Teseney
Encyclopedia
Teseney also spelled Tessenei or Tesseney, is a market town
in western Eritrea
. It lies south-east of Kassala
in Sudan
, on the Gash River. The city was much fought over in the Eritrean War of Independence
during which much of it was destroyed. Although being gradually rebuilt, land mine
s still surround the town.
. It is a population center for the western area, a frontier town with about 18,000 people from various ethnic backgrounds. On the outskirts of Teseney to the north are a couple of hills from which there are exceptional views of the lowlands and mountains in Sudan. Also, farmers have been reporting of lions roaring in south of Teseney. In summer 2006, a young male lion was sighted and photographed, but since then, there has been no sighting and farmers do still report lions roars being echoed in the night. monkey
s and spotted hyena
s form also part of Tessenei fauna, while acacia
and Hyphaene thebaica palm locally known as Dom trees dominate its flora.
The name Tessenei with the diminutive of Seney, or Teseney, is not originally Tigrinya
but Tigre
, meaning “let it be nice to dwell”. It is also called Sabbot by its native local inhabitants. In 1929, it was called by the Italian colonizers the Village of Gasperini (named after the former colonial governor of Eritrea, a native of Treviso
in Italy
).
Tessenei, is divided into several "Hillas" or districts / quarters, inhabited by different ethnic groups.
There is in fact the Hillat Takarin which accommodates the ethnic group Takrour (originally emigrated Hausa
and other clans from Nigeria
hundreds of years ago), the Hillat Sudan (refers to the Sudanese community in the town) Hillat Halabit (inhabited by Beni Amer pastoralists); Hillat Somal (inhabited by Somalis, in the trading centre), built around a hill of granite blocks, just over 100 meter high, which separates it from the Hillat Takarin. There is small river that flows into the Gash: The stream Tadalay. Behind the hill runs an irrigation canal that takes water from the Gash, called Tur-a, (Arabic word for canal) and carries the waters from the stream to the lands cultivated with cotton
, next to the village Ali Ghidir. The water supply is solved, thanks to a reservoir fed by a very old group of pumps (from the early 30s) that draw water from the sands of the Gash. It is a huge deep basin, built on top on the small hill of granite, surrounded by old Baobab
trees. At the side of this large basin-tank, there was the Italian Civil Hospital, built in the 20s, which for many years, has served the whole area near Tesseney, as far as the villages of Haikota, Gallug, Ali-Ghider, Talatahasher, Sabderat (villages bordering the Sudan), Sittimò, Aad Elit (village populated by about 1,000 individuals who speak a language all their own.
. Later a consortium
of which "Cotonificio Barattolo", with its seat in Asmara
became the main shareholder
. The main crop was cotton, a variety of Sakellaridis , the same as cultivated in Egypt
and the entire production was exported to Italy where it enjoys customs facilities. A plant for the treatment of cotton, a large mill for the processing of seeds, a power plant and a workshop complete the work, along with a modern factory for spinning and weaving cotton was built in Tessenei. During the Anglo-Egyptian condominium
a narrow gauge line of railway was built connecting Tessnei with Kassala in Sudan via Malwaya conjunction. This line has almost vanished since early 60s.
The Village of Ali Ghider was chosen as a field camp for the project. A big workshop and store for agricultural machinery
and farm equipments was build, with four leading Italian directors in charge of its administration and field engineering; all living there. A very strange system for using the land and supervising the plantation was running, by the so called blatas( a blata is Eritrean/Ethiopian aristocratic title equivalent to counsellor ). These blatas were brought to the area with their family ties and kin from places as far as Keren
in central Eritrea. Blata Yassin, Blata Jabir, Blata Melakin and Haj Gladios were the prominent blatas. Hedareb (mainly Bet-Juk, Beni Amr, Maria and Sebdarat) tribes and 1500 ex-fighters and their families farm cotton, sesame and sorghum in Ali Ghider.
American Peace Corps
in the 60s had contributed to the education field in Tessenei by sending volunteer teachers. There was also an American evangelical medical clinic in the Centre of the city.
The events of the war that led to the independence of Eritrea caused the destruction of these colonial developmental works. Tessenei still contains few Italian relics.
During the Eritrean War of Independence
(1961–1991), Tessenei was repeatedly bombed, and was subject to severe fighting because of its proximity to the borders of Sudan, from which the Eritrean insurgents receive weapons and supplies, but it was also the first to be liberated in 1988, having suffered extensive damage. Outside Teseney, just beyond Haykota
, is a monument to Hamid Idris Awate
, who fired the first shots in the Eritrean liberation struggle in September 1961.
with nomadic traders, merchants and returnees from the Sudan. The main square in front of the mosque features many different trades, with tailors, cafés, bars and other shops. There is a busy exchange market where the Saudi Riyal
and the Sudanese Pound
are exchanged to Eritrean Nakfas
, and the food in the souk
area has a distinctly Sudanese flavor. Teseney is one of the reception points for returnees from the refugee camps in the Sudan who then proceed to other locations.
During the rainy season (July to September) most areas around Teseney are impassable, but the recently constructed asphalt road from Barentu
to Tesenei guarantees a comfortable trip by road to this border village. Daily buses leave to Kassala
in Sudan, Barentu and Asmara
, the Eritrean capital.
Market town
Market town or market right is a legal term, originating in the medieval period, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city...
in western Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
. It lies south-east of Kassala
Kassala
Kassala is the capital of the state of Kassala in eastern Sudan. Its 2008 population was recorded to be 419,030. It is a market town and is famous for its fruit gardens. It was formerly a railroad hub, however, as of 2006 there was no operational railway station in Kassala and much of the track...
in Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
, on the Gash River. The city was much fought over in the Eritrean War of Independence
Eritrean War of Independence
The Eritrean War of Independence was a conflict fought between the Ethiopian government and Eritrean separatists, both before and during the Ethiopian Civil War. The war started when Eritrea’s autonomy within Ethiopia, where troops were already stationed, was unilaterally revoked...
during which much of it was destroyed. Although being gradually rebuilt, land mine
Land mine
A land mine is usually a weight-triggered explosive device which is intended to damage a target—either human or inanimate—by means of a blast and/or fragment impact....
s still surround the town.
Overview
Teseney is located 45 kilometers from the Sudanese border and approximately 115 kilometers beyond BarentuBarentu
Barentu may refer to:* Barentu, Eritrea is a town in Eritrea.* Barentu is a moiety of the Oromo people....
. It is a population center for the western area, a frontier town with about 18,000 people from various ethnic backgrounds. On the outskirts of Teseney to the north are a couple of hills from which there are exceptional views of the lowlands and mountains in Sudan. Also, farmers have been reporting of lions roaring in south of Teseney. In summer 2006, a young male lion was sighted and photographed, but since then, there has been no sighting and farmers do still report lions roars being echoed in the night. monkey
Monkey
A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...
s and spotted hyena
Spotted Hyena
The spotted hyena also known as laughing hyena, is a carnivorous mammal of the family Hyaenidae, of which it is the largest extant member. Though the species' prehistoric range included Eurasia extending from Atlantic Europe to China, it now only occurs in all of Africa south of the Sahara save...
s form also part of Tessenei fauna, while acacia
Acacia
Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773. Many non-Australian species tend to be thorny, whereas the majority of Australian acacias are not...
and Hyphaene thebaica palm locally known as Dom trees dominate its flora.
The name Tessenei with the diminutive of Seney, or Teseney, is not originally Tigrinya
Tigrinya language
Tigrinya , also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrnia, Tigrina, Tigriña, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is a Semitic language spoken by the Tigrinya people in central Eritrea , where it is one of the two main languages of Eritrea, and in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia , where it...
but Tigre
Tigre
-Argentina:* Tigre Partido, an administrative division in Buenos Aires, Argentina** Tigre, Buenos Aires, the main city in Tigre Partido** Tigre Club in Paseo Victorica, Tigre, near Buenos Aires, Argentina...
, meaning “let it be nice to dwell”. It is also called Sabbot by its native local inhabitants. In 1929, it was called by the Italian colonizers the Village of Gasperini (named after the former colonial governor of Eritrea, a native of Treviso
Treviso
Treviso is a city and comune in Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 82,854 inhabitants : some 3,000 live within the Venetian walls or in the historical and monumental center, some 80,000 live in the urban center proper, while the city...
in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
).
Tessenei, is divided into several "Hillas" or districts / quarters, inhabited by different ethnic groups.
There is in fact the Hillat Takarin which accommodates the ethnic group Takrour (originally emigrated Hausa
Hausa people
The Hausa are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. They are a Sahelian people chiefly located in northern Nigeria and southeastern Niger, but having significant numbers living in regions of Cameroon, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Chad and Sudan...
and other clans from Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
hundreds of years ago), the Hillat Sudan (refers to the Sudanese community in the town) Hillat Halabit (inhabited by Beni Amer pastoralists); Hillat Somal (inhabited by Somalis, in the trading centre), built around a hill of granite blocks, just over 100 meter high, which separates it from the Hillat Takarin. There is small river that flows into the Gash: The stream Tadalay. Behind the hill runs an irrigation canal that takes water from the Gash, called Tur-a, (Arabic word for canal) and carries the waters from the stream to the lands cultivated with cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
, next to the village Ali Ghidir. The water supply is solved, thanks to a reservoir fed by a very old group of pumps (from the early 30s) that draw water from the sands of the Gash. It is a huge deep basin, built on top on the small hill of granite, surrounded by old Baobab
Baobab
Adansonia is a genus of eight species of tree, six native to Madagascar, one native to mainland Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and one to Australia. The mainland African species also occurs on Madagascar, but it is not a native of that island....
trees. At the side of this large basin-tank, there was the Italian Civil Hospital, built in the 20s, which for many years, has served the whole area near Tesseney, as far as the villages of Haikota, Gallug, Ali-Ghider, Talatahasher, Sabderat (villages bordering the Sudan), Sittimò, Aad Elit (village populated by about 1,000 individuals who speak a language all their own.
History
During the colonial period both Tessenei and the Neighbouring village of Ali Ghider ( also written as Ali Gidir) were the center of a vast agricultural development project using the enormous quantity of waters of the Gash river streaming from the Eritrean highlands towards the Nile and it reaches Atbara river(a tributary of the Nile) only during rainy seasons. The project dates back to 1905 when its first feasibility studies was forwarded by an Italian engineer called Nicola Coles. Works started in 1924 and included: a small dam and a tiny lake to store water (inaugurated in 1928 ) and numerous other works and a net of water irrigation canals to irrigate an approximately 10,000 hectares of land. An Italian agricultural-industrial company SIA, "Società Imprese Africane" (Company on African Eterprises), won this major concessionConcession
Concession may refer to:* Concession : failure to challenge or cessation of challenging, as in "conceding an election" or "conceding a game".* Concession : a contracted-out service, as in concession stand....
. Later a consortium
Consortium
A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....
of which "Cotonificio Barattolo", with its seat in Asmara
Asmara
Asmara is the capital city and largest settlement in Eritrea, home to a population of around 579,000 people...
became the main shareholder
Shareholder
A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or institution that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a public or private corporation. Shareholders own the stock, but not the corporation itself ....
. The main crop was cotton, a variety of Sakellaridis , the same as cultivated in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and the entire production was exported to Italy where it enjoys customs facilities. A plant for the treatment of cotton, a large mill for the processing of seeds, a power plant and a workshop complete the work, along with a modern factory for spinning and weaving cotton was built in Tessenei. During the Anglo-Egyptian condominium
Condominium
A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...
a narrow gauge line of railway was built connecting Tessnei with Kassala in Sudan via Malwaya conjunction. This line has almost vanished since early 60s.
The Village of Ali Ghider was chosen as a field camp for the project. A big workshop and store for agricultural machinery
Agricultural machinery
Agricultural machinery is machinery used in the operation of an agricultural area or farm.-Hand tools:The first person to turn from the hunting and gathering lifestyle to farming probably did so by using his bare hands, and perhaps some sticks or stones. Tools such as knives, scythes, and wooden...
and farm equipments was build, with four leading Italian directors in charge of its administration and field engineering; all living there. A very strange system for using the land and supervising the plantation was running, by the so called blatas( a blata is Eritrean/Ethiopian aristocratic title equivalent to counsellor ). These blatas were brought to the area with their family ties and kin from places as far as Keren
Keren, Eritrea
Keren is the second largest city in Eritrea. It is situated about 91 kilometers northwest of Asmara. The town serves as the capital of the Anseba region, and is home to the Bilen ethnic group.-History:...
in central Eritrea. Blata Yassin, Blata Jabir, Blata Melakin and Haj Gladios were the prominent blatas. Hedareb (mainly Bet-Juk, Beni Amr, Maria and Sebdarat) tribes and 1500 ex-fighters and their families farm cotton, sesame and sorghum in Ali Ghider.
American Peace Corps
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...
in the 60s had contributed to the education field in Tessenei by sending volunteer teachers. There was also an American evangelical medical clinic in the Centre of the city.
The events of the war that led to the independence of Eritrea caused the destruction of these colonial developmental works. Tessenei still contains few Italian relics.
During the Eritrean War of Independence
Eritrean War of Independence
The Eritrean War of Independence was a conflict fought between the Ethiopian government and Eritrean separatists, both before and during the Ethiopian Civil War. The war started when Eritrea’s autonomy within Ethiopia, where troops were already stationed, was unilaterally revoked...
(1961–1991), Tessenei was repeatedly bombed, and was subject to severe fighting because of its proximity to the borders of Sudan, from which the Eritrean insurgents receive weapons and supplies, but it was also the first to be liberated in 1988, having suffered extensive damage. Outside Teseney, just beyond Haykota
Haykota
Haykota is a small town in the western Gash-Barka region of Eritrea.-Overview:The town is situated near the location of the monument erected to memorialize Hamid Idris Awate, the man who started the Eritrean War of Independence....
, is a monument to Hamid Idris Awate
Hamid Idris Awate
Hamid Idris Awate was an Eritrean independence leader and the creator of the Eritrean Liberation Army .-Early Life:...
, who fired the first shots in the Eritrean liberation struggle in September 1961.
Economy
The town is a busy marketplaceMarketplace
A marketplace is the space, actual, virtual or metaphorical, in which a market operates. The term is also used in a trademark law context to denote the actual consumer environment, ie. the 'real world' in which products and services are provided and consumed.-Marketplaces and street markets:A...
with nomadic traders, merchants and returnees from the Sudan. The main square in front of the mosque features many different trades, with tailors, cafés, bars and other shops. There is a busy exchange market where the Saudi Riyal
Saudi riyal
The Riyal is the currency of Saudi Arabia. It is abbreviated as ر.س or SR . It is subdivided into 100 Halalas . The Saudi Ghirsh is 5 Halalas.-History:...
and the Sudanese Pound
Sudanese pound
The Sudanese pound is the currency of Sudan and also used in South Sudan until finalization of the introduction of the South Sudanese pound. Both Arabic and English names for the denominations appear on the country's banknotes and coins. On 24 July 2011, Sudan launched a new currency...
are exchanged to Eritrean Nakfas
Eritrean nakfa
The nakfa is the currency of Eritrea. It is divided into 100 cents. The currency was introduced in 1997 to replace the Ethiopian birr at par, and it was named after the town of Nakfa.For an earlier currency of Eritrea, see tallero....
, and the food in the souk
Souk
A souq is a commercial quarter in an Arab, Berber, and increasingly European city. The term is often used to designate the market in any Arabized or Muslim city, but in modern times it appears in Western cities too...
area has a distinctly Sudanese flavor. Teseney is one of the reception points for returnees from the refugee camps in the Sudan who then proceed to other locations.
During the rainy season (July to September) most areas around Teseney are impassable, but the recently constructed asphalt road from Barentu
Barentu
Barentu may refer to:* Barentu, Eritrea is a town in Eritrea.* Barentu is a moiety of the Oromo people....
to Tesenei guarantees a comfortable trip by road to this border village. Daily buses leave to Kassala
Kassala
Kassala is the capital of the state of Kassala in eastern Sudan. Its 2008 population was recorded to be 419,030. It is a market town and is famous for its fruit gardens. It was formerly a railroad hub, however, as of 2006 there was no operational railway station in Kassala and much of the track...
in Sudan, Barentu and Asmara
Asmara
Asmara is the capital city and largest settlement in Eritrea, home to a population of around 579,000 people...
, the Eritrean capital.