First Trip Outside the Wire

Last night I left the camp for the first time. I went out on liberty with 4 other guys from my office. It was a little scary at first. After exiting the multiple layers of security I started to fell naked and anxious. Next there was some haggling with cab drivers and then about a 15 minute ride to our destination, a Chinese restaurant. Its hard to give a fair description because I was only out at night but one thing is for sure: its nothing like the US, western Europe, or Japan. You know that you are in a developing country - it's very poor. There are no streetlights, traffic lights (traffic circles are used), and few paved roads outside the capital city. We encountered a slow moving train, its main cargo was camels, the secondary cargo was many people sitting on some flatbed cars, children were running up to the train and jumping on for a ride. We passed the French military base, they have a large presence here. Most signs are in French, so I can at least partially read them.

Dinner was good, a nice change from the DFAC. The other customers appeared to be French, except for one family we talked to who worked for the contractor that provides the food for the camp - no locals. The same cabs were waiting for us when we left the restaurant. On the way back we passed the presidential palace, the port, and "Djiboutian Disneyland" which features some bootleg Mickey Mouse characters on top of some carnival type rides. I'm looking forward to getting out again to see more local culture and cuisine - even though it is a little uncomfortable to leave Fortress America.

The photo up top is not mine, got it here: Charles Goulet. The three photos below I took from the plane on the way in: you can see the most of the city, some of the better buildings in town, and a shack area.