Tadjoura

Tadjoura is one of the oldest settlements on this coast and was a port long before Djibouti City existed. Its position at the foot of the Goda Mountains put it at the sea end of a caravan route climbing to the Ethiopian highlands, and in the nineteenth century goods came down it to the gulf, above all from Shewa — ivory, gold, honey, grain and ostrich feathers, and enslaved people, a trade that continued on a smaller scale even after its abolition by decree in 1889.

Since at least the sixteenth century the town has been the seat of an Afar sultanate, the Sultanate of Tadjoura; its port rose to prominence in the early nineteenth century as an alternative to Zeila, though the sultan's real authority reached little further inland than Lake Assal. France signed treaties with the local rulers in the nineteenth century as it assembled the territory that became French Somaliland, and the line of sultans continued afterwards, into the twenty-first century.

The town's commercial importance fell away once France built its new port at Djibouti City in 1888 and ran a railway inland from there: trade moved to the south shore, and Tadjoura became a quiet regional centre living on fishing, herding and the highland gardens above it. It was affected by the civil conflict between the government and Afar rebels in the early 1990s. More recently a new port was built, intended mainly for potash from Ethiopia's Afar Region, with a new road, the RN-11, running inland towards the Ethiopian border at Balho; the capital lies about 130 km away by road around the gulf.

Tadjoura is an Afar town, and Afar language, clan structure and custom shape daily life more visibly here than in the mixed capital. Descent, seniority and the reputation of a family matter in how people are addressed, and disputes are often settled through elders rather than formal institutions. The sultanate remains part of the town's identity; its sultan from 1985, Abdoulkader Houmed, died in 2019.

It is also a religious town, known for its mosques; the call to prayer sets the shape of the day, Friday is the gathering point of the week, and Ramadan turns the rhythm upside down, with the streets busiest late at night. Dress is modest and behaviour reserved in public; visitors dressed as they might be on a beach in the capital stand out.

Life here is oral and social. Poetry, song and long conversation over tea are the entertainment, and hospitality towards a guest is a point of honour — refusing tea outright is awkward. The afternoon khat session is a male ritual, the leaf arriving by road from Ethiopia. Women have long had a large role in trade; in the nineteenth century they handled the trade with the Afar interior. Wedding celebrations, with drumming and dancing, are the great social occasions of the year, alongside the two Eids.

Tadjoura is the third-largest town in the country, the main centre of the northern shore and of the region that carries its name. Its population is overwhelmingly Afar, with families spread between the town, the villages of the Goda Mountains and herding camps in the drier country beyond.

The economy is small: fishing from the beach, livestock, gardens in the mountain valleys producing fruit and vegetables for the town, government and school employment, and the port, which brought construction work and some traffic to the Ethiopian border road. Many households also depend on money sent by relatives in Djibouti City or abroad. Water, electricity supply and jobs for young people are the recurring concerns, and drought in the interior pushes herding families towards the town.

The day divides around the heat. Fishing boats go out and return in the early morning, the market and the shops are busy before ten, and the middle of the day empties the streets. In the late afternoon the town comes back to life — tea stalls, the khat session, football on open ground, and families out along the shore once the sun drops. Movement in and out is by pickup along the coast road and by boat across the gulf.

Fish is the staple of the coast and the thing Tadjoura does best. Whatever the boats bring in is grilled over charcoal or baked whole in a clay oven after being scored and rubbed with chilli, garlic and spice, and eaten with flatbread and a squeeze of lime.

Away from the shore the food is that of the country as a whole: skoudehkaris, rice cooked in one pot with spiced goat or lamb; stews thickened with cumin, cardamom and the xawaash spice mix; and lahoh, the spongy fermented pancake also called canjeero, eaten at breakfast with ghee and sugar or with sauce. Sambusa pastries and bajiye fritters are the snacks, above all in Ramadan.

Dates, and fruit and vegetables from the mountain villages, reach the market in season, and camel and goat milk are drunk fresh or soured. To drink, there is shaah, very sweet tea heavy with cardamom and ginger, and coffee. Alcohol has no place in the town's life.