Is it natural?

I bought a large garden thermometer in the grocery store to hang on my balcony.  But, it came home broken and needed to be exchanged.  My colleague asked me, “What is it for?”  See, Djiboutians understand that it will either be a little hotter or a little cooler today.  Perhaps it is a cultural thing for Americans to always want to measure and predict things.  But, it is also a geothermal thing.  Folks from regions that experience seasons care more how many degrees of change we experience.

I think buying the thermometer was a symptom of my time dog-sitting on the Ilot of Heron.  Two other remarkable things happened:

1)       I experienced the daily dichotomy of leaving a beautiful, air-conditioned home (fine wood surfaces and tile floors) and stepping into a humid, trash-strewn street to flag down a rambling public minibus (painted mottos, velveteen curtains and tassels).

2)      I felt no fewer than five minor tremors while perched on the elevated second-floor guest bed.  I looked down each time to see if the dog was having a scratch.  On a considerable fault line, I hadn’t yet noticed Djibouti’s regular activity.  Heron seems to have greater sensitivity, and the bedroom provided calm moments for me to notice.

And then, just before the week-long holiday of Eid Adha ended, it rained!  I chanced to notice a strange breeze at the door, and immediately stepped out into the quiet drizzle until I was nearly damp with it.  You would think that the neighbors would have stepped out with me – rare as rainfall is here – but nothing moved, and the guard walked by with a little smirk on his face to see me standing in my doorway.

Out of the City

Our first regional training has ended!  One colleague headed to Obock, another to Tadjourah and I went to Ali Sabieh and Dikhil both, to observe the biannual Training for School Directors that Teach Also Classes.  Around 2 pm, my driver and I loaded up the project vehicle and headed south through the quartiers to collect my colleagues.  The training model, which promotes decentralization, includes training by one Djiboutiville pedagogical advisor (CP) and one regional CP.  With two regions to oversee, our vehicle loaded up two Djiboutiville CPs and we headed 1.5 hours south. 

First, we passed through the Petit Barra, a scruffy low desert plain where yellow grass struggles through the sand.  Then, on through the Grand Barra, a plain of pale dust that clings to skin and clothes and lungs - a geographic void.  Finally, past transnational traffic and under the arch to Dikhil, "The Region of Unity."  Dikhil has an urban border feel, with 18-wheeler roaring through the streets all night, and an active community eating in stands on the street.  We dropped the CP at the Teacher Training Center here (CRP) and continue another hour back along the road to Ali Sabieh. 

This second town is a quiet community of hills and valleys where I passed a still night in the only hotel on the far reaches of town.  Water is rare, and didn't reach my second floor hotel room, though a deep spring on the outskirts brings bottled water to the nation.  The next morning, I watched the first day of training with this group of 9 school directors, who are also one of 2-3 teachers in their schools.  They have numerous other responsibilities in their small communities, including verifying births/deaths.  That evening, I headed back to Dikhil for a second day of training there.  We passed monkeys in the road, with their pink bottoms flashing, ate white beans and bread in their bright-painted restaurant, and passed the night next to the rumbling road.

Whale sharking...

In November, Djibouti hosts pods of whale sharks, which populate the coastline in a number of very accessible locations.  It is easy to rent a fishing boat to take you out to see them, but better if you have Abdou, a clever boatman that will stop, backup, and then pick you up when you get too exhausted to swim back to the boat.  What, you say?  YES!  We went out last week, not only to see the whale sharks from the boat, but to dive into the open sea beside them and swim along.  Me, I took a life jacket, because I failed my swimming lessons as a child, but I took my googles and snorkle tube for certain.  Whale sharks are vegetarian, and their grey-green mottled skin feels like the rough rubber running tracks that most high schools use.  When we first jumped into the water next to the 18-foot fish, we were a little nervous about their massive mouth coming straight on toward us.  But, it is toothless, and they are social animals.  Although they are able to swim incredibly fast and have massive weight, they were gentle and aware with us and kept coming back to be near us.  As we drove away from their favored spot on the coastline - not more than 10 paces from the rocky shore - they followed along beside our boat for a good distance, as if sorry to see the play ending.

Just inside the port, as we were heading out in the morning, we spotted a large group of dolphins, who came out of the water for us, and along the way back, we passed several long sea turtles, paddling along.  We stopped for lunch at a nice, inaccessible coastline for some of the best snorkeling yet.  Viewed: stingrays, sea turtles, schools of yellow and purple fish and loads of giant sea clams.

The nights aren't long enough!

Education actitivities have begun! 

On Monday morning, a computer lab that DubaiCare donated to the CFPEN was dedicated, with the arrival of a delegation for Dubai, traditional singing and dancing in Arabic, Afar and Somali, and speeches made by the education heads in French and rusty Arabic.  This planning has impeded a lot of meetings around the building (including our initial English class for CFPEN staff) as the staff has been dedicated to its preparation for weeks.  As a result, despite a failing microphone, it was a fabulous event - attended by all of the development and education officials in the city.

As for our own team, we put in a little over a solid week of 9 hours days (in a country that runs on half-days) designing a training for the three staff members (manager, librarian and computer technician) of each of the 6 AED-funded Teacher Training Centers in the country.  Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, we dealt with drafting staff job descriptions, creating a vision for "CRP" of the future, planning use of their mobile book trunks, developing individualized and CRP work plans and exploring management tools that they can and should be using.  As we were discussing the things that prevent us from acheiving our work objectives, I quipped that for me it was the power outages.  As though some jin were listening, the electricity went out twice.  Most precisely, as I was setting up the powerpoint show.  So, the dedicated learners huddled around a laptop and worked efficiently from the gleam of its 13" screen.  It was an absolute success.  I am looking forward to meeting them, and their counterparts who were away on Hadj, during our follow-up "formation de proximite" throughout the year.