Balbali School of English

This school welcomes all of those who want to practice their English at no cost. During our last session, we ran into many Somalis, Djiboutians and Ethiopians. It is our job to enrich the community with the knowledge of the English language, the finance language of the world.

To get there, we had to travel down a beaten path far from the reaches of paved highway. The van wobbled up and down as it rolled over sporadic boulders embedded into the path. As we drove along, we gathered wide-eyed stares and kids chased us as we made our way to the Balbali School of English. The school was situated in a narrow alley surrounded by Muslim style mosques. Clearly, it was a place which felt like it had been here for centuries. Progress is slow; it seems not much development has happened here since the dawn of mankind.

Getting out of the van, I was greeted with handshakes and the occasional, “hi” and “nice to meet you”. I strolled into the tin building. The walls were covered with faded travel posters, maps and English words taped to the wall. It was a learning environment that I had never seen before. It was quite shocking to me and I was going to do my best to make some kind of difference in the lives of these people by sharing my time.

The topic we spoke of involved Djibouti's most popular drug, khat. We asked them if khat should be given up for Ramadan. Most of the population agreed and said that it should be banned from the country because it does no good.