Eritrean Culture
CULTURE
The culture of Eritrea is the collective cultural heritage of the various populations native to Eritrea. It shares historic commonalities with the traditions of Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan. The local culture consists of various, and often quite similar, traditions practiced by the nation's many Cushitic and Ethiopian Semitic-speaking Afro-Asiatic ethnic groups, in addition to those practiced by the area's Nilotic minorities.
ARTS AND CRAFTS
Eritrea’s craft objects are not manufactured for the tourist market alone but from a part of the daily lives of the local people. Every thing that we see as an art form is, in fact, a functional item for every day use. Leather work such as jackets, shoes (sandals, loafers and elegant dress shoes), gold and silver-smiths and handcraft items such as clay coffeepots, hand made ropes, charcoal braziers, baskets and cosmetic containers are some of the many locally made souvenirs.
FOODS
‘Tsebhi’ is the spiced stew commonly eaten in rural and urban Eritrea. The taste of the stew differs in the rich homes where it is cooked with oil, spices and meat.
The poor use very little oil or butter and enrich the ‘Tsebhi’ with wild vegetables. Urban well-to-do Eritrea has acquired Western food habits and spaghetti, steaks and rice are part of the daily
menu. The urban poor eat ‘shiro’ (boiled and spiced chickpea flour), ‘hamli’ (leafy vegetables) and ‘tcheguera’ or ‘tripes’ (a cheap substitute for beef). Dairy products like whey, curd and
yoghurt are consumed throughout the country.
Coffee Ceremony
A coffee ceremony is a ritualized form of making and drinking coffee. The coffee ceremony is one of the most recognizable parts of Ethiopian culture and Eritrean culture. Coffee is offered when visiting friends, during festivities, or as a daily staple of life. If coffee is politely declined then most likely tea (shai) will be served
Living in this waste of crumbling rock and broken lava flows are a people as tough and often as hostile as their environment: The Afar.
The Afar people are largely nomads and almost entirely Muslim by faith. The four major sultanates and numerous sheikhdoms are spread over three countries: 300,000 Afar live in Eritrea, 1,000,000 in Ethiopia, and 300,000 in Djibouti. The Afar language (or Danakil) is a Cushitic language.
