Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day Sweethearts.
  Hey I had a good day today (relatively... considering).  I got a mushy eCard from my babe and went and had a much needed massage - also from my honey... I feel a million times better. I chilled out a bunch today; for the near term I have Thursdays off.   I met with the new boss here this week and he put me in charge of the "YODA" watch schedule and duties so one day a week is what we get [one day is just as good as another around here]. YODA is our radio callsign for our position here at the base (we're all knowing and use the 'force' a lot to get all our taskers done).  I work in the JOC (Joint Operations Center - kinda like the command center you saw in the movie War Games except this one is ad hoc).  We talk to the aircraft and coordinate all the military flying in and around Camp Lemonnier (CLDJ) for various operations. We're the air component of the U.S. AFRICOM staff, CJTF-HOA AC (Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, Air Component). It is a Navy run camp with members from the 4 services here - much heavier in officers than most places as we're a large staff working for the 2-star CJTF-HOA commander. I can't get into details, but I don't work 12 hour shifts for nothin'

    Outside of work I don't have a ton of 'free time'. I'm keeping up with my morning workouts, there is a group of us that do the "INSANITY" workout Mon-Sat. It really is Insane; I hope I can keep consistent with it as it'll do me a lotta good - Sean T is an Animal! They even had a Sweethearts 5K run this morning; I finished in about 28 minutes - and that's after doing my Insanity workout. I've also been spending too much time in the chow hall - 3 a day buffets still aren't doing me any good. I'll have to get some pictures of it - they built a brand new facility and it's great. But definitely not Kerry's home cookin' So with all the comin' and goin, odds and ends like showers, laundry, writin' this blog, Facebooking I don't get but 6-7 hours of sleep, my days off are great.


CLDJ to Les Sables Blancs

   Today wasn't my first day off - on Sunday I was invited to tag along with a few guys to Les Sables Bancs (The White Sands) near Tadjora, Djibouti - a 2 1/2 hour+ drive from Camp around the Gulf of Tadjora, by Lake Assal and the Day Forest - the drive alone was an adventure.  Traffic in a city in a 3rd world country is an experience to behold - absolute pandemonium.  Kids, bicycles, buses, goats, camels, motorcycles - I'll have to get some video for you just to prove it.  As we left the city we drove through the hood... a hood like I've never seen before - the conditions these people live in is deplorable.  The 'homes' in this picture are permanent residences in the local landfill as they had easy access to food. There weren't just these few there were 100's of them


The hood

 Outside 'Djiboutiville' there is nothing but wide open spaces with the occasional village built around a small mosque.  More ranshacke homes, but a few solid structures.  More camels, goats, and even baboons along the road as well.  The highways outside the city were well paved except for where they had washed out in a dozen or so places.  The speed limit is 90 km/h but nobody is doing less than 120 except the big trucks hauling who knows what from the Djiboutian ports to Ethiopia.
 There was a surprising amount of shrubbery on the plains, a few odd trees and lots of terrain.  There were rocks everywhere too - most covered in black - either soot from an old volcano or burnt from the sun.  I was very fortunate to get out and about to see the sights - I can finally grasp that I am in Africa.








  Les Sables Bancs is probably the best beach area in Djibouti.  About a 1/2 mile long stretch of beautiful sand and blue water.  No more than 50 feet off shore is an above average coral reef.  Among the gear I packed included my snorkeling gear - I'm very glad I brought it as I hope to do a bit of SCUBA diving.  There were sea turtles and lots of tropical fish.  I was really hoping to catch a glimpse of the whale sharks that roam these waters, but I got here just a bit too late - they hang out in the Gulf of Aden from Oct thru the end of Jan.  I spent the day diving and sitting on the beach getting a sunburn - sure beats sitting in the JOC for a 12-hour shift.



Les Sables Blancs