in the far south people still dig and plough with sticks and become exhausted, so obtaining these tools here is evidence of improved agriculture,’ said Zeno. ‘But we’ve still a long way to go.’ He stood by Louise and followed the line of her gaze across the market. ‘We could spend more time here but we have a long day tomorrow and we should find the others and a migib bet (small café). There’s one with umbrella-shaded tables at the entrance to the market.’ In a brief second their eyes met. ‘Are you hungry?’ Zeno asked.
‘I sure am, and thirsty.’
At the entrance to the market they found the café tables behind which were some ironwood trees and a corrugated kitchen shed. There were ten people in their party, and Zeno and Abebe arranged tables so they could eat together. A man brought two jugs of tella, some bottles of water, and a woman brought a tray of buna and a basket of injera. Bassam and Carmen ordered bottles of bishaan amo (mineral water). Abebe passed the tella jugs around and filled plastic mugs. Zeno recommended that they order the traditional spicy meat and vegetable wot with injera, supplemented with a lamb (bege) fried meat dish (signa tibs) along with a mild yellow sauce (alicha). Abebe and Zeno ordered berberi (chilli) to give more heat and flavour to their food.
Bowls of the meat and vegetarian dishes were placed in the middle of the table. Everyone was now very lively. Zeno, Abebe and Degu tore off corners of injera, scooped up the meat and vegetables. Watching them carefully, the others scooped out the wot, signa tibs and alicha.
Over an hour passed. It was time to leave. Zeno settled the account and after thanking the staff, they stepped out from the umbrella shade and walked back to the parked vehicles. The market-day crowds were returning home. Many men flush with tella drove their donkeys while their women carried baskets laden with eggs, fruit, meat, vegetables and assortments of pots and pans.
Abebe and Degu drove back along the tarmac road to the campsite which they reached by late afternoon. Heavy clouds were building and replacing the clear blue sky of the warm day. When they reached the camp site, Zeno set the next morning’s departure for 9 am.
The Omo River Valley
ON THEIR THIRD night at the camp it did not stop raining. In the morning there was a persistent drizzle when they left for the Lower Omo Valley. The roads were awash as they drove on rubble-strewn gravel through low hills in an alternating thick, and then clearing mist. Louise felt she was driving into clouds. She could only just discern the plains below and the peaks of hills. From time to time as the road became steeper Degu’s lead 4WD disappeared into the mist. A rough signpost pointed their way to the Lower Omo and eventually to the towns of Arba Minch, Key Afar and Jinka. The drivers were struggling to see, so both vehicles stopped until the mist cleared.
Alongside them the leaves of wild-olive bush, eucalypt, tough acacia and long grass dripped. They sat in the vehicle, talking for an hour until there were just slivers of mist hanging ahead.
The further off the beaten track I go, the more I’ll experience the real Ethiopia, Louise thought as she stared at the scant, veiled eucalyptus trees. It stopped raining. ‘Zenabu no more,’ called out Zeno. He explained that zenabu meant it’s raining. Abebe switched on the engine, and they rode on through the valley’s seeping damp.
With the windows down they enjoyed the scent of flowering acacias. Rain had brought freshness to the landscape, and mist now gave way to bright light. Louise thought about the ebb, flow and stress of Ethiopian weather. She savoured this moment of dripping trees steaming in the warming sun.
On the drive to Arba Minch, Zeno took them to visit the Dorze tribe, famous for their weaving. He told them how the division of labour in this ancient tribe was well established – the women spun and the men wove bright multicoloured fabrics. Louise and Carmen watched Dorze women concentrating on their spinning, occasionally glancing at their visitors.
Zeno’s program was so full that every time Louise wanted to spend more time on what she was observing, the group had to move on. Her fingers tapped on a vacant loom as she gazed at the hunched weavers in this unlit room where for centuries they had practised their art. The effects of long hours bent in one position were taking their toll. Again and again, sitting in one position, they lifted the loom’s harness, inserted yarn into the fabric and, maintaining necessary loom tension, mumbled among themselves. The finished colourful weavings in red, blue and yellow were hung on racks on the hillside outside the village. Does anything change here, she wondered, or are they now just tourist attractions that will soon be dispensed with, become unemployed, die young and be forgotten?
On the journey to Jinka and Turmi in the heart of Hamar tribal country they visited the rival Banna tribe and their market at Key Afar. They saw goats and cattle being bought and sold, and bags of different grains being bartered.
Ten minutes from the market they passed a village and could hear loud music. Then, swirling women in bright cotton skirts called, rejoiced and sang as they danced. Spinning flamenco-like, with hands aloft, leaping with lightness and control, their bodies glistened with perspiration. Louise watched the spectacle, incredulous at the dancers’ energy, feather-light, and women rejoicing, despite drought, destructive storms and famine. Zeno told her they were celebrating a village woman’s successful birth.
Louise loved exploring the Lower Omo tribal lands from her first sight of the Omo River Valley. The early morning light on eucalyptus reminded her of home. She was fascinated by the children tending goats, by the different Banna, Hamar, Mursi and Karo tribal people, by women cooking over open fires, the village gardens and the tribal markets in animist Key Afar and Jinka. She thought endlessly about the complexities of tribal life, of disaster and salvation and of the people’s resilience, and thought then of her grandmother’s optimistic view about there being nothing to fear in life.
‘You’re in your dreams again,’ Carmen said. ‘Would you ever come and work here?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I may return one day to finish what I’ve started on this trip.’
‘And I’ll come back with you, if the timing is right.’
‘Carmen, really! What a brilliant idea! I’ll have to come back if I’m to understand the way of life of the Hamar women. I want to focus my research on them.’
‘You’d return for no other reason…?’
Beside the River Omo
ON THE LAST day before returning to Addis, Carmen and Louise stood on the banks of the Omo River. The slow-flowing tributaries across the sandy hinterland, in places no more than a trickle, surpassed all that Louise had anticipated. She had thought of the Omo as a nondescript, muddy crocodile river – just a series of temporary puddles that sometimes swelled and overflowed. Now, in a southerly Karo village she watched the river gather momentum, and realised how thousands of people depended on it. Would this land that they loved be taken from them if development such as sugar and cotton mills, and in particular, widespread tourism, with five-star hotels, came to the valley? She pictured these vibrant villages becoming ghost towns.
Louise felt minuscule in the valley which seemed to wrap itself around her. She heard faint distant thunder and realised this was the ‘rain-song swagger’ which, apparently, told the people that drought was behind them and that ample harvests ensued. Louise gazed towards the catchment zone, imagining the River Omo infiltrating the gardens and fields.
At this moment Zeno walked over and joined them.
