And then we went to the mystical land of the mountain...

14 Jul 2011 Arba Minch, Ethiopia

Dorze dance.

Southern Ethiopia has been an entirely different experience from the North. Perhaps I could blame it on my lack of stomach troubles or even that our sightseeing of churches finished in the North. But I think it is more than these issues alone. The South is wide open and filled with animals. The people live further spaced, predominantly in natural huts varying in style from tribe to tribe or climate to climate. The mountains, lakes, vegetation, and wildlife are beyond anything I have seen before. In our last 48 hours we have seen baboons, wild boor, crocodiles, hippos, and more bird species than I can count.

Megan and the fearless Beha

Beha is our driver for the South. We have ceased our daily flights in the North and now get to explore by Toyota Land cruiser and the enthusiastic Beha. He is from Addis but loves the South as well. He even speaks a few of the native languages from South Omo where the nomadic people still live. He wears a lion claw around his neck from his days working in a hunting company. “What country do most people come from to hunt here?” “From the US. Always from your country.” He answers. Then he continues to tell a story about two mad Americans who came to hunt lions, refused to listen to the Ethiopian guides, and demanded that their Kenyan guides were superior. They were not sharp shooters. One of the Americans shot a lion but did not kill it. They lost the lion in the sugar cane. Later it came back for revenge. The Americans had demanded to walk in the front, placed the Kenyan guides behind them, the Ethiopians in the back. “When the lion attacked the first American his claws went into his chest. It was like meat coming off a drumstick. Then he went for the second. The Kenyan guides ran away. And who killed the lion? The Ethiopians of course.” Beha tells us as he drives. “Those Americans must have been from Texas.” I remarked sarcastically.

Southern landscapes.

I am most impressed by the naturalness of living here. I have never seen such an “organic” country. The majority of farming is subsistence. The people leave the trees in their fields; cactus or brush forms the “fences” of the fields. The huts are all made from the false banana plant, bamboo, or even the mud from the large termite mounds. The animals are kept inside with the people to provide additional warmth in the night. Everything is used; even animal dung serves as firewood or as building material for other structures. Different symbols are often painted on the houses from natural oils, generally from flowers. A lion to designate a hero, a cow to designate a rich man.

Girl chasing our car.

In most of these areas the are few cars and the very sound of the land cruiser brings children to the roads dancing in hopes that we might throw them pens, candy, or money. They chase the car, especially when they see we are white. I have never felt so very aware of being “white” as I do now. In many of the villages we visit large crowds immediately surround us and the children try to touch me as much as possible. There is always a count down to being surrounded by children whenever we get out of the car anywhere. This issue makes bathroom trips to the bush especially time critical. One tries to finish one’s roadside business as quickly as possible lest you end up surrounded in your predicament by curious children.

Local traditional house.

The children are quite entertained when I take their picture and then show them their image on the screen of my digital camera. They often try to pull the bracelets from my wrists. Adults try to hit them with the same switches they use for the cows. Usually their English is very abrupt. “Give me pen.” Or “Give me money.” Much of the experience is very awkward and I am usually embarrassed by the fact that I am “white.” I feel more like a zoo animal than I do when I am Egypt. But the context is different. In Egypt I feel more aware that I am a woman. Here more aware that I am white. I am not sure if there are internal or external reasons for that, or both. I don’t even “believe” in “race” per say and most of the time I rarely think about it. It is a socially constructed category. Humans are more interrelated to each other as a species than almost any other species is related to itself. In other words, humans have a very small degree in variation across the species. Race is nonsense.

Women walking up the mountain.

People in the South do not seem to live in the same poverty and malnutrition that I saw in the North, though they are still very poor. Life is very hard, particularly for the women. Sometimes I find their lives not far different than the work animals. They carry heavy loads of firewood up and down mountains, spin cotton, prepare all the natural made foods (the process to make bread from the false banana plant is quite extensive), make rope, cook, give birth, raise children. The list goes on. Woman was taken from Man’s rib and so on and so forth- we are nothing more than like the animals: here to help Man.

Woman cooking.

“Yes,” Beha laments as he drives. “The life of woman is very very hard. It is not fair. I do not like it.” I am not sure if he is serious or saying it for Megan and my benefit. We have noticed his touches have become more frequent and friendly as our three days with him continues. Perhaps we have a wanna-be Casanova on our hands. We still enjoy his company though we are disappointed that our relationship with him is feeling somewhat tainted. We have both grown considerably tired of feeling like we are seen as sex objects more than anything else in our respective countries. More often than not, when you act somewhat normal or friendly with a man, he suddenly thinks he might have a shot at sleeping with you. Perhaps this is no different than the US, feelings are just kept under wraps there. Beha continues, “The men work in their fields for two to three hours and then have drinks, chat with their friends. The women always have a full day, from sunrise to sunset.”

Woman spinning.

I wonder about the exploitation of women. Why is it that everywhere women are to some degree or another second-class citizens? Marx says it is all about class struggle- well, perhaps it is all about gender struggle and the exploitation of women. Even in this “developing” society that is ripe for foreign exploitation of labor the women have always been the laboring force who in turn reap less for their labor and production than the men.

The deadly schnapps and false banana bread.

I was chewing over such irritations, watching the small hunched over women carry the loads of firewood uphill, when we arrived in the mountain top village of the Dorze people. We started with our typical ethnographic exploration of the traditional hut, guided by the second son of the compound whose name I cannot remember and who I will henceforth refer to as “dreadlock man.” After explanations of weaving and the various utilities of the false banana plant we were seated at a bench and table to try the false banana bread. Little did we know we would also be subjected to the local schnapps flavored with garlic, anise, and other spices. As soon as the shot glasses were set in front of us at 11am I knew we might be in trouble. Hopefully it would only be one.

Did I drink too much?

The shot was absolutely putrid and we had no chaser. Megan kept saying to use the bread as the chaser. The bread seemed to bring out the liquor’s worst flavor. It must have been close to 80 proof and I felt it go straight to my head. I kept saying to myself that by God I was a sailor and I could handle my alcohol. I would not get sick. Before we knew it more shots were before us and our pleas to stop were followed with comments like, “One is not our culture.” I wondered where Beha had gone and I knew Megan and I, two lone women, were probably being given some extra special alcohol treatment. A few other tourists had drifted through the area and they were not being hard pressed with the drinking.

Yes I might have drank too much.

I am not sure how it all happened next but at some point the local people lined up to do their ceremonial dance- or so they said it was. I was well on my way to drunk and watching men dancing around in cheetah skins with spears was not helping the situation. Before I knew it, I was also in a cheetah skin and dancing- and there seems to be photographic evidence as well (thanks to Beha). Megan was dancing across from me, also clad in cheetah skin. This experience was not what we had expected and was going far beyond our little ethnographic and intellectual explorations. Had we just been sitting in the land cruiser working her Mensa crossword puzzle on the drive up? And now we were trashed at 11am on local nasty bamboo-schnapps dancing in animal skins with spears? We felt like we had ended up in some otherworld of the mountain. After the conclusion on the dance we led through the local market by dreadlock man where he showed us what was referred to as the “high school” where people lined a bench drinking tej, or honey wine. You guessed it- it wasn’t long before Megan and I were sitting with huge glasses of the honey wine in front of us, dreadlock man getting more and more friendly. We were laughing, but it was time to escape. As we came down from the mountain, completely inebriated, I asked Megan what the hell had just happened. We had gone to the land of the mountain…

Honey wine with dreadlock man.

By the time my inebriation wore off we were in a boat in the middle of Lake Chamo in search of giant crocodiles and hippos in something reminiscent of the Disney Land Jungle Cruise ride. Lieutenant Commander Megan was pointing out to the boat operator that he had snagged a fisherman’s line in the motor for the second time. I kept muttering “Red over the red. The captain is dead” as I was sure we were about to lose the already feeble engine and go dead in the water in the middle of a lake infested with 5 meter long crocodiles. It would just go with the day.

Don't fall overboard!

As for what actually happened at the end of the day. Well, I might just leave that for Megan’s telling…