Djibouti

Sunday, August 5, 2012

French Beach and Djiboutian Living

I got off Camp for the third time today. Here are some pictures of the trip. The landscape is just littered with plastic bags and water bottles. The bags are in the trees, stuck on fences, in the rocks - everywhere.

It is amazing how people live. They make shelters out of anything they can find.

I went to the French Beach with some people from the office. It was good to get out and relax on the beach and do some snorkeling. The water was pretty rough, but some of us swam out to a boat that ran aground. It was an exhausting swim, even though I had my flippers. The water was pretty clear and I saw some amazing fish. The water was the Gulf of Aiden. The area was nothing but lava rocks and they extended into the water.

As I stated before, people will do anything to make money. They will stack rocks like these and want you to pay them.

The locals see Americans coming from a mile away. They point the way to where you are going and want to be paid. They motion for water like these. There is a well along this road. If you stop, they want money for anything they can think of. It is heart-breaking, but it's everywhere! They run along side your car, too.

Traffic is crazy. The drivers are even crazier. See how they decorate their vehicles.

Next time I will attach a video of the driving.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Downtown Djibouti

Several of us went into town tonight after work. This was my second time going out. It was very sad. So many people sleeping on the streets, under makeshift shelters to shelter themselves from the sun, and even under boats on blocks. We kind of got lost and ended up in a very busy part of Djibouti. People were walking everywhere. I don't know where they were going because there are no businesses to speak of. I am so very grateful for what we have. We saw three women sitting on the corner of a street in the dirt with very young babies. They couldn’t have been more than six months old.