Medebar Market

Medebar in Asmara is a market where nothing is sold new: oil drums are cut and beaten into buckets and stoves, tyres become sandals, scrap iron becomes tools, and the whole quarter works as a recycling operation employing hundreds of people in a constant noise of hammering. It sits in the Abbashawel area, one of the unplanned neighbourhoods the UNESCO inscription includes within the property. The trade grew out of scarcity rather than environmental policy, and the goods made here are sold across the country.

What you actually see

• The drum workshops - oil drums cut and beaten into household goods.
• The tyre sandals - footwear made from worn rubber.
• The scrap forges - iron reworked into tools across the quarter.
• The noise and scale - hundreds of people working in one continuous din.

When to go

Year round. Mornings are busiest and the workshops are all running. Fridays and Sundays are quieter.

Honest expectations

It is a working industrial quarter, hot, loud and dirty, not arranged for visitors. Photography needs permission and Asmara's restrictions are enforced. Watch for hot metal and moving material.

Nearby

Enda Mariam is west, and central Asmara is west beyond it.