Month: September 2020

Omo Valley Part 5: The Devil’s Doorstep and Whipping Scars

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Below us, down an extremely steep embankment, a dugout canoe waited to take us across the Omo River to visit the Dassanech tribe.  “If we trip, we are going for a swim,” I mentioned to our guide. “Don’t worry, the crocodiles are further downstream, closer to the delta,” he replied with his dry sense of humor, as several people helped us down to the water. 

Sitting low in the water, the dugout canoe was stable like a kayak and large enough for three of us. Standing on the stern, a tribesman poled us upstream for a distance before letting the current take us across the river to the equally steep, opposite bank. 

At the top of the riverbank freshly tilled fields, bordered with narrow irrigation canals, gave way to a flat dry landscape that extended to the horizon. The Dassanech are the southernmost tribe in the Omo valley, and their territory extends south to the Kenyan border at Lake Turkana and west to South Sudan.  Even with the river and lake nearby it’s a dry inhospitable terrain that has suffered from years of extended drought and climate change.  The temperature often exceeds 110°F. Consequently, as cross border tensions over diminishing grazing lands have increased, the Ethiopian government has discouraged the nomadic ways of the Dassanech.  In exchange for reducing the size of their cattle herds the government is helping them farm along the banks of the Omo River by providing resources and irrigation pumps.

We entered the village through an opening in the corral that encircled it. Roughly made of tree branches, it serves to keep cattle in and hyenas out at night. Low dome-shaped huts called miede constructed from foraged branches, twigs, river reeds and leaves used to be covered in cowhide for protection from dust storms and infrequent rains.  Now corrugated tin is used instead as there are fewer cattle to slaughter.

The huts must be roasting hot inside! Children hoop rolled an old bicycle tire along the irrigation canal while others played with empty water bottles tied to sticks as tribeswomen sat in the meager shade provided by huts.

The more plentiful shade of the few large, ancient trees still standing by the river is reserved for the men of the village and is off-limits to women and children.

This unforgiving environment created the atmosphere of a desolate refugee camp whose tribespeople were awaiting an unknown future.  To borrow a phrase, it felt like “the doorstep to hell.” I don’t say this to be derogatory, but to describe the intensely harsh environment. It’s remarkable that roughly 20,000 Dassanech can survive in such brutal, extreme conditions.  In such an environment, people wear very little clothing except when going to town. 

Visiting the Dassanech gave us a new understanding of the effects of climate change and the desire to migrate as a consequence of it. As we left the village, some of the tribeswomen had gathered to display their crafts. There is a social contract that, aside from paying for photos, tourists should purchase handcrafts from the villagers. It’s an additional way to help.

Back across the river, we stopped for a late lunch at a small place along the road, before heading to a Hamar village near Turmi. Outside the restaurant was a small collection box for the local church. 

Just a little aside: we had no intestinal issues with the food during our time in Ethiopia. The pit toilets, on the other hand, were truly frightening and we are convinced that they could only be mastered if you grew up with them. The privacy of a “bush toilet” behind a large termite mound was the more sanitary alternative.  And bring hand sanitizer!  (Surprisingly, after a year on the road, we only succumbed to food poisoning when we were back in Europe.)

A brief torrential rain dampened the dust and cleaned the air as we headed for the afternoon’s destination.

The golden hour was quickly descending when we arrived in the Hamar village and we only had a short time to work our way around the village before the sun disappeared behind a cloud bank. 

We were supposed to camp overnight in the village, an activity my adventuresome, good sport of a wife reluctantly agreed to when we planned this portion of our tour. “It will be fun!” I reassured her at the time. But seeing our pup tent set up in a small corral surrounded by dried cow dung and imagining how we would deal with a bush toilet in the darkness of the savanna, I had my doubts. I had imagined more of a glamping experience. Thinking of our aching backs in the morning from sleeping on the ground without any kind of padding, we asked our guide for plan B. 

Since the guides would have been participating in this camping adventure with us, they didn’t put up much argument about changing plans. This brought us to a comfortable room at the Buska Lodge, an eco-inn isolated in the thorn tree-studded savanna outside Turmi.  It was an oasis after a long and hot day. By the time we arrived the generator and water had been turned on.  At dinner we discussed returning to the Hamar village the next day, but early enough in the afternoon to give us enough time to enjoy the tribe and their village.

Early the next afternoon, before we entered Turmi, we crossed a dry riverbed where several teams of men were digging deep into the sand to find water. Towns without any water infrastructure rely on these hardworking and enterprising men to fill the ubiquitous yellow jerry cans with water and deliver them by donkey cart to people’s homes. It was another sign of climate change that reinforced its dire consequences.

The men of the village were still out with the cattle herds, but we were greeted by a throng of women and children.  The Hamar are known for their tradition of “bull jumping” or “bullah,” a purification and rite of passage ceremony for young tribesmen to prove their worthiness for marriage. It’s a complex ritual that culminates with the young man jumping over the backs of 10 bulls, which are smeared with dung to be slippery, four times without falling. If he falls he will have to wait a year until he’s allowed to try again.

We did not witness a bullah; what we did see were the results of the whipping ceremonies that precede the bull jumping. Displayed on the bare backs of the women of the village were large raised scars, which were inflicted by the men; the women receive the beatings as a show of loyalty.  Before the bull jumping, the sisters and other female relatives of the initiates from the surrounding villages gather, and with sorghum beer brewed for the occasion dance, sing and blow horns.  As the dancing intensifies the women are said to ask, beg, or provoke the maza, young men who bull jumped but haven’t married yet, to whip them with long birch branches called miceres.  This act of scarification is a visual reminder of the women’s loyalty to the young man about to bull jump and earns them the right to his help in the future should they ever need it.  “If your sisters, female cousins, or aunties need your assistance in the future your debt to them is sealed. You can’t ignore their requests, period. After all, they nearly died for you!” 

By western morals this is a brutal practice, but with the Hamar it’s an ancient ritual that has been performed for centuries. They have a saying, “Women with scars are as strong as lions!”

The Hamar tribeswomen are also very distinctive with their dress, wearing long goatskin garments adorned with cowry shells and beads.  The first wife of a tribesman wears an iron neck ring with a protruding knob on the front, called a binyere, that visually distinguishes her status as the first wife, above two esente, simple iron collars, that she has worn since her engagement.  The collars are permanently placed on the woman by the village blacksmith and only removed by her husband upon her death. Additional wives only wear simple metal necklaces to indicate their lower status.

We stayed late into the day, wandering through the village watching children play atop the cattle corrals while waiting for the herds to return and the sky slowly deepen to darkness.

Till next time, Craig & Donna

Omo Valley Part 4: Headrests and Visiting Stools

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Turning off the packed dirt road at Turmi, we headed into a xeric savanna along a sandy vein, barely visible on Google Map’s satellite view, our destination the Kara tribe’s village of Korcho.  Occasionally, we would pass a tree with pink flowers, called a Desert Rose (Adenium obesum), which brightly contrasted with its surroundings. 

Numerous red earthed termite mounds rose from the plain. “What do you think they look like?” our guide queried as we stopped to photograph a large, fluorescent blue agaminae lizard climbing one.  Not sure how to politely reply, we hesitated with a response.  “Dicks, they look like big dicks!” our normally reserved guide chuckled out before a round of laughter filled the truck.  Hey, we know how to have a good chuckle in the bush.  Obviously, we were traveling with the “Benny Hill” of Ethiopia.

Picking up on our interest in wildlife our driver, who was excellent at identifying birds, stopped every time he spotted something.  Thanks to his eagle eye, we were able to photograph red and yellow barbets, white crowned shrikes, guinea fowl, and red billed hornbills along with a dik-dik and an Arabian bustard.

The track ended in the Kara village of Korcho, located on a high embankment, above a curve in the Omo river – it was a stunning view. The Kara are the smallest tribe in the southern Omo Valley. Their population was decimated in the late 19th century during a sleeping sickness epidemic spread by the bite of the tsetse fly.

With an estimated 1500-3000 people left in three large villages, they are trying to keep their bloodline pure and have strict rules forbidding intermarriage with the surrounding tribes.  Traditionally pastoralists, they prefer goats over cattle, as their grazing lands have been reduced by conflicts with larger neighboring tribes; also, they now practice flood-retreat farming and fish in the Omo River. 

The Kara are also famous for their body painting.  Using designs inspired from nature, they apply local chalk and clay, iron ore, charcoal, and ground yellow mineral rock in intricate designs. They paint themselves or each other as there are no mirrors.  Done for beauty and ceremonial reasons, the body painting also helps to keep insects away and reduce sunburn. 

Men and women also make a single piercing below their lower lip and insert a single thorn or carved twig for decoration.  Scarification is practiced by the men to commemorate a courageous act, while women lash themselves because the raised welts are viewed as a sign of beauty on mature women.

Visiting stools called, borkotto, double as headrests and are carried by tribesmen wherever they go.  Courageous Kara tribesmen are entitled to wear a red and grey colored, clay hair cap which is decorated with a large feather. This symbol of honor can last up to six months and is ritually protected every night when sleeping by using the headrest to protect it from the ground. 

We were invited by a tribeswoman to have coffee in her hut. The Kara build relatively large huts, sturdily constructed of branches and thatch with a small low entrance.  We followed a small group, who dipped low and slid inside gracefully.  I, on the other hand, to the amusement of onlookers, resorted to crawling on all fours through the portal. The knees just don’t bend the way they used to.  Over an open fire our hostess was preparing a coffee beverage, more like a coffee tea, called buno which is made by steeping the dried husks of coffee beans in hot water.  The drink was passed around in a hollowed-out gourd which we all drank from.

Later that day we headed to visit part of the Nyangatom tribe living near the Omo River.  They are thought to have migrated into the Omo Valley region from Uganda in the mid-1800s.  The Nyangatom are semi-nomadic agro-pastoralists, though some members of their tribe that have lost their cattle now farm and fish along the Omo River.  Their permanent villages feature tall huts with a distinctive, pinnacled thatched roof.

Inland other clans drive large herds of zebu cattle, along with some goats and donkeys (as pack animals) through a large arid grazing area that extends west to the Sudanese border and north to the Suri territory. In times of drought they dig deep wells in the dry riverbeds so they and their animals can drink.

The Nyangatom name their generation groups. The oldest have names like the Tortoises, Mountains and Elephants.  The youngest generation is called the Buffaloes. Every fifty years the older generation steps aside for the younger one to rule. 

Nyangatom tribeswomen are recognized by the elaborate bundle of colorful necklaces they wear and never take off. The first strand of beads is given by a girl’s father. Every year after she adds another strand, mounding pounds of them up under her chin over her lifetime. 

Some traditions never change, but as we were leaving the village, we noticed a small solar panel atop one of the huts. Probably just powerful enough to recharge a cell phone or run a light bulb.  

Till next time, Craig & Donna

Lalibela Part 3: Sacred Bees and Holy Beer

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IMG_3424Walking, walking, walking! The countryside is full of folks out and about on their feet. There is a rural minibus network connecting larger villages once a day, and Lalibela has tuk-tuks, of course. But mostly, whether it’s due to lack of affordability or availability, people walk to and from everywhere. Sometimes it is necessary to travel great distances to accomplish simple, everyday tasks like gathering water, heading out to tend a remote field, going to market, or even farther to visit a doctor. IMG_5294In the rugged agrarian highlands surrounding Lalibela, all the fields are tilled by farmers walking behind teams of oxen, as it has been done for centuries, on farmland passed down through a communal hereditary system called rist.  IMG_5277

The land does not belong to an individual but to the descendants who can never sell, keeping the land in the family for perpetuity.  Without mechanization, planting, weeding and harvesting are done communally.  If the rains are good excess crops make it to a local market; if not, it’s subsistence farming until the drought ends.  Some NGOs are having an impact by drilling community wells for fresh water and remote irrigation.

We passed many individuals and groups walking as we made our way into the beautiful highlands surrounding Lalibela to visit St. Yemrehana Krestos Church, named for the king that commissioned its construction around 1100 AD.

It’s only 12 miles from Lalibela as the crow flies, and until the road was put in not too long ago, a two-day trek from town.  Now, twenty-six miles of dirt road and an hour and half later we were there, a world away from Lalibela.

The path to the church took us across a footbridge spanning a boulder-strewn stream where women were washing clothes in the rushing water below. They agilely jumped from rock to rock as they spread their laundry out to dry.  As we headed uphill, we stopped at the bottom of a set of stairs to wait for a group of church elders to cautiously descend.

Situated at 8500 ft above sea level, the altitude was catching up to us and we were glad to sit for a while in front of the church to admire its setting. St. Yemrehana Krestos is not a legendary rock church, but a cave church built at the mouth of a deep cavern, behind a tall slender waterfall.

It’s constructed in a distinctive pattern of horizontal stone block, followed by a recessed layer of timber in an architectural style copied from the Aksumite Kingdom that flourished from 400 BC until the 10th century AD. 

The cave is very spacious and actually contains two buildings. The second directly across from the church is thought to have been the king’s humble palace or treasury, according to our guide.  The door to it was open, but it appeared to be used mostly for storage now. The floor between the buildings is covered with reed mats that hide a substructure of large olive wood beams built over a shallow spring-fed pool that can be reached by a trapdoor in front of the church.

Behind the church are two tombs draped in fine cloth, to indicate their royal significance.  The larger tomb is thought to be the grave of King Yemrehana Krestos and the smaller one that of his slave, Ebna. Deeper into the cave there is a mass grave of several hundred now mummified bodies, which have been piled on top of each other for centuries, the corpses of pilgrims and monks who could go no further. 

It took our eyes awhile to adjust to the dim interior of the church as we worked our way through a columned interior, the tops crowned with wood and stone carved capitals.  Never restored, centuries of accumulated candle soot partially obscured an inlaid wooden ceiling with geometric designs and, on the walls, what are thought to be the oldest examples of mural paintings in Ethiopia.

Outside a local teenager was selling small clay figurines of animals. His rendering of a Walia ibex, native to the Ethiopian Semien Mountains, caught our eye and we made his day with a purchase.

Heading back, we passed Bilbala St. George Church, a rock church built in the 5th or 6th century AD by King Kaleb. It is legendary for its sacred bees that have lived in hives in the courtyard since its founding. Their honey is renowned for its healing properties, especially for the treatment of skin problems and psychological disorders.  We were crazy not to stop; in retrospect, we regret our decision.

Walking, walking, walking. Coming or going, people carrying umbrellas for shade traveling along with goats or chickens, for sale or for dinner – the road was crowded with activity as we drove through the village of Bilibala on its market day.

With no semblance of trying to attract tourists, we had a better chance of coming home with a donkey from the pre-owned animal auction lot than a souvenir.

Outside the village at the turn to our next stop, a magnificent ancient fig tree provided shade under its graceful canopy.

After walking briefly through a shady forest and crossing a narrow stream rock to rock we could see a large, what was once a turtle-shaped, monolithic rock rising from the ground before us, its front curve altered a millennium ago. The façade was chiseled smooth to be a high flat wall with an entry door centered in it.  This was the wall to the courtyard that surrounded the church; from the outside only a small section of the upper part of Bilbala Kirkos Church peaked above the wall.

Hearing us approach, the caretaker emerged from behind his home, swishing away pests with a cow tail fly-swatter as he approached, and told us that the church was locked because the priest was away in another village to attend a funeral, but we could go into the courtyard.

Shoes off, we crossed through an ancient threshold hewn in the 6th century AD into a spongy moss-lined trench that encircled the church on three sides and served as its courtyard. The eastern wall or back of the church was still attached to the living rock.  High arched windows were piled with stones to keep out birds and other critters.

Worn entry steps testified to centuries of use.  As we were getting ready to leave, the caretaker offered us tella, an Ethiopian home-brewed beer made from teff and sorghum grain and fermented with buckthorn. Out of concern for maintaining our good health, we passed on the offer, but our guide enjoyed it and shared that “tella is used for religious purposes when holy wine is not available.” Sacred bees and holy beer – we’re on to something here.

Cheers. Till next time, Craig & Donna