Djibouti Photos are up on my Flicker link
I've finally posted 17 of my photos from Djibouti on the Flickr page that's accessible via the linkon the right side of my Red Room home page. That makes for a total of 50 photos I've uploaded, a process greatly slowed by the tedium of scanning my slides. Prehistoric, I know, but I hate to give up my steam-powered camera from the 20th century, so long as I can still find coal to fire up the boiler....
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Daniel Fried says:
High in Hell
After I looked at your photos I did my homework on Djibouti and came across an Esquire article titled "High in Hell" about the nation's extensive use of the stimulant khat. The journalist, however, describes the landscape as hell on Earth, which doesn't seem to be the case at all from your pictures. So either you are an great photographer, or maybe he just found himself in the wrong part of Djibouti.
-Daniel Fried, Red Room Intern
Jim Malusa says:
Actually Not-So-Hot in Hell, After All
Jim Malusa IntoThickAir@yahoo.com
Dear Daniel,
I read the Esquire article, too, and thought it was teriffic. The author wasn't in the wrong part of Djibouti, but merely predisposed to fear the desert. This is the standard reaction to Djibouti, whose northern extent (the Danakil Depression) was recently branded by National Geographic as "The Cruelest Place on Earth."
Funny, but after I returned from my book tour I would have cast my 'Cruelest Place" vote for Interstate 95 between DC and Baltimore. My experiences in Djibouti are not entirely pleasant, but mostly so. And the land, from the young lavas to the old camels, is as strange and lovely as the photos reveal. It's not that I'm a good photographer, but instead that touring on a bike puts me in the landscape, eyes open, and I'm ready when things look just right.
And the people? One of the most feared tribes in Africa - the crazed castrators! - invited me into their homes and even their mosque. I returned home with an entirely new view of what means to be a savage.
Yours,
Jim