Gustir

  Another trip last week was a run down to the town of Gustir.  This was about a three hour run, with 1.5 hours on paved road and the rest was on some rough off-road trails.  The drive down there was for a final inspection of a clinic before it would be signed off, dedicated, and turned over to the people of Gustir.  This town has two interesting facts, first is that it is at the corner between the borders of Djibouti, Somalia (Somaliland), and Ethiopia; as you can see from later pictures.  The clinic was well done and should help this community.  The second interesting fact is that a scene of the original Planet of the Apes was shot about 5 km outside the town on a plain of large volcanic rock.  This was the scene where Charlton Heston was wandering in the wilds.  The scene was supposed to represent where no one else would want to visit.  I wonder how it must have been the village elder to know that a movie scene in your town was put there to represent somewhere on earth where no one would want to live…. Pretty sad claim to fame. 

  The town also holds a small Djiboutian military outpost.  Abdi, our shop translator, talked with the chief of the military station and we learned a lot about the surrounding area.  Gustir is just the hub for many nomadic people in the region.  They follow the moisture and greenery for their livestock, freely crossing the borders for better grazing areas. In the wet season, spring, the town could swell to nearly 195 families, about 800 people, plus large herds of goats.  Prior military teams have gone there to do medical humanitarian assistance, seeing hundreds of patients and not even getting to everyone. 

  On the drive out there I got these two shots of camels in another local town.  I took the opportunity to take pictures of these camels in particular, because there was no other trash in the picture, like so many other places in this country. 

This is a Dik Dik, a small deer like animal, about 30lbs in weight.  They were very skittish and ran as soon as I was out of the truck with the camera. 

This long necked creature is a Gerenuk, a type of antelope that evolved a long neck to reach up into the branches of the Acacia tree to pluck its leaves.  

We arrived in the small nomadic town of Gustir, where the newly finished clinic really stands out.  The sign was motivational until we counted the number of stars on the US flag, the contractor promised to fix that before the dedication. 

Here is a shot towards the southeast, showing Somolia. 

Here is a shot towards the southwest, showing Ethiopia.  Yes, there is no difference, just desert. 

John Mietus is talking with the contractors.  Overall these guys did an awesome job.   It looks great and everything John asked them to fix, they did.

John is under the solar panels checking the  rating and wiring installation. 

 Here are the battery boxes and main breakers for the clinic.  Anywhere but the large cities rely on solar power or diesel generators.  They use large deep cycle batteries and an inverter to supply power to the lights, fans, and minimum loads of the clinic.  These systems seem to work well here, and are part of almost every contract.