From the Sudan I went to Karora-Orotta area in Sahel province- through Barka province- and to Molki-Maidema-Areza in the highlands, and returning the same route.

I guess I passed Badime without stopping on the way south and had a short stop there almost one month later.

I went - as I guess you have understood - with the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front, as a freelance journalist. I was travelling with a group of Eritreans, media people from EPLF and a guide.

Badime ? It was a small village, mud huts and a quite large open flat field where some donkeys stood and where kids were playing around.

We were tired when we came to Badime some time before noon, and looked for a place to by some tea. Roasted corn or soha was also available some places and a good supplement to a boring diet. We found a hut with a small pole outside with a cup upside-down on top of it, telling you where you could get soha. But in this village, the kids went crazy when they spotted a car. Tens of them came running, laughing, pointing at us and gathered outside the old land rover, pointing at us, smiling and having fun of the new attraction that suddenly had shown up.

Tired as we were, we found that a cup of tea was not worth the entire hassle with a bunch of kids and continued our trip.

The strange thing is that Badime clearly was regarded to be in the Tigray province in Ethiopia, and that EPLF used this route for convenience. I even felt we where a bit away from the border, but where the border was and when we passed it, I do not know - nobody paid any attention to that. The Ethiopian presence was limited to garrison towns and air raids at that time.

This note by me has probably no relevance for the ongoing border conflict, as my description is not very precise, but it gives me a rare feeling of some knowledge of the historiy of the area.