Sweating it out…
The heat didn’t seem to bother the locals, and especially not the people working with the national health service. As a welcome gesture from the land trapped between Eritrea and Somalia we received a thermometer in the ear and a H1N1 leaflet in the hand. Every passenger entering the Djibouti International Terminal went through this thorough inspection to make sure we were healthy. I still wonder how the thermometer registered normal body temperatures whilst I was sweating like a turkey at New Year.
Anyway, we were cleared of any illnesses and entered the small terminal, allowing us to start filling in the immigration forms. As fully trained professionals, we sought after a calm place to bow our heads and answer the questions while trying to write sensible sentences on melting paper. Ok, enough about the heat already, but trust me, it was really hot.
From behind, I could hear a very friendly and calm voice asking: “Mr. Zerkowitz, Gautier?” Our local contact came up behind us, greeted uswarmly and asked for our passports. The friendly shine in his eyes notwithstanding and mindful of the fact that ‘not’ giving him these documents would lead to trouble, we surrendered them to this little guy we had never seen before, only heard on the phone. Of course, we also had a very strong recommendation for him from a shady character of some French Army Unit.
As we finished filling in the documents, our contact came back, nothing in hand. I was wondering where our lifeline with the home world was, but wasn’t really worried, at least in this country there was no H1N1, and this was proven right at the door.
We followed our contact through the immigration office, and were led into the hallway of the airport. Welcomed by birds in the terminal we were supposed to wait for our luggage. Like everybody else, of all flights, we were waiting at the one conveyor belt which seemed to be on strike at the moment. As soon as the belt fired up, people started getting luggage off, throwing it aside when realizing that it wasn’t theirs.
Our luggage came up, seemingly in pretty good shape, which made me very happy. At least we had fresh clothing. Our contact, who was already pretty deep in conversation with my colleague and a stranger that seemed to have visited Djibouti earlier, headed out, away from the airport and into the dessert it seemed, as the light of the midday sun blinded us once again.
Going deeper and deeper…
There was a white 4×4 with dark windows waiting for us. Armed guards surrounded the airport building behind us and a palm tree added some theatric shade to it all. “Please, get in…. I take you to the hotel, you can rest.”. We realized that it was Ramadan, so everybody rested and so should we.
As we drove off, I could not help noticing that the roads had no rules nor regulations. It was clearly the law of the fittest. Roads that were in pretty good shape, surrounded by buildings in less good shape. One thing was obvious, especially when we approached the first roundabout, France used to be here, they have left some influence, but it wasn’t the croissant or the baguette. Instead, we saw an old Djiboutian with a beret on his head, rolled up newspaper underneath his arm, waiting in the shade for the sun to go down. Haaa, Paris in the sun I thought, as we pulled up the largest boulevard of Djibouti city.
From this moment I knew, we were in for an adventure. Never mind the reason of our visit, but we were going to have fun.
To be continued…