Konso, Ethiopia - Day 125 - Boots on the Loose

After breakfast, headed just outside of Turmi (where we spent a night camping) to visit the Hamer tribe which would turn out to be everyone’s favorite tribe of the trip. People wanting us to take their photos of course, but generally listening if we said no. Walked around the village with 2 kids in each hand for a bit; the women all have long hair that they colour red which apparently is to keep them cooler.

I have so many mixed feelings about visiting these villages; on one hand turning themselves into a spectacle is a way to make money that they can share with others in their tribe to hopefully improve their lives. For me it’s cool that I can come and see these cultures, but it so often doesn’t make me feel comfortable treating them as a spectacle. Surprisingly they don’t seem to be putting the look on for us at all which makes me feel better, and it’s only 1 small group of huts we ever visit (maybe 30 or 40 people) when in fact there are thousands in each tribe that remain sheltered from us.

Unfortunately there’s only 1 road to the south, so the majority of the drive back to Addis is doubling back on what we already saw. Made it back to Konso around mid-afternoon which was where we had the brake problems on the way down. After a couple beers we decided to go find out where all the cheering we could hear in the distance was coming from. Turned out to be a football match up the road, so we started to watch it and before we knew it we had more people surrounding us than were watching the game, which turned into a game of brading Jen, Jamie and Alissa’s hair (all the local girls have their hair braded into intricate designs which orften looks really cool).

It’s also neat to see that clothing donations do in fact get to the people here; people wear a wide variety of ragid clothing from around the world over the past 3 decades… 1 kid at the soccer game had a Montreal Canadians shirt on from the early 80’s!

Left the game early to have a baby football/table tennis rematch with Andu which was a little stressful with a good 30 or more locals watching the “ferenge”play. Before we knew it a storm blew in, and it was a short sprint back to the hotel for dinner and beers.