Ghibabo’s Italian restaurant was just down the street from the Crystal Hotel and reviews described it as one of the best in Asmara. It was mostly open-air, a series of terraces surrounding a courtyard lit with a canopy of little white lights in the trees. A man in a black suit with the air of a manager greeted me at the door. “Are you Italian?” he asked. “I am!” I said, without thinking. “By descent, that is. I was born in the U.S.” He seemed delighted by this and said I should have a tour of the restaurant. He took me into the one fully enclosed room full of glass cases with Italian artifacts and very old bottles of wine mounted on the walls. “We call this the museum room,” he said proudly. We went to a second room with shelves displaying decorative silver serving pieces across one wall. It…
