This past week I had two trips throughout Djibouti, one was taking a Major from AFRICOM around to sites for a tour and the second was a final inspection is Guistir.
The first trip was a run around the southern half of the country. The first stop was Kontali, where the SEABEEs are building a school building. This only required a short stint offroading and was not too hot or windy.
Here is a picture of the school being built. It’s a basic concrete structure with three classrooms.
This is one of the workers from the town working with the SEABEEs doing stucco application. It’s always good to see the town assisting on these projects, even though it is a requirement.
This is the town of Kontali as seen from the veranda of the school. Unfortunately this town was so small that I could not locate it on Google Maps, so no coordinates.
The next stop was Dikhil, for an addition to the medical clinic. As we wandered around the site, we saw this goat with its kid. We found out that it had been born on hours before, I had to take a picture.
This is one of the buildings, which is to hold the x-ray room. The acquiring of the lead lining for the room, and its installation is holding everything up. The guy in the shot is Abdi, one of our translators. He is a great guy, helping us out both with the language and culture, especially hooking us up with the local merchants.
Here is the building of examination rooms. The town really needs this building opened up, there was a line at the older building of people needing to be seen.
On our way back to Djibouti City, we saw this truck on the road. They get all the camels to lay down, but their necks stick up. As the truck enters a turn, all of the camel’s necks are swung outboard. It was fun to watch, but the truck stinks something awful.
We stopped for lunch in Ali Sabieh, which was a small detour, this was the writing on the side of the mountain next to the restaurant. The GPS location was: 11.153635 42.713503
This is our lunch. They are known at the base for their excellent spicy spaghetti, using local peppers. One of the guys said it was camel meat in the sauce, but Abdi clarified that it was just local ground beef. And I was really hopeful that it was camel, I have never eaten it before.
On the way out of the town, Abdi told us that back in WW II, the Italians dug out the hillside and put in these pill boxes to defend against people crossing through this important pass. The entrance was on the back side of the mountain.
These are just some close-ups of the openings. The tunnel must run for at least two miles connecting all of these.
Another treat on the way back was a bunch of baboons. Since we had that Major from AFRICOM with us, we decided to stop. This was a much larger group then any of us have ever seen. We threw some food out for them. This was the Alpha male inspecting us before we put food into the equation, then he really liked us.
I had to take a picture of his red butt, it was just too funny.
The male was hogging all of the food, grabbing it and then sitting on it. This young one got brave, snuck up, reached underneath, and was rewarded, before being bobbed on the head.
Our last stop was Ecole 5, a school that a local Djiboutian contractor started, but was released due to poor quality. The US Navy SEABEEs then took on the rest of the project and have been working really hard to finish the mess that was left for them. This is the back wall of the school, with a forest of 2x4s holding up the forms for the roof beams.
The front of the forms looked really good. There was still a massive amount of rebar work and forms before they would be ready for the pour.
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