells him that he’s visiting from America. At the same time, another local Eritrean man comes to beg the tourist so he can buy a single bread. The diaspora man steps in and tells him ‘you shouldn’t say that’ with an irritated face. He personifies many in the diaspora. They are more irritated at Eritreans making their suffering visible than they are of the fact that many Eritreans are actually suffering which is why he decided to tell him off i stead of helping him by buying him something to eat. Growing up in Asmera, I rarely used to see anyone other than disabled or old people begging. Nowadays the city is full of people young and old begging everywhere. I have seen pregnant ladies and kids as young as three/four your olds begging. And this is despite the risk of being caught by the Municipal Police (Munchipes) who regularly arrest and throw them in prisons on the outskirts of the city (Adi Guadad especially is full of people who were arrested for begging).

This is a recent trend on Eritrean tiktok. People are updating the whereabouts of their family members or friends and in most of them, only the parents are left in Eritrea while the children/friends are scattered all over the world. Eritrea is undergoing a population collapse that she will never recover from.

And tying it to the recent hot topic on this sub, this is why a lot of Eritreans see marrying outside as an existential crisis. And before you all come jumping about how it’s because Eritreans are racist etc etc almost every community cares about preservation because this is not just an Eritrean thing. I’ve seen a lot of Jamaicans complaining about how their diaspora community is mixing itself into extinction because the fully black Jamaicans are now a minority within the Jamaican community in places like the U.K. and while this process of mixing and eventually completely assimilating to your host country affects other immigrant communities, it has a far bigger impact on on the Eritrean diaspora because we are migrating at an apocalyptic rate and we did not have a massive population to begin with. And let’s face it, someone who has one Eritrean grandparent will not feel the same way about Eritrea as someone that is fully Eritrean. Neither is this process of assimilation inevitable because there are a lot of communities (Jews, Indians etc) that tend to overwhelmingly avoid intermixing despite being in the west for generations and this even plays a part in why they tend to be generally successful migrant communities. I partially blame the parents because they are telling their children they should marry Eritrean but are not actually telling them why that matters for our community and our country. Neither is our community good at matchmaking, specifically for the second gen which makes it harder to meet, date and eventually marry other Eritreans.

Most of the young Tigrinya children I see have the most obscure biblical names or straight up western names. There is this weird mentality that our people have which is associate names with certain age groups and shame people for having traditional or ‘old people’ names to the point that some people flat out change their names as grown adults to something modern or only go be their nicknames. I remember when I was in Eritrea and one of the ladies in the neighbourhood named her grandchild Berhane in honour of her martyred brother and people were like ‘how can she call a little child Berhane that’s so embarrassing he’s going to be bullied by other kids when he grows up etc’. I feel like it’s this need to be ‘modern’ that has people flipping the Bible to find some random words they can use as a name and brag about how it actually has a deep meaning. Meanwhile actual Tigrinya names are dying out and it’s lowkey sad because those names hold a lot of cultural and historical meaning. It’s gotten so bad that memhdars in Eritrea were informed to not accept western celebrity names when parents apply for birth certificates because too many people were trying to name their kids after famous footballers apparently.

I work for a company that has a very complicated payroll system and when I started working I was informed by my manager that payments are always delayed by a month. However I recently found out that it wasn’t the case and I should have been paid back then so I got in contact with senior management and after investigations they decided to correct their mistake and pay me what I was owed. The problem is that they added that month’s payment on top of my monthly payment without making me aware (I also specifically requested for them not to do it) and HMRC, NI, Students Loans etc all had a very nice cut because it looks like my salary is now double than what it was before. I ended up paying £500 more in taxes and contributions than what I would have paid if these two payments came in separately. Is there anything I can do about this?

I had a mock test with my instructor and we were driving on a 40mph dual carriageway. The car on my right was driving at around 33mph. I slowed down accordingly as undertaking them would be dangerous and a serious fault. And I obviously couldn’t overtake them to their right as it’s only a two lane road. He said that would be a fail for driving too slow and creating traffic behind me and when I explained why I slowed down he said it would still be a fail? I am failing to understand what I could’ve done in that situation

I have a test for in 2 weeks which I don’t feel I am prepared for but don’t want to cancel it and wait another 6 months after so after searching through Facebook, I found a person (an instructor I think) who has the dates and location I want. He wants my information to do the swap but I’m low-key hesitant and scared they might be a scam or snatch my test date instead (idk if this is a rational fear lol but I’ve heard about dodgy instructors before). Does anyone have any experience with swapping dates this way?

Hi. I have a test booked for the 18th of May in Pinner. If anyone has a booking in Pinner for June/July/August and looking for a swap, let me know please