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Published: November 10th 2016
Litter was everywhere. It was as if a dumper truck had simply spewed its contents into the street. Random men were lazing about in whatever shade they could find – inside doorways, under trees, besides walls – all of them chewing khat, the ubiquitous drug of choice for men along the horn of Africa. For thousands of years, from the wilds of Yemen to the northern reaches of Kenya, millions of East African men (and sometimes women) had been chewing away on lumps of green leaves to get their stimulation. From what I could see, the men of Djibouti loved it, for all were munching away on the government-approved euphoria, cheeks bulging, teeth stained green. Every morning, fresh lorry loads arrived from neighbouring Ethiopia, which was then distributed among local khat sellers, who sold it to their customers. I read that even though Khat is illegal in much of the world, certain governments along the Horn of Africa allow its use because it keeps young and potentially angry men docile. If that was the reason, then it was working a treat, at least judging by the slumbering and mainly horizontal men near Place Tokyo. None of them looked capable
of staging a game of cards, let alone a riot.
Apart from the litter and people, the third thing that struck me about Djibouti City was the quality of the buildings. Many seemed decayed, caked in a disgusting layer of black from the traffic fumes, crumbling upon the foundations from which they were built. A shout made me turn around. It was a taxi driver. His vehicle had stopped just behind me. I waved him away and headed towards the centre along Boulevard de la Republique, the city’s main thoroughfare.
Red Sea Paradise? Djibouti should be a Red Sea paradise, yet it is not. It should be attracting high-end holidaymakers to laze around on its palm-fringed beaches, but they do not come. And the reason is simple: Djibouti does not need them.
Most people have never heard of Djibouti. But those who have know that the tiny country (Djibouti is not much larger than Wales) is sandwiched between the tourist hotspots of Somalia, Yemen and Eritrea. In fact, the Somali border is only twenty kilometres from Djibouti City. Yemen is only a short boat ride across the Red Sea, and is so close that on clear
days it is sometimes visible on the horizon. Eritrea, a country described as Africa’s North Korea, spans Djibouti’s northern border. Yet, despite these neighbours from hell, Djibouti is one of the safest countries in Africa.
There are thousands of reasons: each one an American, Japanese, French, German or Spanish military man or woman. Djibouti lies along one of the most strategically important shipping routes of the Red Sea. The Port of Djibouti is one the busiest in the region, and is therefore a good vantage point to protect the busy shipping lanes of the Suez Canal from Somali pirates. And, with access to the Middle East literally around the corner, foreign troops can conduct drone attacks in Yemen, Somalia and as far away as Afghanistan. So, with countless foreign dollars literally flying into Djibouti, you can see why they are not bothered about tourism.
Cracked pavements and barbed wire I carried on with my sight-seeing. Cracked pavements, barbed wire coils sitting atop walls and more men chewing khat met my every move. I finally spied a woman covered in a swirl of bright fabric. She disappeared into a dusty doorway. In front of me, perhaps fifty metres
away, was a policeman. He was carrying a lunchbox. I pondered whether it was from a crime scene until I saw him veer off towards a khat stand where he filled it with green shrubbery. The vehicles passing me were taxis, falling-to-bits trucks or fume-belching minibuses. And despite the proximity to the sea, squat black crows were the bird of choice in Djibouti. A trio of them were perched in a tree in front of me. One had a long bread roll in its beak. Behind it, a plastic bag fluttered in the breeze like a broken flag. The bird took a bite and then the bread fell to the pavement. The crow issued a squawk of consternation and then flew to retrieve it.
Further along was a cinema, its tall white tower spelling out ODEON in large red letters. The tower jutted upwards, as if trying to escape the white monstrosity that formed its base. It looked like a bomb had detonated inside the cinema, though a more probable explanation was simple abandonment. That was it, I realised. Djibouti City was a neglected place, a city where repairs were not on the agenda and its citizens did not
care
Around the corner, something made me stop in my tracks. A man herding seven goats was about to run past me, his animals trotting happily in the road even though a series of battered taxis were just inches away from their feet. The man was carrying a long stick and, as he and his beastly squad approached, I took cover in a dusty alcove near a line of khat sellers. As the goats trotted by, I studied the khat vendors. There were three of them, with the most salubrious establishment housed inside an actual shop, the seller’s wares proudly laid over the counter. The other two were simply street peddlers sitting in the dust with tied bunches of green leaves in front of them on a cloth. When a man noticed me and held up a bag of green leaves, I left the alcove and walked on.
Ca va? "Ҫa va?” called the black-toothed man sitting outside a tiny convenience store. Above it was a concrete hellhole that called itself the Bank of Africa. He was stick thin, gaunt faced and had the tell-tale signs of a seasoned khat chewer: disgusting blackened green stains on his
teeth.
“Ҫa va, très bien,” I replied: the standard greeting I would give over the next few hours. Being the only white face, I was attracting many glances, though none were hostile. Djibouti had once been a French colony and the language lived on among the local Djiboutian population. Many of the street names had a link to the old country, too: Boulevard du General de Gaulle, Rue de Marseille and Rue de Paris being just a few. The man looked at me, but I did not linger, for I had spied a striking white and turquoise minaret poking from behind some nondescript buildings.
I found myself underneath the striking Sada Mosque, its minaret offering a glimpse of beauty amid the grime and dust at street level. Its main section was nowhere near as nice as its tower and so, with the sudden arrival of another khat chewer, this one upwardly mobile and wanting to offer his services as a guide, I moved on.
It was so damned hot. Without my sunglasses, my eyes were stinging, especially with the sweat pouring down my face and so, to escape the relentless sun, I found a bar. It was
dimly lit, but its stock of Ethiopian beer was ice cold. I took my bottle to an empty seat near the window. A few tables away sat a couple of middle-aged Western men drinking coffee. I nodded at them, hoping they would be amenable for a chat but when neither seemed inclined, I looked outside. The view was of ruined buildings and dusty side streets.
The two men were joined by a third. “Thank Christ, I’m outta here tomorrow,” the newcomer said in an American accent. “Total shithole.”
His companions nodded, one of them adding, “An overpriced shithole.”
I could concur with that. My small bottle had cost me 900 Djiboutian francs, which was five dollars. A sandwich at the hotel had set me back almost twenty. Djibouti was easily the most expensive country I’d visited in Africa. Thank God I was only here for two days. Tuning the men’s conversation out, which mainly concerned the state of the city’s roads, I discovered the bar had some free Wi-Fi. I decided to go on the British Foreign Office website to see what it said about Djibouti. ‘A suicide bombing at La Chaumiere restaurant in Djibouti
city on 24 May 2014 resulted in a number of fatalities and serious casualties, including western nationals. Exercise extreme vigilance in public places frequented by foreigners.’
Shit on a stick! I was sitting in that very restaurant! A quick Google search revealed more. On a busy Saturday night, almost two years previously, La Chaumiere’s bar was busy with Westerners, mostly military personnel enjoying a night out. At some point, with the beer flowing nicely, a Somali man and his female friend entered the bar and sat down. No one gave the pair a second glance, but if they had, they might have noticed their bulky clothing. But it would have been too late: the couple, Somali militants belonging to al-Shabaab, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda, had already detonated their suicide vests. In the resulting carnage, eleven soldiers were injured and three people killed, including the murderous couple.
I looked about me, searching out anyone who might be watching me a little too closely, but all I could see were a few groups of Western men. I reckoned they were all soldiers. I drained the last of my beer and headed outside.
Grime and filth More grime and
filth coated the hectic marketplace. Dusty alleyways led off in all directions from it. Garbage filled every crack in the pavement and sealed every hole in the road. A man wandered by and dropped an empty can on the ground. It was one of hundreds. Around the edge, men sat doing nothing. I wandered through some of the stalls, finding that most were purveyors of either khat or tat, which I thought was a good name for a shop in Djibouti. In the latter category were kitchen utensils, supposedly from France, black abayas from Dubai and delicious bananas from Djibouti. Khat stalls outnumbered them all. At the other end of the market, I found myself at the edge of a square called Place Mahmoud Harbi, named after a 1950s politician who had once sent a lion to the King of Saudi Arabia as a gift. Instead of grand buildings, statues and waterfalls, the square was a horrendous melting pot of faded colonial buildings, honking minibuses, loitering green taxis and bunches of people doing nothing in particular – in other words, a typical down-at-heel African quarter. I stopped to take a photo.
“Hey!” yelled a voice. It was a khat
seller: a young man sitting under the shade offered by a huge Dove Cream billboard. For softer, smoother and glowing skin, it stated. “No photo!”
I took a photo anyway and then lowered my camera. This man hadn’t been the first local to warn me about taking snaps. A snaggle-toothed man had told me off for taking a photo of the mosque I’d seen earlier and, just a few minutes after that, another man had followed me up a street admonishing me for taking a snap of a goat. I moved on, angry with people wanting to thwart me taking photographs. The only other country I’d been to as bad for this was Turkmenistan. But there, the camera naysayers had been soldiers guarding their photogenic statues and buildings. Here, it was the locals barring me from taking photos of dirty streets and grimy bus stations.
I headed south and found another herd of goats blocking my path. About fifteen of them were galloping toward me, one running with such abandon that I could see its elongated udders swinging perilously. As it passed, I realised it only had two udders, which meant they were not udders, but
testicles. As I considered this, the rest of the goats raced past me. Five seconds later, a harried man sprinted after them, clicking and whirring his tongue. I carried on with my sightseeing, in this most ugly of African cities.
If you enjoyed reading about my visit to Djibouti City, then maybe you'll like to read the full story. Find out more here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Africa-Asia-continents-eleven-countries-ebook/dp/B01KQNALKE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1471757311&sr=1-1&keywords=africa+to+asia+jason+smart
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Dancing Dave
David Hooper
Khat opens doors
Fascinating blog Jason. Djibouti is a major importer of Aussie gum tree scaffolding grown in and exported by Ethiopia which maybe an unusual but was my reason for considering visiting Djibouti! Your references to your meanderings in Djibouti City and khat are like walking through markets in Ethiopia. Maybe you should have tried khat with the locals. We one day walked through one of the largest and grimiest markets in Africa, in Addis Ababa I recall, chewing khat which prompted all sorts of vendors to engage us for conversation without any pressure to buy at all. And they made it clear the only reason they did that was their delight we were chewing khat! Khat opens doors we found...who'd have thought that!