Djibouti. Flexibility And Tribal Values

In the Horn of Africa, the idea of the home often takes the form of an open space; the house is a place of collective appropriation.

- Ilaria Bollati

When you land, Djibouti hits you with a furnace of sand and gusts of hot wind. In these searing, gruelling temperatures, the land looks comatose. Tiny and arid, but strategically positioned at the mouth of the Red Sea, it appears to gravitate wearily around its harbour, commerce, the hallucinations of qat, arms trafficking, swarms of street children, glue-sniffing and the exponential growth of military bases.

This is a complex, difficult country, juggling life with drought, dust, heat and the desert. Natural wonders, like Lake Assal, the lowest-lying depression in Africa, are as fascinating as they are subtle, paradisiac and deathly at the same time. The Republic of Djibouti is a scrap of land covering just 23,000 square kilometres, hemmed in between Ethiopia and Somalia. It is inhabited mainly by nomadic tribes, swarms of soldiers of different nationalities, a tiny urban population and a sparse network of small villages. Apart from the capital, there are few real towns. The people mainly lead adaptable, wandering lives, and this affects the architecture.