External of countryside/

kids singing

Bus through countryside

In the countryside of Eritrea the youth of Africa's youngest nation are on tour.

Kids singing: " ...we are ready, we are ready, to build our country, we are ready, we are ready, to build our country..."

01.00.00

It's a busload of contradictions... a circus team brimming with teenage exuberance come to tell of a country's suffering... Young patriots with a story of a nation divided.

Shots of old villas

Asmara is one of the most intriguing towns you'll find in Africa, once an Italian colony it sits at the cross-roads of African and Arabic culture...

01.01.33

Festival

...six years after Eritrea's independence, Asmara is host to the country's annual festival - a time to celebrate the country's progress.

Represented are the nine cultural regions of Eritrea. It's remarkable display of ethnic harmony.

The 30 years of war that engulfed this country could have easily split it into waring factions along tribal and religious lines.

Instead Muslim, Coptic, Christian, Catholic, and animaist combined in a secular struggle to create the state of Eritrea.

01.01.51

The Eritreans have every reason to celebrate. They have shown a gritty determination to re-build this country. And in doing so have become a role model within Africa. But it's a determination that has been forged by a generation that either had nothing or lost everything in the war. A generation that gave their lives for the struggle. But in the coming years those memories will fade and soon this country's future will rest in the hands of today's youth. The question for them is as to whether they can find within themselves a matching determination. The capacity to build success upon success.

01.02.59

Circus performing

At the festival the country's future is undergoing it's first public scrutiny. Performing is Eritrea's fledgling circus. The young troupe is under the command of Joshua Fseha Yohannes, a former freedom fighter turned playwrite.

01.03.45

Joshua

I want to entertain the children, generally in Eritrea, and we want to teach them, entertainment for entertainment's sake is useless.

01.04.07

The kids joined the circus to do acrobatics - but perhaps only in Eritrea would they find themselves spouting doctrine while juggling a tune about the war.

01.04.32

Joshua

When I came with my script and told my story about Eritrean children in the past thirty years they were just curious in doing it - everybody was saying who is going to be the mother, who is going to be the enemy, who is going to be the American or the one from Sweden, or the one from Saudi, and the one from Ethiopia, who's going to be - they were curious - yes.

01.04.54

It's heavy responsibility that has been put on the children. Ocha has been rehearsing her role for months. At just 17, she plays the mother of Eritrea.

01.05.25

Ocha gathers up kids

...some of us fled into foreign lands and became refugees, and some of us to the mountains some of us, good or bad, stayed in the villages, we were scattered like an unherded flock.

01.05.45

I hope the mothers will be happy because I'm telling the history of our mothers.

Most of the time when I tell my friends that I'm going to act as a mother they laugh at me - I think the audience will think the same, maybe they will be surprised.

01.05.58

Santiago in vision

What you have to realise that these kids have never seen a circus...

01.06.35

Santiago with kids

The circus director is Santiago Acera (Saantiargo Ahtherra) - actor, an flamenco dancer, who's come to Asmara via Australia's Overseas Service Bureau.

01.06.48

At the same time you have seen the few resources we have, just a few mats, a few juggling tools, we had to make our own balls, we have one electronic organ, and one bicycle that's all. So we had to use what we got, and what we got is mainly the strength of the group...

01.07.07

singing on the bus

After their warm up act in Amara the circus is going on tour but not just to entertain...

Joshua, like so many of the exfighters, is a true believer - a publicist for a greater Eritrea - and the circus is his vehicle.

01.07.41

reporter and Joshua

Why not give them a circus that's just pure entertainment, that's fun, why remind them of all the suffering that's been here?

Joshua: ...what I am thinking is, or what all the ex-fighters think is we have to teach the children, they have to keep it in mind, they have to preserve it, because we have died we have suffered a lot they have to keep their country as it is, they have to protect their own country.

01.08.08

bus climbs up hill to village /

shots of Deroque village

An hours drive out of Asmara and you've travelled back a few centuries. This is how most of Eritrea lives. Having endured years of drought, - the villagers of Deroque (Duhrock) have been blessed with some of the best rainfall in memory.

It's still and arduous existence but today there in for a treat and the locals have never seen anything quite like it.

For the children it's all a lot of fun. But the mothers and grandmothers keep their distance - tradition dictates they stay housebound.

For the teenage girls it's a moment of confusion, they've had a deeply conservative upbringing and they're unsure exactly what to make of the circus's antics.

The country may be liberated but the same can't be said for the women.

01.08.42

over village women

If your daughter is going to be married for example she has to be a virgin.

Even your mother checks,  just always she wants to hear something. Is she this virgin or this virgin - f not all the neighbourhood will chat about this thing. Well the son of....he has married someone who is not intact. Intact, yes, therefore that is a problem

01.09.58

laying pipes

Those who perceive a need for cultural change will have to wait, just down the road from Deroque you'll find the country's priority.

01.10.33

road gangs

The ditch diggers are students who've volunteered to spend their holidays rebuilding the country's roads. It's all about commitment, and duty, and that mentality is all pervasive.

01.10.42

This is Kerren, the second largest town is Eritrea and the circus is performing here this afternoon. While waiting I went down to the local cafe to have a cup of tea. A beggar came up to me, held up his hands, and asked for the price of a cup of tea. Before I could answer him a voice next to me, an Eritrean voice, said: tell the old man to stick his hands in the earth and do some work, not hold them up to the sky to beg in the name of God - a cup of tea in Kerren costs one cent Australian.

01.11.00

crowds

The circus has brought the town to a standstill.

The most telling part is based on actual event - the children mistaking an enemy MIG fighter for an aid plane delivering food.

01.11.33

kids start playing

...next time the plane came, they were told the plane was going to send biscuits, instead of hiding themselves they came in the open air, they came from the trees and the caves and they said "oh the plane is coming it's going to send biscuits for us"...then because everyone was out and the plane came and bombarded the place and everyone was killed. This is a true story in the revolution

01.12.12

Joshua staring of into the hills

On the outskirts of Kerren it's time for reflection - Joshua fought here during the war and the memories are window into why there's such patriotism.

01.12.54

Joshua

...sometimes 10.000, 9000, 8000 soldiers come together, you fight throughout the day, you kill a lot of  soldier, another 5000 come you fight, you killed or you kill them, you kill thousands of soldiers, and hundreds of your side are killed... if I'm going to remember now no-one is alive...it was a continued war, most of them died.

01.13.08

Joshua's first wife and his brother were also fighters - both were killed in the trenches.

Night scenes

Back in Asmara the streets are humming with returnees. The years of conflict forced almost a third of the population to flee either to neighbouring countries or overseas. Now they're coming back, but the people that Joshua and his generation are counting on - the young - don't see Eritrea as home but as an alien culture.

01.13.49

spunky girl

This is my first time after seven years in Asmara, and I mean this is my country and I have to like it but I don't like the people, I don't.

01.14.20

loud mouth couple

(him)I'm from Germany. In Germany you have TV, you have clean water, you can do everything you want.

(she) Everything, the people in Germany they respect you, you know, they know like thank you and welcome or something but in this city they know nothing

(him) they have no tolerance

(she) yes, they have no thank you or something - they have nor respect.

spunky girl

Asmara is good to come and visit... but not to live... I don't want to live here.

Joshua

If someone comes from America and he wants to live in Asmara, well, if he's conscious and he loves his own country then he has to overcome all the problems which may face him here.

01.15.08

performance in Kerren

you've written play about the children of the revolution, in 20 years time what is the play you'll write about Ocha's generation.

01.15.28

Joshua

This generation may say we have reconstructed our own country, we have worked for the well being of our own country, we have worked just to put our country at the level of all the developed countries. We have done our duty, we have done our duty, I believe that.

Ocha in performance

It certainly isn't what Joshua hope for his country, but in 20 years time what will be interesting is whether the playwrites words about the children of the past prove to be prophetic about the children of the future.

01.16.15

Ocha

...our children have lost the values of their fathers, they don't know blessing, they don't know prayer. Becoming a refugee has challenged their identity, they cannot remember beyond their parents. This generation is a different one, everything is upside down.

01.16.30