In 1988 the top songs from the US single charts came from artists like Guns N’ Roses, Tracy Chapman, George Michael and Neneh Cherry – “Bufallo Stance”. This was three years before the Eritrean war of independence ended and Eritrea was freed from Ethiopian occupation.

At that time, I was a 13-year-old boy living with my family a typical Eritrean Diaspora life between two cultures.

As a teen, Sundays were usually extremely tiring and again on this particular Sunday, apart from a boring day, there was nothing special going on, except the usual Eritrean coffee ceremonies where parents light a fire in the living room together with friends.

Trying to ignore the group of grownups discussing about life and their beloved country with emotional gestures, I sat on the floor moving closer to the TV screen. This was my way of demonstrating against the intruders, their noise and the aggressively smelling aroma of Eritrean food and coffee.

All of a sudden this 15-year-old French girl singing “Joe le taxi” and swinging to cha, cha, cha drums appeared on screen.

Her voice blew me away and nothing was able to distract me from staring at the TV, there was no noise just gestures, no smell just fresh air.

There had been nothing, absolutely nothing with girls in my mind until that day and I would not tell anyone that this had changed. As a young boy you do not want to loose your overall coolness by admitting you like girls.

Nine years later, I would arrive in Eritrea for the first time and take a taxi ride from the airport to the heart of Asmara in a yellow Opel with Kidane behind the steering wheel not Joe.

This time, I would fall in love with a whole country and I would not be ashamed to tell and spread the news about this wonderful place.

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