The Horn of Africa hasn't been a destination of choice for many people during these past few years. Mention that area of the world and most of us start getting images of Somali sea pirates, Mogadishu War Lords and the movie Black Hawk Down.

Yes, Somalia is still the most troubled land on the planet, but that's not the case for its border neighbors, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. Among those three countries, the latter is the smallest and it's the one in whose airport I landed a couple of weeks ago.

Beijing was getting a bit too cold for my taste, and I mean that in more than one sense, so I took a chance coming here to see in what ways it would be possible for me to participate in this small nation's efforts to develop.

Walking around Djiboutian streets has an entirely different flavor from most other streets my feet have ever walked upon. Poverty abounds in this country. I had been to poor countries before like in, say, Nicaragua and El Salvador, but this is Africa and, perhaps for that reason alone, reality seems to be quite different to me.

"You have to harden your heart around here", I told an American colleague of mine as we were walking down the street the other day. And indeed you have to, or you might end up having to give all your money away to the beggars.

Particularly striking are those mothers, young and middle-aged, who sit on the sidewalks holding their emaciated very young offspring in their arms. Sometimes it's indeed an unbearably heartbreaking sight to see, to the point that you have to dry the moisture in your eyes and turn around and put some coins in the mothers' hands.

But the locals hardly ever do anything of that sort. They've already grown accustomed to such scenes. They walk around perfectly untouched by the reality around them. They don't give a single penny away to the beggars; they just brush them away in a rather mechanical, impersonal manner.

Can we blame them for being so "cold hearted"? Well, everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but, in my view, they're just looking after themselves in the best way they can and to each his/her own. As I mentioned before, either you harden your heart around here or you might end up penniless sometime down the line.

The majority of expats in Djibouti are French, but that's no wonder, as this country was a French territory up until 1977, when Djiboutians got their independence. This fact turns out to be very convenient for me, as my French is always very fluent, which makes communication with the great majority of locals quite easy.

There are three naval bases here. In order of size they are: the American, the French and the Japanese. The land rental from those three military compounds provides the Djiboutian government with a sizable revenue to keep things going. Then there are the ports, which also provide the locals with some jobs and some additional government revenue.

Contrast between the locals' standard of living and that of the foreigners, of course, is always quite noticeable. To have an idea of this, please look at photos No. 27 to No. 35 (the local Sheraton Hotel) and then compare them with the rest.

Photos are shown roughly in the order they were taken.

To view larger versions of the photos just click on any of them and keep clicking "next".