On my About Me page, I alluded to the possibility of writing about my experience traveling in Africa – to add an entertaining counterweight to my more analytical rants and musings on the events unfolding on the continent. The following is about one aspect of the time I spent in Djibouti a few years ago:

I spend the majority of my time in DC, so clearly, it is rarely hotter than Djibouti. Regardless, the ‘Is it hotter than Djibouti’ game has been part of my summertime internal dialogue since my stint at Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa a few years back. And this is especially so now that DC has entered the season where the weather is so suffocating that the simple act of breathing is kind of a privilege for us asthmatic folk.

When I was at CJTF-HOA, I lived a 15min walk from the building where I worked. On my way to work, there was a colored flag that would indicate the weather conditions at that particular hour of the day. The color of the flag would also indicate what level of physical activity one could sustain, and for how long, before adverse effects would start to kick in. See example below:

The majority of days I walked past the flag around 8am, it was already Red or Black. So you can imagine what was in store for me once I walked over to the galley at lunchtime. 🙂

DC summer isn’t that bad, eh?