�Pay back a favor or announce it,?goes a Tigrigna saying.  It is said when one is handicapped from paying back favors. It fits our situation. We could not possibly pay Sam for the help he offered awate.com over the last six-weeks.

A word about Sam. You already know his work.   A highly skilled old hand in web design and information technology, it is his talent that elevated Visafric, now closed, into an Eritrean media institution. If measured in terms of real market price, the efforts that Sam put on awate.com�the hours of sleepless nights and weekends stolen from his family life--there would simply be no way we could afford to pay him. Sam was very generous, at times spending from his own pocket, to get the job done.  And the job? �When I am done, you guys will not recognize Awate.com!?he had threatened when he volunteered for the task.     

The results are self-evident.  Awate.com has been totally transformed into a neat, crisp, user-friendly outlet.  It is less static, far more interactive, more customizable.  So, why are you so helpful, Sam? �You have the best content, but the design of your website doesn�t match it.  I can�t just watch that and not help!?lt;SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">  On behalf of all our readers and supporters, thank you for the new suit, Sam.   We will work hard to ensure that we have the �best content.?lt;o:p>

Public Opinion

For those who enjoy their messages to come in small nuggets, we are introducing the Awate Forum.   We have been running it on beta test and we believe we have worked out whatever quirks there may have been.  The forum is found in the Public Opinion folder.  Click on the Public Opinion file and you will be linked to the Forum.    You can respond to threads or create your own.  You do not have to be registered to read or post messages.  We will incentivize you to register, though.   How?  That takes us to the long-range plan, which is to enable you to have My Awate: customize to fit your taste and preferences.   From stock quotes, weather reports, picture of the day, private calendar, etc.   It will be so customized, we are even thinking of creating a special "curtain" for those who claim to never read Awate but quote back to us everything we have written in the last two years.  "I never read you but my friend told me...."  Sure.

Just to give you an idea: if you are not registered, you will get the Weather in Asmara; if you register, we will give the weather in Keren.  Neat, huh?

And we will have one tool that is despised by all authoritarian governments: polls.  We will ask questions and register your responses.  That way, whenever a politician says, �The Eritrean people�� you will be able to compare it with the response of a readership that is more diverse and more representative than the government and pro-government websites.  We have demonstrated this at least three times in the last three years so please don�t think we are just blowing smoke (compare the signatures on the three petitions we ran with the signatures of the �we support our government as it enslaves our people?petitions you are familiar with.)

You can have your own avatar, which helps empower you as an individual with unique God-given identity, and not a number and an identity-less member of a mob. 

And, yes, the Awate Forum is moderated.  We have no intention of creating another bathroom wall; Dehai has cornered that market.   Our readers want to read debates, exchange of ideas argued passionately, but they will be spared obscene and vulgar language.  Awate is synonymous with revolution and, with the Awate Forum, we intend to revolutionize the language of debate.  In this case, we want to reclaim our language from the vulgarians and restore it to Eritrea�s tradition of respectful dialogue and debate.

Ladies and gentlemen, let the dialogue begin!  Sam, sound off the soundtrack to the revolution...