My plane touched down on Asmara International Airport at 4.00am EAT (East African Time). Travellers coming into the Eritrean capital for the first time had to wait at the airport. The other passengers of the Kenyan Airways flight who are resident in Asmara boarded their vehicles and made for their homes.

I came here for one mission. Enjoy both the game of women scrambling for men and sleep with some of the most beautiful women in the world. I had time, being on leave, and money which I made from the international workshop and saw no reason not to enjoy myself. Women are women everywhere, and the beautiful ones are not yet born. I am tempted to believe this two sayings; one by a musician and the other by a writer.

Women anywhere behave like women everywhere. Each of the women I talked to wanted to keep me like in ‘the winner takes all’. She would suddenly become so jealous and would not want you to as-much-as greet another woman. That is how women all over are.

The women here are short on remembering that men are in short supply in the Red Sea-side country. Since the men to female ratio is 1:5, instead of the women knowing this and having five of them share one man, for there to be peace and harmony, each woman wants to keep a man to herself alone. In such circumstances, is the worst enemy of a woman not a woman?

Back in my country in Cameroon, the population is about 53 percent women and 47 percent men. The women keep begging the men to give them rights. I have advised them that, to grab their rights is easier than begging men to give them rights. How easier? All the women should support one woman put in her candidature for the Presidential election and all the women should vote for her. When she becomes President she would better understand their plight and they would have their way.

I had checked into the Asmara Palace Hotel, got a room and had gone straight to bed. When I woke up, it was 2.00pm.

I showered, dressed up and took a walk. The hotel was good and neat with foreign customers checking in and out on a daily basis. But I wanted a more strategic place where I could meet more of native Eritrean women. I hired a car that took me to some of the equally good hotels in Asmara, like; Lion Hotel, Sunshine Hotel, Embasoira Hamasien Hotel, Savanna International and so on. I decided to check into Savanna.

The first woman I got was a 23-year-old teacher. In fact, she is the definition of beauty. She was returning from school when I stopped her. She asked me if she could help me and I told her, yes. Forget about language and accent because love knows none.

She asked how she could be of help and I stammered something like: “What makes you, so so, so, emmm beautiful? It seems you are, are, emmmm, a creature straight from heaven. She smiled and then said: “But all women are beautiful.” I don’t want to bore you with the rest of the argument. But in the end, I triumphed. I walked her to her quarters which she keeps spic and span.

I was impressed because most beautiful women, at least the ones I know, think only about their beauty. But the clean ones make a very deep impression on me.

After visiting her quarters, and given the notion I had of the Eritrea, I thought she would accept for us to do it there or follow me to my room. Indira said n-i-e-t to either. “We just saw ourselves today. Why don’t we start talking about that tomorrow? She asked. I began to doubt whether what I heard about this President Isaias Afwerki’s country was true.

Even the following day, in spite of the fact that I strolled in the evening and saw women winking at me and I did not fall for them, I came back and waited for Indira, but she came and still put naught on my desire. “Ok, tomorrow, unfailingly.” After seeing her off, I had the urge to look for a red light district, but remembered that that was the cause of my trouble with Fatima back in Morocco. The following day, I sat in the lobby of the hotel and drank some whisky. Indira breezed in wearing a sweet fragrance and her breathing heavy with onion and some nice spices, probably from the meal she had just had.

We went up to my room and as I shut the door, I started caressing her in some sensual places to pre-empt resistance. Unlike most pale skin women, Indira’s body was warm. Her arms around me, she squeezed until we all fell into bed. Before I knew it, I was in Jerusalem, even when I had not crossed the Red Sea, speaking in tongues. If I were in Cameroon or Nigeria, I would have contemplated starting a church and saying that I saw a vision and the holy mother herself spoke to me.

From that day, Indira would not even want me to smile at a waitress who had served us so well. Since I couldn’t explore any other possibilities in Asmara, I decided to move on. From Asmara to Keren, Massawa, Assab, Mendefera and Ak’ordat. Before I knew it, I had become a sex tourist.

The Collector