Winter in Djibouti

The handyman is finally getting mosquito screening into place.  It has been complicated for his team to trace the irregular walls of French colonial construction.  Our Somali guard communicates to us in hand gestures and chirps about the nasties that bite away at him all night.  I hear him; at least he has a net.  I haven't been able to figure out an arrangement yet for hanging a mosquito net in my room, with its cement walls.  But, it didn't matter much in the past because my mandatory air-conditioning deterred the skeeters.  Ah, but now it is "cold" in Djibouti.  I watch the thermometer on my porch, which drops to 70 in the mornings.  I wish I had a barometer as well, since the humid has dropped away, and my skin feels itchy with dryness.  It is abysmal to wake up and stand under cold falling water, so I have reverted back to my bucket bath.  Ah, winter.  You have come.

The French grocery stores have forfeited cereal and long-conserve milk bottles to three rows of holiday candies.  For $300, you can get a large box of assorted chocolates, or have a six-pack of Kinder eggs for only $30.  But, the shiny red and silver tinfoil is still a delight to the eyes, in the unattainable dreamlike way of The Christmas Story.

Across the street, the guys who watch tv on the sidewalk beside the kiosk, their cheek fat with qat, now have a fire going.  All day long, they sit by the pile of burning wood, occasionally lifting their bare feet toward it.  If only it were really that cold.  But, our Congolese friend, who is celebrating her first full year in Djibouti, is feeling it too.  She's got her jean jacket buttoned tightly around her whenever we go out in the evenings.  And, at certain hours, the wind lifts hard enough to blow things down the street.  Not snowflakes, certainly, but I can imagine.