Dating in Djibouti...

It is 9 pm -- I have stayed late at the office in the empty calm, to mull over lesson plans and fidget with markers and glue -- I think these chemicals must run in my veins.  I created my first poster tonight, which must be an omen of change!  The time, it doesn't really matter: I work four buildings down the Boulevard from home.  Nonethless, night is night and I begin to put away my tools.  I switch off the A/C and then the light, and sort my keys for the various doors.  The CFPEN guard is in the courtyard, dressed in an Indonesian skirt, mulling over the garden he has planted.  His wife has hung vibrant sheets, actually dresses and veils, over the long clothesline above our heads.  Good night, he mutters to me over his back, as he picks at something in the dirt.

On the street outside, white minibuses pass.  I recognize the names stenciled in dayglow oranges and greens: "Legacy" and "Virtue."  Fare collectors hanging askew through the doors by one arm, hissing and clinking the coins in their palms.  In the quaint, disused busstops, boys in shorts camp out on the back of the benches, their naked legs danging just within view.  My eyes dart carefully inside as I pass, better than to be caught by these vultures unaware.  Further along the street, other folks are out walking.  There is the woman I see here most nights after dusk.  She has latticed a complicated load of bottles and boxes into a bulky rectangle pack across her shoulders.  I have guessed she is a vendor somewhere, and I only hope she doesn't have far to go.  Several soldiers sit at the street kiosk near the Armed Forces.  They sport camouflage pants with hiphop sneakers and smoke cigarettes into the night.  I spot a snack on the shelves behind the counter as I pass and slip through the tables to the back.  As I approach, the cashier jumps across the chest-high countertop to stand behind it facing me, and then we discuss the available variations of long-conserve milk in stock.  He bags my purchases and I continue my way, down the tree-lined boulevard in the middle of town.

And, that is where I begin to spot them.  In shadowy places where trees block the street-lamps, a boy and a girl roost on the planters, their backs to the street.  The two sit side-by-side in silence.  Or if there is more, on this noisy street, you might never notice.  If it weren't for the triangular shape of a silhouetted veil, in their stillness, you might never know they were there.  I see a few, then a third, and another.  Soon, it's apparent that the entire living street is spotted with secretive young couples, in the many darkened corners, including the stairwell onto my street.  I smile at this Middle Eastern rendition of the 1950s lovestory.  Boulevard de la Republique, a.k.a Lover's Lane.

We are the champions...

I had a couple bad instances in West Africa, when my pale legs invited unwelcome attention.  So, I have been hesitant to venture out and be athletic here, in this Arab-influenced corner of Africa.  I missed the dirt and sweat and latex of the soccer field.  I missed the taste of salt thickened on my skin.  I felt like a lump, drifting between offices and home and offices.  And, then, my answer arrived.  This perception that I might not be welcomed was confirmed.  When I heard a colleague chatting about an upcoming hike, and asked to come along, I was initially encouraged to join in.  So, I readied myself at 5 am as the muezzin called the faithful to pre-sunrise prayer, and made a quick check-in call before heading off to the meet-up.  My 'host' responded that he had not been able to inform the others about my participation, and "you understand, there are some real mysogynists among them."  I wondered then if it is he that reacts to my participation or he that prevents my participation who is my greatest threat.

So, I took action.  Firstly, my housemate and I are now running. Beat down by the exhaustion of working in multiple languages, trying to understand the new, and meeting unfamiliar obstacles, it is easy to slunk home at night.  This is true anywhere, and even moreso, here.  So, we splashed water on our faces, slipped on our running shoes, and tucked out the gate into the night.  The guard pantomimed running and laughed at us as we went.  He couldn't believe we were really going out there like that.  Did we show him!  We dashed across the street between minibuses and white Landcruisers, past the post office and the telecom building, to the Palais du Peuple, where a singular spot of light indicated that the Iranian Fair was packing up for the night.  I am beginning to know this route well, from my school visits to and from the Quartiers.  I lead my neighbor past the statue of Moussa, who stands with a shield and blade in the middle of the Place, under rows of palm trees, and around the curve of the bay.  A breeze brew across the water, which sparkled dark and light under the waning moon.  We passed couples walking along the Corniche and gatherings of men moving from one location to another.  Several smiled and waved, "Bon courage!"  The evening Mercado - a strip of shwarma stands that faces into the ocean - wafted heady with fried-food smells.  Groups sat at plastic tables chatting in the cooling night.  Past the Presidency, where the guard warned us not to approach his gate, we circled the Rond Point and headed back the way we came.  On this side of the street, rows and rows of chairs had been set out like the "other side of the tracks."  And, here instead of shwarma stalls, the vendors sold Cokes and Fanta to their clients directly from their coolers on wheels.  Another shouted of encouragement, which I rejoined with "Come along!"  So, looking appropriately foreign, with other women, I can run.  And, I will.  For the joy of the night air and the ambience as much as for the sweat and the strain.

Secondly, will be the realisation of a dream.  I am working to promote a step-dance class in a colleague's home a couple nights a week.  If she can build our Jazzercise into her busy lifestyle, we could mingle with other ladies beyond the hijab and sweat in a way that is rarely seen on the Djibouti streets.

It's no trouble at all...

I will be working in Balbara this term, linked to an application school in one of the greatest need districts.  My counterpart is a dynamic Yemeni-Djiboutian dressed in a brilliant purple veil, a black gown applique-d with glittering flowers at the wrists, and glossy pink heels.  She is small in stature and vibrant in bearing.  I climb in her tiny white vehicle and we head off, past the Palais du Peuple, past the Port, past the camel farm and out to the Quartiers.  It is a long drive, by Djiboutian standards, but in our first two working days, I have seen my colleague make the trip four times.

This morning, we went out to watch a model class demonstrated by one first-grade teacher for the others.  When we arrived at 9 am, the gates of the campus were locked, and a gaggle of food vendors sitting in front informed us that the guard had wandered away.  Meanwhile, I looked over their wares.  Perched on disabled propane stoves and upset buckets, the mamas were as brightly-wrapped as the items they were selling.  Each sat before several large platters, arrayed with small cookie packs and hard candies.  Nearly each was also selling a platter of pommes sauvages (wild apples) which blossomed with flies.  I remember my replusion with these hard, reddish, misshapen fruits from my years in Benin: their smell so sickly-sweet that the insects could not be kept at bay, their tangy bitterness lingering long on my tongue.  I was surprised to see that the fruit is popular at all, but especially here, so far across the continent.  From within, the guard appeared, and all of the ladies began to disassemble their stands to let the vehicle pass, shifting cartons and buckets, and platters and food items out of the driveway.  We entered and the gates swung shut.  Then, one by one, they rebuilt their stoops, and arrayed their goods to block the gates again.

We dropped in to see the school director.  Oh no, his face told us immediately.  He related that the model class had been shifted to the afternoon.  There would be no one to watch the other first graders while all the teachers were at the in-service if the training had gone through this morning as planned.  So, through clever organizing, the director had determined today that the morning teachers would come back in the afternoon, along with the model class' students.  My colleague and I, we too would come back in the afternoon to participate.  So, she and I loaded back into the little white car, smiled at one another while the ladies diassembled their stands, and headed back out toward Djibouti City.