Greetings from Djibouti! Today I went to Ali Sabieh, near the border of Somalia and Ethiopia, which was unlike anything I’ve seen before. Perhaps the closest comparison would be some images shot by NASA on Mars. Not a unique comparison, but true. Yet no matter how desert-like the landscape, and how short the drive, the vista was infinitely variable. Lava rocks here, mountains there, a lake suddenly created by rainfall miles and miles away, camels chewing their cud solemnly on the side of the road... It was invigorating. And Ali Sabieh was cool! It was in the mid-80s with a brisk cool wind. Dang. I was expecting Lawrence of Arabia heat and horror.
We traveled by Land Cruiser down Djibouti’s notorious high-risk corridor: a heavily trafficked truck route between Djibouti’s lucrative port and Ethiopia. The high-risk comes not only from dodging dodgy overloaded trucks on the dusty and winding highway, but from prostitution along the trucking route that spreads SIDA (HIV/AIDS). We had a frank little conversation in the car about the benefits of regulating prostitution... Ah, I love development work. And our conversation was in three languages: English, French (oh, Julee, why don’t you learn French?), and Somali. We all got the gist.
I now know the French word for camel is chameau – okay, I’m not too sure of the spelling, but I know it sounds like “Shamu”. (I kept envisioning the killer whale every time my colleague from Mali would elbow me in the side and yell, “Chameau!”) They were everywhere: lean eating machines, chewing their cud and loping through the desert brush. I had one of those “I can’t believe this is my job” moments, which occasionally strike me when confronted with anything that is the polar opposite of my New Hampshire childhood. I can’t believe this is my job... I am so, so lucky.
Must dash, my friends.... Implementation plans to write.
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