Kolcho - the Karo

One more village, why not? The Karo are one of the smallest tribes in this area, numbering perhaps 1000. They live in the village of Kolcho, which is attractively located on a hill overlooking, once again, the Omo River. But what else can I say? When we arrived, there were five other four-wheel drives parked under the specially constructed car port, just off-loading the tourists. Yet, there were sufficient women and children left to immediately line up next to our car, too, for the inevitable photo, against the inevitable two birr. And although I do believe they have their traditional outfit, once again consisting of very little cloths, I just don’t buy it that they are all permanently so elaborately face- and body-painted, or permanently have a nail through their lower lip, or anything else that – I think – is just an addition to attract the tourist’s camera.

(1, 2) Kolcho is brilliantly located, with views over the Omo River, although the village itself is the ususal collection of round huts

No guide here, so no means of communication; however, I do find a young guy, perhaps 20 years old, who speaks quite good English. He tells me that he studies in Arba Minch, in boarding school, and is just visiting back home. Then he asks me for my pen. You can take the boy out of the village, you can’t take the village out of the boy.

Another observation: a man invites me, no, he insists, that I come into his yard, where he and two of his friends are sitting under a thatched roof, eating from an enormous bowl of nuts, or grains, or something. They immediately ask to be photographed, and hold up the bowl in front of them, to increase the attraction of the photo’s subject matter. They never, once, contemplate to offer me a grain, or a nut, or whatever it is they are eating from the bowl. In my culture, you would never not offer some nuts or grains to passing visitors you have just asked in. And in many poor countries I have lived - Haiti, Indonesia, India, you name it -, people would share what they have with visitors. But here tourists are not seen as visitors, with whom you could have a human interaction, they are just seen as mature resources, that can be milked.

Apparently, we pay 200 birr – almost 10 Euros – per person entry to the village, plus 50 birr for the car. Plus all the individual photos, of course. I have no problem with paying, after all, everywhere in the world people pay to see something that is unique. But let’s not do as if we are coming to see an almost extinct culture; let’s just call it by its name, we are here in the South Omo ethnic museum – or call it a zoo, if you like -, and the people here are the museum’s assets – and hopefully their main beneficiaries, too.

We are in the low season, now; imagine the high season, quite possibly with more visitors than objects to look at!

(3, 4) this is the problem with photos that you pay for, they are just not spontanuous (unless you can get the person to laught a little)

(5) and this is how unrealistic it really is, if you zoom out

(6, 7, 8) a few more Karo, but I just don't believe that this is how they always go about their business, I suspect that the traditional outfit has been enhanced somewhat to appeal even more to tourists

(9) on the other hand, the cattle boy outside the village is just as traditionally drerssed as the people inside the village - except for the face paint, for the nails through his lower lip, and perhaps a few more additions

Omorate - the Dasanech

Did I say there was very little between Key Afar and Turmi? Between Turmi and Omorate there is even less – except for birds! In the dense savannah we see plenty of Guinea Fowl, and another walking bird, don’t know the name, and in the trees carmine bee-eaters and a whole range of other colourful birds fight for camera attention – once again, it is almost like a Mursi village!

(1) Guinea Fowl, plenty of them - could well, on occasion, be used as surrogate chicken on the menu (without telling you, of course)

(2) and another walker, perhaps the Arabian Buster?

(3, 4) but really, the most fun are the colourful birds, and especially if they agree to pose together!

The other feature of the landscape is the termite hills. Everywhere, they reach for the sky, like chimneys, sometimes higher than the surrounding trees. The only colour, apart from the birds, is provided by Oleander trees, some enormous, and many in full bloom.

(5) the termite hills, as chimneys rising from the earth

(6) oleander trees bring some colour

Omorate is a village you cannot miss, if only because it is at the end of the road, on the Omo River. The village itself is not much, despite its dual carriage way main street, but the reason to come to Omorate is to visit a Dasanech village, another tribe of this region, numbering perhaps 6000-7000 people, of which the most accessible 500 live just across the river, in a small hamlet. And Dasanech are indeed a culture on their own, although during the day it is mostly women and girls, and some old men that are present. In terms of cloths, they do not wear much, but body decoration is splendid, and very creative. An older woman has a head-dress of bottle openers, whilst the young girls have used the tops of soft drink bottles for their own head cover. Beads galore, necklaces, bracelets, the whole garamut. Sadly, I somehow have the impression that much of this is in response to tourist interest, the sillier you make your outfit, the more likely they are to take your picture– going rate two birr. And while not as insistent as the Mursi, they are really only hanging around to be photographed, and they make sure you know it.

(7, 8) our river transport, the same as used by local people

(9) a Dasanech hut

(10, 11, 12) and the people themselves, although I wonder how authentic the bottle tops are

Many of these girls should be in school, of course, but here only boys go to school, or so I am told by our guide (I wonder whether even this is true, given the number of young boys playing in the river, but anyhow). I don’t think any of my well-meant arguing why girls should go to school, too, will change the situation in the short term, the tourist business is simply too lucrative (just crossing the river, in a dug-out canoe, cost 3 US$ each!; and there are 20-25 photogenic girls lined up at the canoe landing place). In the long term, I hope, and I think, this culture will slowly die an inevitable death. Living in the very basic conditions that these people live in is not really necessary anymore, in 2012. But everybody will choose their own priorities. The few men we talk in the village all follow the British Premier League Soccer on television. They all think Arsenal is on the wrong track, and should sack the manager. As I said, a matter of priorities.

(13) cows being watered in the river - the only permanent source of water here, and (14) a woman making her way in between the cows

Turmi - the Hamar

A sign announces “Welcome to Turmi”, and that is just as well, otherwise one might even pass through the town without noticing. Turmi is some 2.5 hours drive from Key Afar – remember, where we visited the market? – and in those 2.5 hours very little changes outside. We are in bush and savannah landscape, a bit like the Mago Park, with plenty of trees, but mostly not very high, and interspersed with shrubs. What is most noticeable, is the total lack of traffic – despite that, major work is ongoing to upgrade the road -, and the total lack of people. So here and there some cattle is still scurrying around, some goats, too, but compared to the rest of the country, there is really very little here.

(1) Turmi being announced, just in case, and (2) Turmi centre on a Saturday afternoon

Turmi is Hamar-country, perhaps the most amiable tribe in the South Omo Valley. These are the fierce looking men who cannot help but smile at you, undermining the whole reason for looking fierce. Our tour operator had planned a visit to a Hamar village, far away from the beaten track, necessitating a strenuous walk in the heat, but promising a friendly, un-spoilt village at the end. Something went wrong. The guide perhaps had only understood that I wanted to walk, so I walked, for some 20 minutes, and there was the village. Turmi-West, a suburb of Turmi itself; the main road was actually two minutes away, on the other side of the village – we could have gone by car. When taking photos, I had to take care not to include the corrugated iron from the main town.

The village itself is nice enough, round huts, storage platforms, the usual stuff of a South Omo village. People in the village were friendly enough, too, and even up to the occasional conversation, which however, like so often here, invariably ended with the question “photo?, two birr!”.

(3, 4) the village, round huts, some even with door!

The first family I came across was building their new house, and asked me if I would help. Silly me understood they wanted me to help digging the holes for the support poles. No, what they meant was whether I could give them money, so they could buy coffee, or anything. Of course! That is the first thing you ask your visitors! Other conversations were not noticeably different, and were hampered by the fact that the guide did answer my questions even before translating them to the people I was supposed to interact with.

In the end I think I enjoyed the 20 minute walk the most.

(5, 6, 7) some of the people in the village, including women with their characteristic hair-do including a red mud for a sort of rastafa look

(8) and another inhabitant, happily finishing the dishes

(9) aloe plants survive remarkebly well in this dry climate

(10, 11) watching birds, and watching birds watch themselves, is one of the great activities in our hotel cum campsite in Turmi

(12) and we did come across some hapless Dutch campers, too, complete with laundry line and - get this - "De Telegraaf"!

the Mursi

Probably the most famous of the tribes in South Ethiopia are the Mursi, on account of their women, who distinguish themselves through their profound lip-plates, large clay plates that they insert in a hole in their lower lip. The stuff you see on the front cover of the National Geographic; the stuff you never imagine to see in real life, really.

The Mursi go essentially naked, save for a colourful blanket, either wrapped around the waist, as most women do, or loosely thrown over the shoulder, like with most of the men. I suspect a fairly recent addition to a men’s outfit are underpants - briefs no boxers -, but many haven’t acquired this piece of equipment yet (and it often shows). Women go bare-breasted, or partly covered, this largely depends on the size and position of the breasts. Children, well, nothing really, apart from some decoration, another impressive element of the Mursi culture. Many women wear stacks of bracelets on the arms, some have elaborate head-dresses. Apart from the lip-plates, many have insertions in their ear lobes, as well. Men also decorate themselves, with beads, earrings, the occasional body or face paint, and sometimes a colourful band around the head. Few have a lot of hair, and the little they have is often shaven in patterns. Men and women also have extensive marks on their bodies, from initiation rites or scarification in patterns, purposely creating scars by cutting the skin, and wrap it with charcoal so that the wound swells – this is considered a mark of beauty. All together, an attractive people, with a very basic life style centered around cattle herding, almost unchanged for centuries.

But to get to the Mursi? There are several villages in the Mago National Park outside Jinka. To get into the park you need an armed game scout, who will accompany you all the time. Not that there are a lot of animals in the park. To visit one of the villages, you obviously need a permit, and a mandatory guide – this is Ethiopia, after all.  The villages closest to Jinka are the most touristic ones, fully geared towards extracting money from visitors – plenty people who come for the day, take the pictures, and return to Jinka again. So we opted, at the advice of our tour operator, for a village further away, necessitating a night camping out. The idea being that, once you have been in the village for a few hours, the people get used to you, and do not bother you continuously anymore, and you can get beyond the superficial contact, deeper into the culture. Well, choice was in fact limited, because there are, or so the story goes, only two permanent villages, all others are semi-nomadic and move from time to time. What is more important, the semi-nomadic villages have no police or army presence, and no formal structure, which means that they could easily turn in a free-for-all. This works as follows: tourists pay the Mursi money to take photos of them, the Mursi then drink it up, get drunk, start a fight, and become even less uninhibited when it comes to appropriating other people’s goods. So really, there are only two places where one can camp, one on this side, and one on the far side of the river, and with the coming rainy season, there is really only one, if you don’t want to run the risk of being cut off, for hours, days or weeks, as soon as it rains.

Good, to Hailuha, thus, the only village on this side of the river which is safe to camp. The best spot is the yard of the health clinic, but the head doctor, or somebody, was concerned that people would start demolishing the tent during the night, so we were advised to camp in one of the class rooms of the local school, as long as we would move out again before 8 am the next day. So we cleaned out the class room – which looked more like a pig stead –, put a tarpaulin down and our bedding, and that was that.

In the mean time, a short stroll through the village - remember, they need to get used to us? – focused mostly on the conversation regarding photos, and what I had in my pockets that they could get to: pens, money, water bottles. Sofia was better off, she could have a conversation about bras – or more precisely, whether the women could have her’s; after all, the Mursi go almost naked. Any other communication was difficult, especially because each attempt was immediately cut down to a number between 2 and 5, the amount of birr (the local currency, 2 birr is about 10 cents) it would cost to take a photograph. This was going to be a tough one; for instance, initially we understood that the woman with the baby had five children, and the one on her back was her second child, but no, it cost 2 birr to photograph the child, 5 birr to picture her. The fact that we didn’t carry any cameras – we had left them inside the school, after all, this was a trust building exercise, no? – did not noticeably reduce the single-mindedness of the conversation.

After an hour, or so, we decided to retire to the school, for a while. We had firmly answered every question regarding photos with no (or naiji, in Mursi language), but this did in no way affect the insistence of the people - mostly women and children -, they just continued offering their pictures;  and we still had the same group around us as from when we started our stroll, plus a whole lot more.

At the end of the afternoon we went out again, now with camera. We thought to visit the village chief first, after all, you need to get the important ones on your side, no? Mistake. The chief was really only interested in my shirt, or any of my shirts. And he wanted his picture taken, together with his wife and whatever children were around. For the standard price of 3 birr, per person in the picture.  But once the process of taking photos had started, a real hysteria broke out, everybody was pulling my shirt to get my attention, push themselves in front of the camera, 3 birr for me, 2+2 for me and my friend. Off-putting to say the least, yet when, after a short while, I had decided not to take any more pictures, they became even more insistent; girls would take off their cloth and show their breasts, in the hope I would change my mind, and with their cloth, the price dropped, too. This was not just off-putting, this was disgusting. Surrender every piece of human dignity for the prospect of collecting a few lousy birr from the foreign tourist. And sad, too: I don’t buy the poverty argument, these people have been able to live without money for centuries, it is nothing else but greediness.

We got back to our school, cooked our meal, went to sleep, and checked out the next morning, without taking the camera out once more. At least now we know how they get these nice pictures on the front of the National Geographic.

(1) the chief and his wife, and some random children, I think - now you understand why he wanted my T-shirt

(2, 3) two women with the characteristic lip plates, in various states of cover depending, well, on the size and status of their breasts; pictures say so much more than words

(4) family dinner in the village

(5, 6, 7) and the village itself, round huts, storage platforms to keep stuff away from the animals, and a hut opening

Karat - the Konso

Further south from Arba Minch we initially stayed on the flat valley floor, where banana production seems a major activity – in addition to the omnipresent herds of cows and goats, which are still being watered and being walked, somehow preferably up and down the main road. Only after a while we left the valley floor and climbed into the mountains again.

 (1, 2) all along the rift valley - but also in other parts of Southern Ethiopia - trees are equiped with cylinders serving as honey combs

(3, 4) they don't have as many donkeys, in this part of the country...

(5) still is still not too far away from the lake, plenty of fish eagles (remember the one at Lake Chamo?)

The next town of any importance, if only because it is located on a junction of the only two main roads in this part of the country, is Karat, home to the Konso people. There are some 300,000 of them, apparently, mostly scattered across the country side, but around Karat they are concentrated in characteristic mountain villages: the oldest part on the top, and additional layers of houses built in circles around it, each lower layer protected by its own stone wall. The houses themselves are tukuls, round huts with thatched roofs and a pot on the top, against leakage (the pot can also signal the religion of the family, eg with a cross in the pot, or whether the family is that of an important clan leader, then they have an ostrich egg on the pot). Of most interest to us, collectors, are the wooden sculptures that are being placed on important graves, depicting the hero or clan leader, his wife, and the enemies he killed during his life; unfortunately, most of those so-called wagas have already been stolen, to the effect that the Konso now keep their dead inside the compound, not anymore in the fields around the village. We decided not to put a bid in.

(6) Konso women, with their typical skirts - apparently, you can tell from the length of the skirt whether she is married or not

(7, 8, 9, 10) Konso village, with its narrow entrance and round huts, decorated - in this case - with ostrich eggs to identify the house of a very important person

(11, 12, 13) and some of the village's inhabitants

(14) a window, and some mais drying (just a pretty picture)

(15) a collection of wagas, statues indicating the grave of an important hero, depicted in the largest sculpture, and his wife, and defeated enemies in the others

With the Konso, we have also arrived in the South Ethiopia tourist trap, where everybody wants to have their picture taken, only to charge you somewhere between 10-25 cents for the privilege, afterwards. They also try to charge you for every other photo, whether from their house or somebody else’s, from a cow or a goat, or from an exotic bird that happens to be in the neighbourhood. And then, suddenly, it turns out to be a blessing to have a mandatory guide, someone who puts things in perspective and deals with the unreasonableness of the villagers – mind you, we have already heftily paid for the visit at the official Konso tourist outfit, nothing comes for free here. I suspect this is how the next few days will be, in each and every village of each and every tribe. Did I say, earlier, that this was the last frontier, the only area where African tribes still lived in their original setting?

(16, 17, 18, 19) Konso market in Karat, including the selling of green herbs - not the usual chat, I think, this is more a man's business - and colourful hats