May 6, 2011

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?

Tonight was an eventful evening. It started out in the front of the Palace of the People near my house. There were several Asian men wandering around who were probably Chinese since there is Chinese company working there. Some Arab Djiboutians were attempting to make conversation with them in English but they were either being ignored or the Chinese guys didn't speak English. I sort of laughed at this attempt so they turned their attention to me. It turned out that one of them had been a student in Libya and asked if I had ever heard of it. I replied that I had since Libya is very famous or infamous at the moment. We had a nice little exchange and I carried on.

A block away I passed a young Djiboutian woman who was  maybe around 20. As I passed her she punched me in the chest. Surprised, I turned to look at her as she passed and then she spit at me. I kept walking a little shocked by this and saw a group of men who saw this exchange. They sort of smiled at me and I smiled back and kept walking.

The night continues 10 minutes later. I was standing on a street corner waiting to meet a friend for dinner when I saw a peculiar sight. A white man dressed in a long Arab robe and wearing local style sandals approached with 2 women. I wasn't 100% sure that he was white but after he walked by a young guy turned to me and said "white man" and laughed.

All of these events transpired in 15 minutes.

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