Thursday, October 13, 2011

The Gate of Sorrows

Bab-el-Mandeb - the "Gate of Grief"

That is what the piece of water that goes from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea is called. It's hard to navigate. According to legend, there was an earthquake when Arabia and Africa separated and this water was named because of the many unnamed who perished during that mythical upheaval. 75 miles west of here, Lake Assal (-509 ft )is the third lowest point on earth, a salty lake separated from the Red Sea, perhaps during that same upheaval. The lowest point in Africa. I was in the Dead sea once (1338 ft below Sea level) , and some guy asked me if I knew why it was so low, and I started to babble about the African and Arabian continental plates but he stopped me and said "No. It is because an angel turned the land upside down, for man was wicked." I didn't have the heart to tell him that turning the land upside down didn't fix that. But I did ask him to take his hand off of my balls.


Here in the city, it sounds like a train is going by about 10 hours out of the day. There's no train, taxis honk all the time, people yell and now, late in the year, the wind is starting to blow. I am grateful for that wind. I can hear the disco pumping out the jams, but so far Ann won't go.

The sun goes down and the crows gather:



I didn't thnk it rained much here, but the wind was howling yesterday and something was pelting the windows. I looked outside and it was really coming down.



3rd world cities. You think you got problems. Can't get enough money out of the ATM to pay rent. All these women with babies holding their hands out. And kids calling you chief, looking for some francs. And everyone else wants to help you. I go get water at a stand 20 feet from the entrance to my building everyday and always some guy wants to show me how to get there. "My friend! What do you need?"

Or walking to the Casino ( that's the name of the grocery store a block away) I hear guys going "YES!" I stopped turning around after a while. They say "YES!" as if they have the answer to the question you haven't asked. The answer is usually "Nice massage, coca, drinking, yes?" Or sometimes they have a briefcase with sunglasses (I point to the ones I'm wearing ) watches (same) giant lighters (I've learned to feign disinterest) , black switchblades (still feigning), and Tiger Balm. I get confused at the Tiger Balm, its not like the other things, but I realize I need to be strong or there will be some consequences, like I might owe the guy a drink or something.

After a few weeks I hear "YES!" and I think "no..." But I don't think its bad, it is an affirmation after all. To pay rent and the deposit I had to go to a cash machine and take out the max 4 days in a row. I couldn't take out the max in one go, because the ATM had its own limit, I had to put my card in 3 times to get out the max the bank decreed. The security guard for the ATM seemed to think I didn't know how to work it, because I kept putting in my card and pulling it out. He made some gibberishy moves with his hands and possibly quoted part of the Q'uran and then said "francs" one time. I got my cash and thanked him and walked away. Ever since then, when I get cash there, he watches me and say "YES!" when I get the francs. The look on his face, his demeanor, its like an observer fascinated by a chimp who puts the square block in the square hole.

And that's kind of when it dawned on me that from the locals' perspective, we do need help. They have this concept of Europe, or America, and see all these fat happy people coming from those places. The have cable TV and high speed internet here, but a lot of people are totally poor. Malnutrition is around 30%. But why would we leave these Entourage-like milieu's and venture to this stinky sweaty town? They might think we aren't making good choices in our lives. They might think we need their assistance.

It's like when cats bring you dead birds or mice. It is clear to the cats that we are too clumsy and noisy to hunt up some decent prey.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Better

So we get up and we know there is an Island 45 minutes away in the Golfe de Tadjoura. Djibouti is shaped like a Rhino's head with its mouth open and the inside of the mouth is the Gulf. In the middle are a lot of islands, really small and undercut, like Moucha. Doesn't seem like much grows on it, it looks like it is made out of dead coral reefs that ended up above water somehow. Deeply undercut all around
From 2011922-20111003


Really good snorkeling. Apparently good diving but we haven't tried that yet. Plus the beers on tap are cheaper than in the city, 25cl of draft Stella for 600 Djibouti Francs ($3), versus 1000 downtown. WTF?

From djibouti mousha island


Next time maybe we can dive with whale sharks, biggest fish in the world.
I kept feeling like I was in a different country on this 3km circumference island. We were there for 4 hours but it felt like a longer, slower time. You could still see Djibouti city, the cranes that offloaded cargo from here if you tried.

I tried not to.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Our Place in Menelik Square

Menelik was the bastard son of The Queeen of Sheba (Makeda) and Solomon according to the Kebra Nagast, a part of biblical text shaved off by all but the coptics and the rastafari. He brought with him the Arc of the Covenant when he left Israel. We got an apartment in Menelik Square, I don't know if the lost Arc is here, but there are a lot of poor women in bright colors begging for money with their babies. One view from our balcony:



We are on the third floor and right at the end of Menelik Square. It is an active part of town. A lot of the time, after it starts to get dark, we hang out on the porch and watch people roam around. We watch the guy paint the circle white and watch the cabs picking people up and dropping them off. But its pretty boring. The interesting part of the city we can only hear as we drift off to sleep.


The beat sounds at first like a bad bearing in the overhead fan. Or maybe some gas in Ann's belly, next to me. Possibly some late night construction?...

No, it is the disco, Club Hermes, which Ann and I have dubbed "Club Herpes". In the basement of our building, it may yet make our brains gelatinous but we resist and reach toward sleep. Our dreams are bent, but as yet our intent is not. Though how would we know?

Look man, I love this place. It is so weird. People call me "Rambo" at first I thought they were talking about "Rimbaud" the poet, the guy who wrote "A season in Hell" before he actually moved to this region after being shot by Paul Verlaine and becoming an arms dealer and never writing anything else in his life unless you count signing for the weapons that the ethiopians used to repel the italians as writing. Because in French Rimbaud and in American Rambo sound exactly the same. But the Rambo they are talking about is probably Rambo 5 who is like 50 so its not so cool. Clearly I need a haircut.



There are these two screened vents close to the floor in the kitchen. The pigeons like to hang there, we walk in and hear the coo and its kind of nice. It is somewhat disconcerting to be cooking breakfast with a pigeon's butthole mere inches away but in the grand scheme of things...


Entering Djibouti

It is hot here, but cool for Djibouti. How hot? Hotter than the outside of Uranus, but in the winter, about the same as the inside of your anus (thx Scottie).

We went for a walk to check out the local scenery. Walked along the beach, the local people sleep there in the summer because their homes are too hot to sleep in, I'm told. Quickly veered away from the beach because it smelled like human turds and we have yet to repeat that particular walk. Here is some local scenery:




We arrived about midnight on september 20 something, and had a little trouble getting a visa. Just another lesson in not believing that getting a visa before arriving isn't worth the effort, despite what anyone tells you. Although it wasn't bad, and it is funny that the officials that questioned us looked so grim and dire before they let us in, and so jolly once we convinced them. People don't always look the way they feel, but they often look the way you think they feel. Or the way you feel. Didn't get close enough to them to figure out if they felt the way they looked.

And then some 90 year old Djiboutian grabbed our 30kg luggage despite our protests (because we had $20 US money for the cab ride, zero Djibouti francs and only some kenyan shilling amounting to about $5) and dragged it to a cab. The cab driver dutifully told us the ride was $20 (3600 Djibouti Francs) and since our luggage didn't fit in the cab, the trunk was open and I kept an eye on it. The toothless valet was befuddled at our Kenyan Shilling tip, but we left him in a cloud of fine Djibouti sand as he uttered his righteous curses.

Arriving at the Alia Hotel, our reservation was lost, although Ann managed to pull it up and show it to the concierge on her laptop, and we slept in a single that night. Everyone including Ann speaks french here, except me. Later that day we got moved to a double room, here is the view from that window:




So it was hot this first week, and we finally got into a permanent place, out of the hotel room. Me and Ann went on a couple of walks trying to find the charming shoreline we envisioned. It smelled at the waters edge. Even at the hotel Sheraton and places cordoned off. In fact, it seemed that there was a whole road made of human turds blackened and hardened by the sun on the northernmost edge of this place. We called it the rue de poo. There were herons there.