DjiboutiMap
March Amidst impudent goats.  Amidst brave crows.  Amidst vile birds.  Amidst wild baboons.  Amidst skeletons of fuel tankers.  Live Djiboutians who sell salt-crusted skulls.  A somewhat unsociable people.  If they don’t like something, they won’t hesitate to throw a rock at you.  Even when a village has no normal homes, it’ll still have a mosque.  Allahu Akbar!  Blazing sun, oppressive heat, no fresh water.  The “no passing” sign has faded.  But the concrete French kilometer marker (like the ones in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, Tunisia, French Polynesia, or Niger) intends to remain standing for all eternity.  The natives live in dome-shaped yurts.  An adorable detail: special decorative faux-leather covers are sewn for the side mirrors of all trucks and buses.  Windshields sport collections of inspection stickers from every single year of the car’s life.  The numbers on license plates are curious. Although Eastern Arabic numerals are usually written on license plates in the same order as European ones, in Djibouti they’re flipped around the letter D. So if the familiar number reads 123D56, in Arabic it’ll be 56D123.  Payphone booths.  DjiboutiMapThe city is hardly more cheerful than the rest of the country.  But it does have its own distinctive architectural accent.  A fixed-run taxi.  Regular taxis.  A bus stop sign.  A bus stop.  A hydrant.  A street sign (like the ones in the Comoros or Reunion).  A post box.  A traffic light.  The capital’s residents.  My story about the city of Djibouti could have been somewhat longer if, ten minutes after leaving my hotel, I hadn’t been taken to the police station, where five different investigators and police captains questioned me in turn. What happened was that I took a photo of a goat on the street. The goat turned out to be one of strategic importance, positioned near the US Embassy. I was finally released late at night, after having all ten of my fingers fingerprinted using black paint. Now the US can rest assured that nothing threatens its security. TadjouraMapThe city is situated across the gulf from the capital.  No tourists come here.  A cultural center.  A coquette hides behind a Koran.  A man lugs water.  A hydrant.  Coca-Cola, goats, and mosques. That’s all there is here.  |
