My First Venture Out Alone

I arrived in Djibouti late Tuesday night (Nov 3) and spent most of my first full day trailing behind Kristie, my new roommate and visiting with the man who heads up REI (the non-governmental organization our team works for). He was here with his wife just visiting for the day on the way back to the US from the Middle East. On my second full day, Tom and Rachel (our team leaders) invited us over to their house for the evening. Kristie wasn’t feeling well, so I decided to venture out by myself. Tom and Rachel’s house is on the opposite side of town from our apartment, but Kristie told me which buses to take, so I thought it wouldn’t be too much of a problem to get there. I caught the first bus into downtown just fine. The conductor asked me where I was going, and I said to the market. But I think something got lost in translation. I wasn’t exactly sure where to get off, so I just kept riding until finally the bus stopped and everyone got off. “This must be my stop!” I thought to myself. It wasn’t. When I looked around, I realized I was in the middle of a very poor area and not close to the market at all. I started walking and tried to ask some women for directions, but they laughed and looked at me like I was the first white woman they’d ever seen in their neighborhood. Maybe I was. The sun was setting fast, so rather than try to experiment with taking different buses and asking for directions I decided to cop out and take a taxi. I soon found one and fortunately I knew of a landmark near Tom and Rachel’s home, so I could tell the driver where to go. (People do not navigate by street names here—they go by landmarks, businesses, neighborhood areas and wall colors. I sometimes see street names, but nobody really knows them. I can’t even remember what street Kristie and I live on, but we always manage to get home just fine.) On the way, the cab driver started asking me where I was from. Our conversation went something like this: “Are you French?” “No.” “But you speak French very well.” “Thank you, but I’m not French.” “You must be Canadian then.” “No, I’m not Canadian either.” “Really? What about British?” “Nope. I’m American.” “American! I should have guessed. But why do you speak French?” “I studied it at university.” “Ah, so you are an ‘instructed’ American.” “Ha! I suppose so.” Then he paused and said something very encouraging. “You know, many of us here in Djibouti think of America as a big, mean country. But I can say from the Americans I’ve met here, that Americans are very nice people.” “Oh, I am so happy to hear that! Would you say that we are nicer than the French?” “Oh yes, much nicer than the French.” That made my day. I made it to Tom and Rachel’s just fine and would say the first venture out alone was a success.