Mad about the Maasai Mara (part 1)

Hello all,

Many apologies for the long hiatus since my last posts - a combination of fairly full days, multiple sleep-interrupted nights, and of course there was this little trip I took...

So there I was, on the morning of Thursday the 17th, waiting in the cavernous belly of an Air Force C-17, and wondering if this trip would be worth the agonizing days of uncertainty leading up to it. I was embarking on my "96" - a 4 day, travel time not included, little holiday granted to those of us staying out here on at least 6 months of assignment. Months ago, my dear sister Johanna and her impossibly likable husband, Adrian had not only agreed to meet me here in Africa for a safari trip, but had gone to the trouble of making all the arrangements - hotels, cars, planes, the lot. My plan was to ride the "Flex" - a weekly logistics flight that departs Djibouti for some of our downrange activities in East Africa. The deal was that I could hop off in Nairobi, meet Joey and Ade for a trip to the Maasai Mara, and then catch the plane back a week later. It's a bit longer then 96 hours, but this exception is commonly granted, as the flight is so convenient for our folks...

What I hadn't really counted on was the uncertainty of traveling "Space Available". The military, having multiple missions, limited equipment and lots of taskings feels no particular compunction about bumping passengers in favor of needed cargo or passengers with more priority. There is no hesitation to ground equipment for crew or mechanical reasons and there is quite commonly no replacement flight offered. All this, which I suppose I knew abstractly, seemed manageable 3 months ago when discussions of the trip first started, but as the day came nearer the implications of possibly having no flight, but definitely having confirmed safari reservations of dubious refundability sunk in. No one had been able to tell me if would be a "go" until until finally at 0530ish my bags and I were weighed and manifested on the flight. I hadn't slept all night with worry (and with getting called to the clinic at 0300 to see an unfortunate chap with a kidney stone), and as those four big turbo props rumbled to life, and as that chubby bird picked up speed and her wheels left the warm asphalt beneath them, I sighed and slumped down in relief. Away!

Slumping actually proved to be a mistake, as I was supported only by a canvas seat stretched over aluminum rods beneath, and a sagging nylon cargo webbing behind. The back rest turned out to be the back of the chap sitting on the other side of the center mounted seating apparatus. A nice fellow, I'm sure, but wiggly. Conversation was impossible due to the din of the engines. Reading was a challenge as the only light came at such an angle that to see my book I had to cant my head to the left, where it ran into the emergency breathing apparatus hanging from the bulkhead. I couldn't hear my iPod - noise reduction earphones be damned - over the din, so I just stuffed the foam ear-plugs thoughtfully provided into my ears, and tried as best as possible to sleep, while directly behind me my opposite number apparently was keeping loose by doing a seated version of the mambo...A lot of time was spent thus, being started out of a fitful sleep, staring at the single porthole across the narrow aisle, and nodding off again.

Three and a half hours or so later though, we touched down at Jomo Kenyatta International in Nairobi, and after waiting another half hour we were allowed to debark, check in with the Kenyan Country Coordinating Element (the US Military folks who manage activities in that country), and finally get escorted off the flight line. It was about noon by now, and as we wheeled our luggage toward the International Arrivals terminal, the first thought that struck was that here I was, outside at noon, and rather than feeling I was about to broil, I felt agreeably warm. Nice. Definitely not Djibouti. And then we were in the Arrivals area.

My sister Johanna has always had a smile like the sun breaking through the clouds on a grey day. Her smile now seemed to light the dim interior of the airport concourse. I hugged her, shook Adrian's hand and was escorted by my family and Sammy, our driver, out to the waiting van. We were whisked through the chaotic, traffic choked streets of Nairobi to Wilson Airport, from where most of the small planes headed out to the safari areas depart. As we had a few hours before departure though, we made a side trip to The Carnivore restaurant - a near obligatory stop on the safari trail. The restaurant is close to Wilson, and we arrived in plenty of time to enjoy our fill of the house specialty - skewer after skewer, platter after platter of meats. Chicken, sausages and roast beef were followed by turkey, ostrich meat balls (quite yummy!) and lamb kebabs - all superbly seasoned and roasted, and all explained in detail by the army of servers who brandished skewers, platters and large knives with aplomb. In times past the restaurant made its reputation serving exotic game meats such as zebra, warthog and crocodile, but these have been removed from the menu for better or worse. On reflection, I think I might have had a bit of a guilty conscience when I later saw warthog families trotting along the road had I earlier dined on one of their relations. As it was, I had a hard time looking the ostrich in the eyes...

Lunch finally finished when we turned over the little white flags provided us for the purpose, signalling that we were full. Still savoring the various viandes we pushed away from the table, and waddled off to the van. Sammy had us at Wilson 10 minutes thereafter, and soon we were waiting on the tarmac while a single engine, 8 passenger Cessna Caravan taxied toward us. Our bags were loaded, we were ushered on, the pilot twisted around in his seat to welcome us aboard, the engine coughed its way to life and then Nairobi dropped away beneath us. Within a minute, looking out the starboard side, in a field right beside the city I saw an unmistakable herd of striped quadrupeds..."Zebras!" I exclaimed, enchanted. Ah, if I had know then of the wonders ahead...

The engine droned. The land beneath us grew wilder and less settled. It dropped away at one point into a great red walled valley which I presumed to be the southern beginnings of the great Rift Valley - which would tear through Eastern Africa's crust up to the Djiboutian coast away north. On the other side of the rift, the landscape climbed again, becoming a bit greener as grasslands were interspersed with row after row of square cultivated plots.

We landed once, on a dirt strip with a small hut and several waiting Land Rovers and most of the other passengers on the plane debarked. We headed back into the air, skipping and hopping down the earthen strip and headed further west, into the heart of the Maasai Mara. At one point the gentleman sitting in the co-pilot's seat - had there been a co-pilot - turned and asked "Where are you staying, then?" "At Serian camp."we replied. "Oh...then you'll be staying with me". Alex, our host and the owner and proprietor at Serian, was our fellow traveller. A great chap of whom I'll speak more in my next. "There's the camp, down there", he said as the plane banked right. We saw canvas rooftops nestled among the green trees lining a brown river that snaked its way through the plain. Another 10 minutes and we alit, at a much sparser strip - marked only by a black and white wind sock snapping crisply in the afternoon breeze. Waiting for us was our own Land Rover - a canvas sided affair, with a single row of seats up behind the driver's cockpit. Beside it were two striking African men, clad in (what we learned) were traditional Maasai garments. Alex introduced us to Samuel - our spotter - and Jonathan - our driver. They smiled warmly, greeted us and shook our hands, tossed our bags in the back and motioned for us to get in. Comfortably seated, open on three sides to grasslands and the weather, we started down the rutted dirt road that led to camp. Beyond nature documentaries, and some Joseph Conrad and H. Rider Haggard stories, I had no idea what to expect. But here we were with 6 days to find out.

I'll stop here, and take up the story (soon) in my next.

Pix should be tolerably obvious: Lions, leopard and cheetah.

A visit to Bremen

(Written September 16th, mostly)

Okay, Okay...

I've launched myself at this post 3 times now, and just haven't been able to make anything of it. As I look to be out of communication for a week when I take my 96 hour liberty trip to Kenya on the day after tomorrow, I am just going to grit my teeth and power through. Grit your teeth and come along.

Weather is starting to moderate a bit. Days are still "Africa Hot" but mornings and nights are positively pleasant - providing the wind isn't blowing off the dump. That is certainly a mercy for the devout Muslims here on the Horn, as they are in the midst of the Ramadan fast, and may take nothing to eat or drink throughout the hours between sunrise and sunset. At the beginning of the (lunar) month, we had quite a few of our Djiboutian workers brought to the EMF with dehydration from the combination of hard work and fasting. In the past week or two though no new cases - whether this be moderating weather or adapting Djiboutians, who can say? It does make me speculate about the unhappy fate of the faithful who live in the far northern climes, where evenings - even this late in September - can linger for extra hours before the sun dips below the horizon. They are faithful indeed who follow the way of the Prophet in Yellowknife or Vladivostok!

Well, in keeping with with the Teutonic theme of last weeks post, the highlight of this week was a visit to the Bremen, a German frigate who pulled in this past week. Her medical folks contacted us wondering if we could help them out with some sterilization of surgical instruments, a couple of dental needs and a tour of our facilities (usually a veiled expression of a wish to visit the Galley's ice cream counter, and shop at our little NEX). Happy to oblige, we were offered a tour of the Bremen in return.

We found a trim little vessel, pushing 30 years old but gleaming as if she had rolled out of the shipwright's yard last year. She was moored in the spot that the Korean ship had occupied when we celebrated there a month or so ago. In the daytime drive through the docks we had a chance to see the livestock pens - full of grumpy, complaining camels and docile, introspective Sanga cattle - where the output of the pastoral inland plains paused on the journey. They'll be loaded on ships bound across the Red Sea and thence to the UAE and points north. Which are you, gentle reader, pausing here before you hurry on your journey? A vociferous, skeptical camel, or a placid, inward-looking Sanga? There is virtue in both, I suppose.

Anyway...as it turned out, on our arrival at about 1000 that morning the Bremen was in the midst of a stores load, as chains of Deutsche sailors handed crates, boxes and the like up the gangways, and down into the holds. We were met with good cheer despite the business of the crew, and whisked off to sick bay where our host - the German ship's doctor - showed around his tiny, overstuffed combination OR, lab, dental, treatment, x-ray space. It was a marvel of ingenious adaptation, miniaturization, and clever organization - capable enough, but I'll wager almost impossible to use in any sort of sea state. The cramped space was no doubt exacerbated by the addition of a surgeon, dentist and anesthesiologist to their crew for the purposes of their current mission - piracy interdiction off the Somali coast. It may not seem like much, but the additon of 3 extra persons on a 220 person ship can have quite an impact.

Off to the Helo deck next, where the aviators and ex-flight surgeons oohed and aahed over the two Sea Lynxes. They seemed like fine enough little birds, but alas I have no eye for helicopters, and have always sort of distrusted the things. Too many moving parts.

It was while we standing there that I had a chance to meet the 4 other folk who had joined us on this tour. One Norwegian and 3 Finnish Naval medical officers had joined us in the sick-bay for a tour of the boat. They were all involved to one extent or another in facilitating or planning for European Union naval efforts in the anti-piracy campaigns away east. The Norwegian chap, who visited us here at Camp Lemonnier the next day was a lithe, weathered fellow, of about my own modest height, but the Finns looked every bit the Nordic warriors. They were all some shade of blonde, tall and powerfully built. While the Finns in general were not known in days of old for going a-viking it was not hard to imagine these chaps leaping from the prows of long ships, swords in hand. My fantasy world aside, they were charming folk - funny, pleasant and polite.

Sadly, even though noon was fast approaching, and "cold German beer" had been hinted at when the visit was first planned, the ship's wardroom was closed for the stores load, so we made our farewells, exchanged business cards and promised good will and assistance at need to all and sundry, and left with thirsts unslaked. Not that talk of beer had prompted us to visit, you understand...but the opportunity to more completely acculturate to the ways of our coalition partners, well that seemed a shame. Ah well, next visit perhaps.

A couple of days later, our German and Danish colleagues joined us here at Camp Lemonnier, for tours, ice cream and shopping. I don't know exactly what the experience here is preparing me for, but a job at the UN, or perhaps as a tour guide seems an easy reach from here...

I'll end here (as I'm returning from a week's vacation to find this still un-posted on my computer). Just returned from 6 days on the Maasai Mara, and I'm excited to get some photos and commentary posted.

Djohn's Dgerman Djaunt

Gruss Gott!

I find myself in the distinctly odd position of feeling obscurely unfaithful to my temporary home here in Djibouti by contemplating a description of my past week, spent at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. Suffice to say then that while the Alps are beautiful and Djibouti is exotic, I'm not sure that there is much to be gained by the comparison. Anyway, come away with me to Garmisch-Partenkirchen on wings of imagination...

As I said last week, I was sent off to the "Public Health Emergency Officer" annual meeting in Garmisch to learn more about the flu. THE flu. It is a matter of some debate of course as to whether I am indeed a "PHEO", but I guess on the grounds that I often appear in Public, and appear to be pretty Healthy, and that I am an Officer, I had met 3 of 4 qualifiers for the position. Close enough for Government work, I suppose. This being a social media site, I suppose in all conscience this would be a good place to put in plug about good public health practices, but honestly the sum total wisdom I have acquired on the matter is this: wash your hands. A lot. And stay home if you're sick. Got it? Then you can be a PHEO too!

Anyway, as it turns out I was lucky enough to get on the single Air France flight a week that leaves and returns to Djibouti. Not that I have anything against Ethiopian Airlines you understand, but all of their routes involve an 8 hour lay over in Addis Ababa. The flight left Ambouli airport here around midnight, and plunked us down in at De Gaulle Paris 7 hours later. The dissonance between the tiny airport in Djibouti and huge, modern, bustling CDG was breath taking - I'm sure I walked the whole length of terminal 2D with a stupid grin on my face, just looking at shops and concessionaires, smartly dressed business travelers, gleaming chrome and glass, escalators and elevators...what bliss! I poked my head out of an open sliding door and breathed in air with a bit of early morning crispness to it. Breathtaking!

I made it to my Munich bound flight with enough time to order a real espresso and savor it, and then in about an hour or so we touched down in Germany. The Munich airport was, if anything, more modern than De Gaulle, and moving sidewalks brought me right to the train ticket kiosk, and thence to the train stop below the airport. My friends...the trains really do run right on time. The ticket agent was kind enough to print out for me a detailed itinerary, as I had to change trains once, and as God is my witness, we were never any more than 30 seconds off our projected station ETA. It was awe-inspiring.

From Munich, the route is south to Garmisch, and as you leave the city behind you find yourself in a gently rolling countryside. The greens and blues of forests, fields and mountain lakes seemed almost bizarrely intense after 3 1/2 months in the muted duns and grays of Djibouti. Late summer, it seemed, was happily settled into the hills and valleys of Bavaria - tall fields of corn undulated in the breeze, fine fat cows stood placidly in fields that could have been sculpted by a talented artist trying to express the essence of "rolling hills", and plump apples reddened amidst the boughs of gnarled old trees. This was nice. I sat in the railroad car watching this bucolic scene slip by - the electric train almost silent around me - and don't recall a film or play of recent years that has pleased me as much as that hour's journeying.

What then of Garmisch? My friends, if Walt Disney were to sit down to create a "Germany-land", this is exactly what he would envision. The town sits in a fertile mountain valley, guarded on both sides by towering heights with conifer wrapped shoulders and grey stoney heads. The houses have steep peaked roofs, multiple gables, balconies with tumbling riots of geraniums and carefully tended yards full of flowers and fruit trees. The fields are dotted with small wooden huts, in which logs hewn from the fertile hills are stacked and left to dry for firewood. The landscape is laced with bicycle and walking paths, and the paths themselves full of families in their twos and threes and fours walking, cycling, or just sitting gratefully in the lengthening rays of the late August alpine sun.

And the Alps...they are always the first thing to catch your attention as you walk outside. The town is so compact, and the slope so close and so steep, that the eye must encounter them as the doors close behind you, and encountering is drawn up and up as peaks pile on top of peaks until at the very southern end, the dominating height of the Zugsptiz brings you to a pause. At almost 10,000 feet, it is Germany's highest mountain, and it sits surrounded by its lesser peers, serenely surveying the life of the village at its feet. This is one of the most naturally beautiful places on earth, and seems well loved and well tended by the folk who live there. The town manages to strike, I think, a nice balance between rural charm (the streets of the central village are closed nightly at 1730 so that the dairy cattle who have grazed on the west side of town may be walked through to the barns on the east), modern comfort, and ancient wilderness. And of course the fact that the city, the paths and the hills are studded with impossibly charming beer gardens doesn't hurt a bit.

The conference was like many of its ilk. There was some valuable stuff said and done, but honestly how long can you sit on those uncomfortable conference center chairs without your mind wandering? Food and lodgings at the Edelweiss Lodge - the Army's own recreational facility in Garmisch - were quite nice, if a bit generic. Food outside the gate was generally good. I had a lovely Indian dinner one night, but devoted the rest of the evenings to food stuffs ending with "schnitzel" or "wurst" washed down with cold beers of many varieties. Not elegant cuisine in general, but it certainly felt true to its surroundings. I didn't do too much touring, but spent a lot of free time in shorts and running shoes trotting north or south at the feet of mountains as seemed best. I did take a tour of the Partnach Gorge - a twisting, tumbling river running along the bottom of a fantastically sculptured valley, carved out of the limestone of the mountains over millennia. At times it was almost dark save for the light reflected from the torrent's churning surface from the narrow ribbon of sky visible overhead. All of this surrounded by the kind of deep green forests that must have given the Roman legions pause when first they regarded the land across the Rhine. Pretty spectacular stuff.

The conference wound to an end after 3 days, and I packed up the next morning. Rain clouds had tumbled in over the last two nights, accompanied on the first evening by rolling peals of thunder which echoed back and forth between the towering mountain walls of the valley. The trip back was uneventful - the previously resplendent late summer scenery now a bit duller under gray skies. I had a moment of panicked ambivalence when the Air France agent felt that she couldn't put me on a flight to Djibouti unless I could show her my visa (which as a military member stationed there I do not have). "So, I can't go back to Djibouti and I'll be forced to stay here in Germany?" I sighed and protested a bit more out of a sense of obligation. This may have been a mistake however as a second order agent was contacted who swiftly approved my passage. I mean, I knew I'd have to go back after a while, but who am I to break the rules? Oh well.

Left Paris at about midnight on a direct flight. This flight was interesting in that it was full of the wives and children of the French forces stationed in Djibouti, all returning from their summer vacations for the start of the school year. Infants and toddlers fussed and tumbled at every corner, and bigger boys and girls read, played games or harassed their siblings as their natures and opportunities dictated. The kids weren't bad though once we got in the air, nodding off in short order after the meal service. I would have done the same except for a willowy 14ish mademoiselle seated inboard of me, who apparently would expire if she didn't go to the WC every 45 minutes - waking me with a sweet and demur "Pardonnez" each time, so that I couldn't even work up a proper scowl. Oh well - I slept well the next day.

Finally we were here. We clambered down the boarding stairs to a waiting bus for the 20 foot drive to the terminal. It was 0730 or so and already pushing 100 degrees, with a leavening of humidity to really help one appreciate the heat. The wind, back in the east now, brought the slightly sour scent of the city to us as we stood in line to have our temperatures taken before going through immigration (no visa problems). I'd forgotten the smell - it fades out of your awareness after a day or two. I wish I could describe it better for you - it is a tang, with something of industry, something of agriculture, something of densely packed humanity and their refuse and another element of the blending of ocean and desert. Familiar now, in a rueful sort of way.

My colleagues were waiting for me outside the baggage claim, and off we rolled, past Khat corner, down the Somali road, and through the trebly guarded gates to home and CLU. Oddly comforting to find my wee metal box as I'd left it. I put a brave face on things for a couple of hours, then collapsed for a 3 hour nap. It's not so much that Germany seemed like a dream when I woke up, as that both places - Djibouti and Germany - seemed less substantial after comparing and contrasting them. Both are echoes, you see, simulations imperfect in one degree or another of what continues to seem more real to me than either.

Home.

Pictures are of ... well c'mon now!

Lac Assal

Hello All,

Well, no complaints of nothing to do this week. It was evident early on in the week that change was in the air as, against all expectation, it rained. I don't mean a little rain either. I mean a loud-hammering-on-the-metal-roof, dirty brown water cascading down the main street, soaking your bathroom rug because you forgot the little window was open kind of rain. A cloudburst which has since repeated itself twice. The season of the Fifty Days is emphatically over, and remarkably close to the 50 days of the folk wisdom. The weather may be a trifle cooler now (say in the high nineties), but the humidity is truly astounding. The air has the feel you might get in resort steam room, minus the eucalyptus scent. At night, as temperatures drop into the 80's, the air has a palpable, almost silky feel on the skin - a sensation I remember from summer nights down near the riverfront in St. Louis. It's not unpleasant until the sun comes up and you get to feeling again like you're a turkey in one of those self-basting bags. Phew!

One definite improvement though is the clarity of the air. The air for the

past two months or so has constantly had a perceptibly dusty quality.

Sometimes it has been just at the edge of perception - a taste in the wind,

or the dun cast of the sun as it nears the horizon - and sometimes it has

been the dominant fact of negotiating the world outside of the CLU - a

gritty, stinging miasma swirling and eddying in every corner and creeping

into every imaginable spot. No more! The air is clear, the distant hills

of Somalia and the truncated volcanic cones standing guard over the

Djiboutian plains stand out in sharp detail. At night the Southern Cross

can now be seen pointing the way down the Great Rift Valley to Africa's

ancient heart. It's as if nature has polished its spectacles and only now do

we realize how used to the haze we had become.

This all could not have come at a better time, as I had a chance last week

to join the CJTF-HOA geologist and some companions on a trip to Lac Assal,

and to enjoy some spectacular vistas on the way. The lake is the saltiest

in the world, outside of a couple of hyper saline ponds in Antarctica, and

is the lowest point in Africa, at about 153 meters below sea-level. It sits

in the Afar depression- one of the most interesting geological spots in the

world where the East African plate is tearing itself away from the rest of

the continent and from the Arabian peninsula to its north. This is

technically an mid oceanic ridge spreading zone, and the only other one

above water is in Iceland. The landscape is some of the starkest and most

interesting I've seen. And that was only part of the fun!

So, we set out in two separate vehicles at about 0900 on a Sunday morning.

Clouds from the last rain storm still darkened the western horizon, but at

our backs the African sun set to work to boil away the overcast, and by noon

it would be almost cloudless. We headed west out of the city, angling

toward the tip of the gulf of Tadjoura, just inland of the Bay of Goudouk.

Driving out of the city on the N9, one quickly climbs into an arid plateau.

We passed Arta, the town that overlooks the bay where I had done such

rewarding diving a month or two ago. The road, except for a 10 mile stretch

a few miles part Arta, was pretty good. Most of the traffic was made up of

heavily laden trucks in various degrees of disrepair, many pulling trailers

of equal or greater decrepitude. They were laden with all manner of

produce, machine parts, construction materials and other goods too various

to name, all bound for land-locked Ethiopia. The country on either side of

the road was rocky and arid, with mostly drab brown and muted green scrub,

and the occasional flashes of vivid green where water rose close enough to

the surface to sustain some vegetation. There were scattered small

settlements as we left the port well behind us. Some were ramshackle

affairs of crumbling cement and dilapidated stone buildings. Some were

collections of corrugated metal and whatever scraps of wood and cement the

occupants seemed able to collect. The larger villages had mosques, whose

minarets were the tallest structures for miles around.

Some score or more miles past Arta we turned north. We were now high on the

plateau that descends as if in giant steps down to the basin in which Lac

Assal sits. Our first stop was " The Japanese Monument", which Len - the

geologist - said had been erected to commemorate the deaths of some Japanese

citizens in a traffic accident on that lonely highway. The monument was

surrounded by a low cement wall, enclosing a space in which two weathered

pyramidal markers sat, with the explanatory plaques on the front long since

pried off and presumably sold off as scrap metal. The melancholy scene was

completed by the soughing of the dry breeze off the Ethiopian highlands, and

the bleaching bones of a long deceased camel. We paused, reflected, drank some water and headed back on the road.

The next stop was considerably less sombre. We arrived after another 15 minutes at a site called (by Americans) The Djiboutian Grand canyon. I haven't found a formal name on a map, so I can't give any more details, except to say that the comparison is not altogether unwarranted - it certainly could be taken for a small section of that great American monument. The photo in the top right doesn't quite do it justice. It was formed by water erosion of the alternating layers of basaltic lava and paleosol, as the water ran off the plateaus to the west down to the Gulf. We spent a few minutes clambering about, snapping photos and "hallooing" into the maw of the canyon, which gave back quite a satisfying echo. Then off to the next stop...

We paused at a scenic vista, looking from the lofty shoulders of the high country down to the Gulf of Tadjoura at our right, the Gulf's all but sealed off western end - the Ghoubet al Kharab, a bay with a slender channel into the greater gulf, and beyond a lava bridge, plummeting to the lowest point of the continent, Lac Assal. I don't have a photo that does the scene justice, but suffice to say that, geology-wise, this is a happening place. We stayed long enough to buy some carved pumice, geodes and obsidian flakes from the vendor who seemed to have an informal franchise at the lookout - a dilapidated box roped to the side of the guard rail. Then back to the cars to begin our own descent to the nadir of the Rift.

The road deteriorated a bit and finally gave way to rutted dirt - not the worst such in Djibouti by far. Next stop was a valley toward the Western shore of the lake. Here a five minute walk led us to a spring at the end of a box canyon. The stream that bubbled up from beneath the rocks was scalding to touch - we measured 170 degrees Fahrenheit at the source. It is heated by the volcanic processes churning away beneath the thin crust of this spreading zone. More than moment spent in that clear running water would parboil the flesh on your bones, but literally the width of a decent long jump away, in a small pond with a slightly cooler water source, swam prolific schools of tiny fishes - smaller than minnows but in great number. What a marvelous thing is nature, how ingenious and how profligate with her genius! The failure of the barrier wall, the slipping of a well placed boulder and the little colony would be so many bite sized sole meuniere. Ain't that all of us in miniature though..?

Finally the lake itself. We arrived at the great salt pan - a vast precipitation of halide and gypsum crystals on the marge of 21 square miles of the saltiest water north of Antarctica. The water was shallow and warm. The lake is normally fed mostly by sea water which seeps through the fissured basalt that forms the bedrock as well as the bridge which keeps the lake separate from the larger bodies of water away east. It's an impressive sight. The water level was high that day, the recent rains having added their substance to the lake's total. For that reason we avoided a swim - the camel and goat dung bobbing high atop the hypersaline surface were indication enough of what might have been rinsed from the surrounding hills. Embarrassing to contract diarrheal diseases when you're the most senior medical guy. We clambered, snapped, picked up and bought samples, and loaded the enterprising teen-age boys selling souvenirs with some of our extra water before calling it a day and heading back east.

The trip was interrupted for a quick descent to the the western shore of the Bab al Ghoubet, where we parked the sturdy little SUV's and splashed into the water. Another group of Camp Lemonnier based travelers were already there, refreshing themselves after the torrid trip to Lac Assal. We splished, splashed, and there may have been some cavorting although I wouldn't testify to it. We dried off quickly in the late afternoon Djiboutian sun, and then into the cars for the final leg...home.

There was much more to the trip than I have mentioned here - geologic sights, wildlife, and the people of this end of the Afar Depression eking out their lives, but I have tarried too long in getting this out already. Indeed as I write this, I am seated in a hotel room in Garmisch, nestled among the Bavarian Alps - so there is much to tell. I did want to mention one animal sighting though. En route home our lead car pulled over to let a troop of baboons cross the highway. This they did, deliberate of foot and stately of mien. The alpha male crossed first, and watched us dispassionately as the ladies, children and subordinates proceeded across. Wow. This really is Africa. What an amazing place.

We made it back weary, salty, sunburnt, and entirely enchanted. For all its heat, inconvenience and grinding poverty Djibouti is one of Earth's special places. I'm not ready to start my own eco-tourism business here you understand, but with amazing diving, geologic wonders, exotic animal species, and French food...well such a thing could be imagined. As long as your air-conditioner held out, I guess.

Anyway. Next entry more from the alps...

Photos are of the Salt Pan, the "Grand Canyon" and the Alpa male baboon.

Auf Wiedersehen!

PS: Sorry about the weird spacing in some of the paragraphs. It's not an attempt at blank verse. It's an artifact of cobbling together bits written on different computers and different programs. I'll spare you blank verse...

Peltier moments

Hello all,

This will be a brief entry for the fairly good reason that little has happened, and the less satisfactory reason that I've been sitting and typing at a computer pretty steadily for the last few days and I'm afraid it has lost its considerable power to charm. This is especially so as I am, alas, a wretched two fingered typist. Doubtless that's why I selected medicine as a career instead of, say, law. Lots of typing in law I reckon. Yuck.

What have I been typing? I'm trying to knock together a plan for managing the flu (you know, the flu) should it have the temerity to show its infectious little head here in Djibouti. You'd think any self-respecting microbe would find a more congenial climate, and abandon this dusty corner of the world to the vipers and sand flies. We'll see, I guess. The fact that my last formal infectious disease training was a bit more than 20 years ago has compounded the problem for my less than dexterous digits. Ah well.

I did have a chance to visit with our colleagues at Peltier, the Djiboutian hospital, this past week. Herman, Bill and I assisted with a prostatectomy, a hydrocele and a neck mass removal. It wasn't exactly the most challenging anesthesia in the world but it was a pleasure to spend a little time in the OR. The prostatectomy was illustrative (I should mention that the next bit may be a bit, um, medical. If you can make it through "Nip and Tuck" you should be okay. Although there's no sex). As there is really no such thing as a recovery room in the sense we use it - an area staffed by highly trained nurses, carefully monitoring each patient to be sure that they emerge unscathed from the arms of Morpheus - general anesthesia is generally avoided where possible. This means that we do a lot of spinal anesthetics, and because there are very few sedative medications available this means that we do a lot of spinals, and operations, on wide awake people. They are comfortable, of course, being unable to feel pain, but sleep they do not.

Now, this might be an awkward thing in the best of circumstances - say where you and your patient shared a common language. As most of our patients speak either Afar or Issa (seldom both) it is trebly so. Although much can be conveyed, one hopes, by means of gesture and glance, we are of course in masks, hair covers and scrubs and this type of communication is limited at best. For all that though, the patients are incredibly stoic. We start IV's, we sit them up and place spinals - an uncomfortable procedure that is made worse by knowing that there is someone behind you with a needle and he's going to stick it in your back. But our patients are almost unflinching, uncomplaining, mute. They do not protest, they don't pull away and they don't seem to be anxious as a rule in that most alien of environments - the OR.

Sometimes I think that perhaps the lives of the people here are so hard, and pain and discomfort such a commonplace fact that the transient discomfort of the anesthetic procedures is meaningless. As to their forced immobility (for with a spinal one loses not just feeling but movement below the level of our block), this seems to be accepted unquestioningly. Is this the embracing of Imshallah - the unquestioning acceptance of God's infinite power and wisdom? Is this a cultural stoicism? Or having commended oneself into the mysterious realm of the medical men, does one just resign oneself to their unintelligible jabberings, their annoying piercings and the odd effects of their medicines, serene in the knowledge that what can be done for you is being done? Something of all three I expect.

Anyway, there we were at the end of a prostatectomy. Bill and Dr. Elias had skillfully worked together to remove this organ whose overgrowth had caused almost complete obstruction of urinary outflow for our patient, a dignified older Djiboutian man whose beard was dyed red with henna in keeping with the local custom. The operation over, the gentleman lifted his head up and asked Elias a question. Replying in his language, Elias reaches over to the stand at the foot of the table, picks up a set of forceps, and grabs the now ex-vivo prostate with them, producing the offending organ for the patient's intent examination. The patient studied it silently for a moment and then asked another question in the Issa dialect. Elias responded thoughtfully and at length - all the time with the excised prostate on the end of the forceps waving about in his gloved hand, occasionally being gestured with to make a point. It was a singular sight. After a bit the patient nodded, laid his head back down and we wheeled him to the recovery area.

Later Elias explained that is was important to almost all of his patients to see the thing that had been taken out of them. In fact he showed us a small collection of gall stones he keeps in jars in his spartan surgical supply office. In many cases of gall bladder surgery for stones, the stone will not be extracted intact but will be found as sludge or sand in the gall bladder once it's out. The inability to see the stones is such a source of concern for patients and their families post-operatively that Djiboutian surgeons have found it best to keep some stones around to show as evidence of a successful surgery. The patient is cured, the family is happy and much worry is thereby avoided.

So that was one thing. The other was this. As the day wore on, I sat, paced the room, stretched, peeked over the drapes, fiddled with the stuff on the back table - stuff that anesthesiologists do while surgeons struggle on. Herman was watching the patient as well, so I felt no compunction about walking over to the far corner of the room and squatting down on my haunches - much as a cowboy might do out on the range by a campfire (providing he was careful about his spurs). It is a way I have of working the kinks out of my back. It seems to stretch out some nameless bits of ligament and muscle that start to protest after a morning plying my trade. As I sunk down, eyes half-closed, waiting to feel the tension in my lower back ease, I felt a hand in mine.

I looked up, and Ali (whose name as far as I can tell is Ali Hajji), the surgical "tech" whose job it is to assist with setups and breakdowns, to bring the surgeons anything needed during the operation and in general to function as dogsbody for the OR suite, Ali had taken my hand. You must understand that all day the halls of the OR's at Peltier reverberate with the call "Ali!" or "Hajji!" as this slender, quiet man runs from room to room fetching and doing for the surgeons and anesthetists. Ali had been slumped on a stool in a corner of the operating room, but when he saw me squat at my end of the room, he figured that it was because I had no seat. Squatting is a common posture of - especially poorer - Djiboutians relaxing in shade or around a fire. The rocky ground is unkind I'm sure to those who would sit or lay down. Anyway, Ali smiled, took me by the hand - Djiboutian men will often walk hand in hand - and led me to his stool. It was done with such gentleness and such thoughtless generosity despite my protests that the moment has stuck with me all week. There is a solemn courtesy that many Djiboutians carry with them through their hot dusty days, a generosity with the little that they have which may serve to ease a bit the harshness of their lot.

And that's it for the week. Nothing terribly profound, I guess, but I hope you get some of the flavor of the people we live among and sometimes work beside.

I have great hopes for next week's entry, as a trip to Lac Assal, an ascent of the cliff trail near Khor Ambado, and even a possible trip to Garmisch, Germany may all have taken place ere I put digits to keyboard again. Not sure if all or any of these will come to pass - but they'd be good blog fodder if they do. Check back next week then, gentle reader and we'll see.

Picture today is of the surgical ward at Peltier in the noonday sun.

Comedy...it's hard work

Well, this is dangerous. I’m starting the entry without a single specific topic in mind, but as nothing keeps threatening to happen, if I just wait for actual events to report I’ll never set fingers to keyboard again. So…it’s been a quiet week at Camp Lemonnier, out here on the edge of Africa...

The big event so far was the visit, this past Tuesday, of a troupe of comedians. As it turned out, these folks hopped on a plane in LA and flew straight (or as straight as one can fly) to Djibouti. I guess we were the first stop on their tour of the military bases in the region. I hope they have a bit better luck at their next stops, for while they made it here a few hours before they were due to go on, their bags never did. Thus they found themselves, deep in the insidious grip of jet lag, clad in what they could find off the rack in our tiny exchange, and on a large, bare stage in an echo-prone barn of a building, trying to make people laugh. The performances were a bit uneven - predictably I guess.

It made me think a little bit about the phenomenon of stand-up comedy. Anyone who has ever told a joke and made people laugh must have a little taste of what it would be like to, by the mere force of your words and gestures, make an entire roomful of people laugh. It must be a tremendous high: you establish a connection in real time with people who, helplessly as it seems, reward you again and again with the audible evidence of their approbation – unforced laughter. Anyone - say a diminutive, bookish, socially maladroit future anesthesiologist - who ever coped in school by occasionally playing the clown must at least speculate about living that life. Much as other folk ponder how their life might have turned out if they’d just stuck with those guitar lessons and gone on to be a member of U-2.

On the other hand, have you ever had the excruciating experience of being at a stand up comedy performance wherein the performer and the audience just don’t connect? Where bit after bit is followed by silence, the shuffling of chairs and not so furtive glances at watches? It is for me one of the most exquisitely painful forms of social collapse to watch – indeed I’ll often literally avert my gaze like some might from a gory accident. It is so absolutely naked – a plea for acknowledgement and its stony-faced denial. Well, without being critical, and without ascribing blame to either performers or audience for their poor relationship, let me just say that I spent a lot of time with gaze averted Tuesday night.

I had the chance to see the performers – two women and one guy – as they toured the EMF the next morning. We were on our way to Peltier for what would prove a challenging day of anesthesia, so I just had moment to dash over, shake hands and thank them all for coming. Off stage they were sweet young people, who were doing what it was that they could to make this little part of this long, long struggle a little better for the folks involved. We’re all brave in our own way I guess, as providence grants us the scope to be brave. I was proud of them.

Not much else of note. We’ll have another pizza night and screen Godfather II this weekend, and with some luck I might get back to the beach although there are no concrete plans. Skype has been spotty these past weeks, which some are attributing to conflicts with Djibouti Telecom. Never heard that confirmed, but it is making the role of “away” parent a bit more of a challenge. Sigh. When I went away I told Jack that what we were both doing, he and I, was making a sacrifice that lots of fathers and boys had to make so that the right stuff could happen for America and the world. I believe that with my whole heart - all civilization needs to begin its slide into barbarism is the inaction of the well intentioned. That said, there is not a day that goes by that I don’t wonder if I’ve done my son more good by trying to live the way I conceive that men (and women) should, than I might have done by being there while he made his way from 8 to 9 years old. I know there’s no military parent who doesn’t wrestle with this every day. In the end I guess we must live out our values in front of our children, and give them credit for the ability to learn the value of sacrifice and to glean what strength of character it may bring them. But I’d still be happier if Skype worked better.

Otherwise I am well. I’ll attempt my fake ½ marathon on Sunday. 13.1 miles on a treadmill…I’m not sure if I’m more worried about my knees or my sanity. Many sincere thanks to the folks who have left such kind comments on the blog. It is a small source of joy on many an arid day to feel that I’ve let anyone who is interested have some insight into our life out here. I’ll make a concerted effort to go out and have some actual experiences in the next week, and send you all the results.

Picture is of the sign outside the gate. Take good care all.

Ciao!

How far would you walk for a camel?

Apparently this has become a weekly blog. I reckon that’s alright, as it’s probably better to blog weekly than to blog weakly.

Ouch. Sorry you had to be there for that.

Anyway, this week found yours truly once again on my way to Khor Ambado beach. The aim of the trip was a bit more complex this time then mere enjoyment of sun, sand and swimming. There is a small group of folks here on Camp Lemonnier who will be undertaking a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro in the not too distant future. Because the ascent has to take place within the 96 hours of the liberty granted to all of us temporary sojourners here at the Camp, the climb will be a bit more rigorous than it might otherwise be. A method for achieving the optimal conditioning of both prospective climbers, (and their brand new hiking boots) was arrived at by the last group of Lemonnier stalwarts to attempt the heights of Kilimanjaro. What could be a better way of conditioning then hiking 5 kilometers of truly inhospitable country under the baleful glare of the Djiboutian August sun? And what better incentive than a refreshing plunge into the welcoming waters of the Gulf of Tajoura at the end.

The plan of course involves two parties – the walkers and the drivers. Although in truth I was intrigued by the idea of the trek, I was selected – no doubt for my skill in the use of the vehicle climate controls – to be among the latter. This is why the small company of trekkers were growing smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror as the car bounced and jounced along the “road” to Khor Ambado (sounds like a Hope and Crosby movie) shortly before midday this past Sunday. All were of course amply laden with water, smeared with sun block, armed with GPS and cell phone – and some with new hiking boots. Still, I felt like one of the less savory characters in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”, as I scanned the skies overhead to see if any vultures were circling expectantly.

The plan was for the drivers party to secure a spot at the beach, while the hiker party negotiated the path on foot, with the expectation of a dip in the ocean, an icy coolerful of water, soda and Gatorade and a sandwich as recompense for the ordeal. The suggestion that one might instead just follow in the SUV having been roundly pooh-poohed, with a few misgivings I gingerly threaded the vehicle past the rocks and ditches which composed the majority of the trail, and glancing once more in the rear view mirror saw that the walking figures had dropped out of sight. The drive is sufficiently challenging that in truth I was unable to spare another thought for the perspiring perambulators until the car was parked in the shade of the trees lining the marge of the beach. This is the parking area not merely for the northern end of the beach but also for one of the restaurants that sit along the shore.

I should say that, were you to arrive with a more western idea of “restaurant” in mind, you might be mystified as to where among the collapsing cement walls, windowless cinder block constructions and apparently haphazard collections of wooden planks and plywood the path to the restaurant might be found. It is only with acclimatization you realize that this is the restaurant.

As I stepped onto the sand, a figure detached itself from a small family group of figures who had been splashing and playing in the water at the beach edge. Squinting in the intense light of the noonday sun, I saw it was a shirtless Djiboutian man of middle age who strode toward me, smiled and indicated in French the vacant beach cabana that our party should occupy. The proprietor, of course. I indicated that we’d be waiting for friends, and out of curiosity asked if they were serving food and drink today (remember – there is no external evidence that there is a restaurant anywhere around, except for the hand drawn sign averring it). “Mais bien sûr”, he replied, smiling broadly. Thus it was that when the intrepid walking party toiled up, a bit sweaty but otherwise no worse for wear, I was leafing through the menu and sipping ice cold water. In fact, driving had only beaten walking by about 30 minutes – a testament both to the dreadful road, and the good time made by those who elected to travel via “Shank’s mare”. Reunited, waters and Gatorades were drunk, swimming and bobbing were accomplished, and half of us ordered lunch (the other half choosing the sandwiches we had brought along).

Despite the unpromising surroundings, lunch was quite nice. Baguettes, of course, and I had a sort of Nicoise salad, some beef brochettes and banana beignets. The breeze was onshore, and while this made snorkeling unrewarding as visibility was reduced to neglible, it made the shaded area beneath the awning quite cool. Lunch, looking over the Gulf to the faintly visible highlands above Tadjoura and Obock, cooled by the sea breeze, was as pleasant a meal as I have eaten here on the Horn. After a couple hours of lounging we packed up and prepared to head out. That’s when we had our, um, encounter.

As we packed the last of the beach accoutrements in the SUV, I spotted a couple of camels about 50 feet away. “Hmmm,” thinks I, “I’ll try to get a picture”. In my experience, camels are pretty stand-offish, so I carefully aimed my little Fuji at the beast and…click. Then she wandered closer. “Oh good”, I murmur, “This’ll be even better”. Click. Then it occurs to me that the camel is still moving closer. Quickly. And soon after that it occurs to me that camels are big. Now, I defy you to look in those big brown eyes and not imagine that a gentle soul lies behind them, but camels do have a bit of a reputation for spitting and biting…so I was hesitating between wildlife encounter and hiding in the car, when with a final burst the camels made the decision for me. As the sequence of pictures above shows, we spent a brief amount of quality time together and, while I suspect my dromedary companions of designs on my hat, in the event we got on famously until one of the boys who’d been playing in the surf earlier shooed the beasts away as one might chase a pesky rabbit out of one’s vegetable patch.

Strapped once again in the car, we rattled our way back to the paved road and then home to the comfortable, but completely camel free confines of Camp Lemonnier. It occurs to me that the camels wanted nothing other than to be fed, or perhaps some water. They are remarkable beasts up close, and at least in this case were quite as gentle as their placid gaze and long lashes suggested. Maybe next time we'll bring along camel treats...or maybe not.

Not much else of note. We watched "The Godfather" on Saturday's Wardroom movie night, and my friend Jeff and I picked up some pizzas from a nearby pizza place to lend a bit of Sicilian atmosphere to the event. The movie, despite having become a cultural cliche, is still a great cinema experience. I must admit to feeling just the slightest catch in my throat at the scenes of village life in Sicily, where we lived for 3 very happy years when Jack was a toddler.

Doubt I'll choke up when I see Djibouti on the big screen in the future...but it's been an interesting time so far.