DJIBOUTI AFRICA - THINK “SALLY STRUTHERS” NOT “MARLIN PERKINS”

I am often asked “Why would you go to place like Djibouti for work?” I ask myself that question all the time and there are many reasons. Believe it or not, I didn’t come here for the money. This particular adventure started off as a chance to challenge myself and for professional growth. I was quickly reminded though, after arriving here, that one of the other reasons I enjoy working in places like this is that it helps me keep perspective on my own quality of life and what is really important.

First let me say that it is not horrible here for us. The project work is quite satisfying, and the team we have here is an excellent group. It can be a bit like a “frat house” at times, but coming from the Marlborough Office, I’m used to that. As you can see from the picture above, there are some surprisingly nice things about Djibouti. Djibouti has a huge French influence and a wealth of fresh fish, so the restaurants are very good here. The fishing is excellent. The beaches are great and the waters are full of exotic fish for snorkelers or divers. There is a great live band in town and there is karaoke on Thursday nights.

There are some inconveniences: the tap water is not really safe to drink; the shower water comes out at only two temperatures, which is about 80 degrees in the winter and well over 100 in the summer; power outages occur every day; the fastest internet is 2Mbps and it is not reliable; there is no fast food (Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, etc.); and there are no traffic signals, road signs, or really any driving rules at all. The list of things we take for granted in the US that are not available here goes on endlessly.

But even with these “hardships”, we live a very comfortable lifestyle compared to the majority of the population in Djibouti. Don't be fooled by the picture above. Djibouti has some beautiful sights, but it is a developing nation in every sense of the phrase.

As I am fond of saying, Djibouti is not Marlin Perkins’ Wild Kingdom Africa . . . it is Sally Struthers’ ChildFund International Africa.

A bit about Djibouti (from the CIA World FactBook):

• ­ population is about 760,000, 75% live in Djibouti City
• unemployment in Djibouti City is 59%, 83% in rural areas
• ­ population below poverty line is 42% (US = 12%)
  
• ­ literacy is 67% (US = 99%)
• ­ average years of education is 5 years (US = 16 years)
• ­ infant mortality is 55 deaths per 1000 (US = 6)
• ­ average life expectancy is 61 years (population ages 65 and over is only about 3%)

Donkeys pulling carts or loaded with water jugs are as common as pickup trucks. Herds of goats, cattle, and camels wander the streets. Any open lot is a public restroom especially if there are trees for privacy. There is almost no trash removal service, so the garbage piles up in empty lots and wherever the wind blows it. There is no storm drainage and the soil does not absorb water well, so when it does rain (admittedly only a few days a year) the water sits in huge puddles for days breeding mosquitoes by the billons – not a great thing in a country prone to Malaria.

The thing that started to bother me most though was the beggars around town. Kids as young as 4 or 5 years old wander the streets unattended. Every shop in town has a contingent of mothers carrying babies or little shoeless children begging for food or money. I try to give money where I can but unfortunately it is impossible to help everyone and there are known scam operations around town. It’s very disheartening to see children living in these conditions.

One day, when I was venting my frustration at not being able to help everyone, one of our subcontractors, a gentleman named Mohammed who manages our site security, told me that Djibouti City really isn’t the worst of it. And so he took me on a drive to Balbala.

Balbala is like nowhere I have ever been. There is absolutely no trash removal. The trash-filled lots are also used as toilets. Public water does not run into the neighborhoods so many folks have taken to running garden hoses over the streets (the school I’ll talk about in a minute gets its water this way). There is no electricity other than street lights on the main roads, so the people of Balbala have illegally tapped into power lines with some of the most dangerous rigs I have ever seen. I honestly think the nomadic herders who roam the rural areas probably live a cleaner, safer life.

The one thing they do have though are schools. After all, the hope of any nation is embodied in its children right? But the schools are horribly inadequate by our standards. Over in Djibouti City the students are generally well cared for, they go to school all day and they play soccer in the adjacent dirt lots in the afternoon. Not quite our standards but at least consistent and with the necessary supplies.

In Balbala there are teachers but no supplies. The school cannot accommodate all the children in the area and so elementary school operates in the morning and middle/high school in the afternoon with the same group of about six or eight teachers, each with about 40 students in their classroom. Many of the students just sit and listen because they don’t have pencils or paper. The library has only a small handful of books.

So after touring Balabala and seeing the situation, admittedly from afar, I decided that we should do what we could to help.

We started out with the intent of donating to the Djibouti School for the Blind. Mohammed had gone searching for reputable contacts in the schools. There is a lot of corruption here and so we wanted to be sure that our efforts didn’t end up with some scam artist pocketing the money from school supply sales. The School for the Blind was the first reasonably reliable contact. So, we arranged a collection drive in February.

However, as often happens in Djibouti, things don't always move as quickly as one would like. This was compounded by the fact that early April was election time here. Mohammed is well connected and was nervous about our charity efforts becoming "politically charged". I don't necessarily think that would have happened, but it was his wish to postpone the donations and so we did. At first he said “wait until after early April elections,” then he pushed us off to after May 22nd, which has some other political significance similar to inauguration. Since we are going to be finishing up our work here at the end of May, I didn't want to end up with nowhere to donate the supplies that everyone at ECC had generously donated.

So during my travels in and around Djibouti I met a woman, Harriett Nettles, who works for in educational assistance. She is here as a technical advisor in the Ministry of Education with IFESH, International Foundation for Education and Self Help. Basically she is working with the public school system helping them train their teachers. At one of the many karaoke Thursday nights (one of my few guilty pleasures here) I mentioned to her that we had collected all of these supplies and that I was having trouble planning the distribution. Harriett offered to help.

On April 30 at around 10am we drove to Djibouti Public School PK-12. PK-12 is a sub-division of Balbala (Balbala is sort of like a county). We met with the school principal (Omar), the school system pedagogical advisor (Omar), and a school inspector (Mohammed). Harriett acted as our liaison since I do not speak French and the school staff had limited ability in English. We spent about an hour visiting a few classrooms and giving pencils, notebooks, etc. out to the kids. After disrupting class for a bit, it was time for recess and the yard filled up pretty quickly with all the other children wanting to see what was going on – about 300 kids filled the yard. During the break we handed out some of the other items directly to the teachers –crayons, colored pencils, markers, glue, and construction paper. We didn't want to disrupt them for too much longer, so we left the remaining supplies to be handed out by the principal.

Each class thanked us with a loud "merci!" There really is nothing quite like the feeling of hearing 40 kids saying “thank you” in unison and with genuine appreciation. I’m not even sure that they appreciated the pencils and paper specifically, but as the principal and other school officials said, it’s not so much the supplies as it is that the kids know that someone actually cares. School supplies are something that I for one, do not even think about at school time back home. I think nothing of passing over average school supplies and spending a few extra dollars to get my daughter notebooks plastered with the face of Disney’s latest heartthrob. A new school year = new backpack, new supplies, new everything. Things that could significantly improve the educational experience for these kids are simply lying around my house unused or are relegated to the bargain bin at Staples because they’re not cool enough.

And that’s what I mean about perspective. It is quite sobering to actually see poverty firsthand. What we consider basic needs are luxuries to most of the world population. The US is a very small part of the world. Sure getting out and seeing other parts of the world is great for my career, but more importantly it’s a stark reminder of what is really important.

Thanks to everyone at ECC who donated to the collection efforts, especially to those who coordinated the donation efforts, packaging and shipping to Djibouti.