In Southern Ethiopia, tours are offered to visit tribes of South Omo and Konso. I visited villages of the Aari, Mursi, Karo, Dasanech, Konso, and Dorze tribes. I also visited a market of the Hamar tribe and saw Lake Chamo. Over all it was an interesting though sometimes strained experience.
Day 1: Aari Tribe and South Omo Research Center
I arrived at the tiny airport of Jinka and found my driver waiting outside. After dropping off my bag and having a quick lunch, we headed out to meet the Ari Tribe. I saw how they make injera (Ethiopian flatbread), distill alcohol, and make knives and tools with fire.
To be honest, if I were to replan this trip.. I would ask to skip this tribe as they just aren’t as culturally interesting as the others I visited. The Aari guide did a nice job of showing me around, but it looked mostly like a regular African village in a beautifully green and quiet setting.
Next up was a visit to the South Omo Research Center. There were items from different tribes on display, info about these tribes, and a video about stick fighting. It provides some good information, but if you read a bit about the tribes in a guide book, you could save the time and skip this stop as well.
Day 2: Mursi Tribe and Hamar Market
The day started with an early morning drive into the Mago National Park to see the Mursi tribe. We spotted some birds, baboons, and dikdik along the way. The first Mursi village we stopped at for some reason sent us away. But our second try was a success. The Mursi Tribe are well known for the women that wear a lip plate. This is accomplished by cutting a slit under their lip and inserting a small clay plate to stretch the skin. The plate size is increased over time, maxing out around 5”. Women choose if they want to have this done, and less and less young women are doing so these days. Both men and women pierce and stretch their earlobes as well, with women stretching out a much larger hole.
Inside the village the women and children sell these decorated clay lip plates as well as painted clay cows to tourists. They are extraordinarily persistent, attempting to get you to buy more and more which is unfortunate. But if you can look beyond this, the village is nice to see. I observed a woman grinding sorghum for bread, their grass covered homes, and let some kids play with the camera on my phone (which actually produced my favorite picture from this village).
For more information on the Mursi tribe, you can explore www.mursi.org
In the afternoon we drove a couple hours to the town of Tumi where we went to a Hamer market. The young man that showed me around took me to the souvenir-area and kept trying to encourage me to buy something…. Finally we walked over to the regular market, but it was quite small. Ladies were selling tobacco, coffee shells, and grains.
The guide asked if I wanted to drink some honey wine (tej) stating I could buy a bottle to share with the Hamer tribe people in the drinking area. I gave in and it was good to sit with the tribesmen and talk a little through the guide. Though I felt like he wanted me to buy more bottles to share. The woman in this picture drank some of the wine I purchased. She is a first wife (as many men gave 2 wives) and you can tell by the type of ring encircling her neck. She, like all Hamar women, has the shorter bobbed hair in a fringe that is colored red. Both Hamar men and women wear copper bracelets on their arms.
That night I stayed at Kizo Lodge. Lots of bugs here, so be prepared and definitely make sure you have a functional mosquito net to keep them off you. Also the restaurant menu is a bit limited and quite expensive by Ethiopian standards, but I suppose the lodging options are rather limited here.
Day 3: Karo Tribe and Dasenech Tribe
In the morning we drove to my favorite village, a Karo village. The Karo Tribe are the smallest ethnic tribe in Ethiopia. They live just off the Omo River and rely on the annual flooding for fertile farming ground.
The guide was very informative, people were friendly and seemed happy to have pictures taken, and no one was begging for money or trying to sell stuff. The tribe is known for their body painting and multiple people were displaying this. I loved all the colorful beads the women were wearing.
A young boy painted my face between the circular village huts. I was then invited to try the beer made from Sorghum. The beer was warm with bits of sorghum floating in it. In general, I felt much more welcome by the whole tribe here than in the previous stops.
In the afternoon we drove to visit a Dasenech Tribe who live in the most southern part of Ethiopia. The guide there was also good, providing information about the tribe. We crossed the Omo River in a traditional boat, which is a tree trunk with the center carved out.
The homes in the village are constructed with wood and either brush or aluminum. The people here seemed to have a good sense of community. People were hanging out together in the shade and children were jumping rope.
They were selling items they had made, but were not pushy about you buying. Some people seemed happy to have pictures taken, but a few seemed like they didn’t want this and were maybe just expected to allow it. The guide mentioned multiple times how they were a poor village, people only ate 1 or 2 times a day, and food was sent from some European organization to them. He even made sure to point out a box from food sent that was inside a house. I felt that he was definitely trying to get tourists to give more money to the village but not in an overly pushy way.
Day 4: Konso Tribe:
The Konso Tribe have hilltop villages that are centuries old (some which were started 400 years ago) whose terraces are separated by stone walls. Each family compound is separated by smaller stone walkways creating a labyrinth of narrow alleys. The villages are governed by an elected committee of elders.
The Konso are agriculturists.. making the best of their rocky land by terrace farming and crop rotation with their main crop being sorghum. They also grow maize, beans, and coffee. The Konso do not drink much of the coffee beans, instead preferring the coffee leaves. They grind the leaves and mix them with sunflower seeds and various spices making an easily stored equivalent to instant coffee.
That afternoon I took a boat ride on Lake Chamo. It’s a large lake and we saw a couple crocodiles and birds. It would be a beautiful area, but sadly way too many plastic bottles went floating by our boat in the lake… 🙁
Day 5: Dorze Tribe:
The Dorze Tribe are known for their beehive-like homes and cotton weaving. Every village has a cotton loom which traditionally was in constant use.
The homes are made of bamboo and leaves. When you look at the homes straight on, they actually look a bit like an elephant face. Inside they have a living space, sleeping areas, and an area to house the cattle. The Dorze are actually Orthodox Christians like most of Northern Ethiopians.
Their land is at a high altitude (2.3-2.5 km) and therefore is much cooler and misty, making for good farming. The crop they seemed very proud of is the “false banana”. They showed (and had me participate) in making kocho (a sour flatbread served with local honey) from the false banana tree. You scrape the pulp from the leaves, ferment it in the ground, then cook it over a fire. Bees buzz around you as you dip the bread into the honey from the nearby beehives. Then we shared local alcohol shots and cheers despite it only being 10 am. That was it for my trip to see the tribes of Ethiopia… I was off to the airport and back to Addis Ababa.
Planning a Trip to South Omo and Konso?
Should you take a tour to South Omo and Konso? Even after going, I don’t know the answer. It’s definitely a cool experience to see tribal villages, hear and see some of their traditions, and of course get some pictures. But is it good for the locals? Tourism brings some money into the tribes and teaches them about the outside world. It may also help phase out some traditions that us tourists generally think shouldn’t continue (like Mursi women stretching their lip for a lip plate, the Hammar women being beaten during a cow jumping ceremony, and possibly female circumcision). Or maybe it will actually encourage some of these traditions to continue as they are culturally interesting to tourists. It also puts the tribes on display for tourists to walk into their homes and take pictures of them like at a zoo. Some children and even adults come to expect tourists to give them money, candy, soap, etc. (which seems to be an issue in many parts of the world). Does this lead to less belief they can provide for themselves and make them more reliant on outside charity? Like I said, I do not know the right answer.
There were definitely times when I felt that some people in the village did not enjoy having photos taken of them, and the person leading me around would encourage me to take photos anyway. Other times I felt that villagers were happy to have me there. I’m guessing it’s a village specific situation. Some will be more respectful to the feelings of individuals than others. And some villages are probably sharing more of the benefits to all while in others a few get the most benefit. I don’t have any real information on these situations either.
This was actually one of the most strained experiences traveling for me… I often felt that you were seeing a display set up solely to gain money with little actual real life being shown to you. It felt that guides were constantly trying to get you to take photos of everything so you would have to pay photo fees to everyone you take a picture of, being encouraged to buy souvenirs in the villages and souvenir market while almost skipping the actual Hamer market on the itinerary.
I recommend getting the Ethiopia guidebook before planning a trip. I used the Bradt Travel Guides Ethiopia book. There’s a lot of information which is so helpful when tourism is still being developed in the country and therefore you don’t always get much information about what you are seeing while on a tour. It also goes further into positives and negatives of traveling to places like South Omo.
Who to organize a tour with? I hope some travelers have a better experience than mine. I was not impressed with my guide. It seems he is the main guide that organizes tours to South Omo through ETT (Ethic Travel and Tour). He did not share much information about the tribes we visited. Thankfully I had a guidebook on Ethiopia on my kindle to give me some basic information. He also behaved unprofessionally in my opinion. Sorry… but here comes my rant…. There was an issue that ETT told me everything was included in my tour price when I discussed it over Whatsapp. Then when booking/paying at the office I learned I would pay photo fees at villages. OK… Then once down there, I was told that a cow jumping ceremony was taking place but I would have to pay about $28 to go to it even though the ceremony was listed on my itinerary… so I messaged my contact with the office and he responded that I wouldn’t have to pay to go to one. When I spoke with my guide the next morning, he was mad I had “complained” to the office. He claimed they told him that I had said that I was having to pay for “everything”. I chose to show him my text message to prove that I had only discussed the cow jumping ceremony. The rest of the time with him was uncomfortable. I personally wouldn’t recommend traveling to the south with ETT. Try to find someone who had a great experience with another company. But then again… maybe this guide and I just clashed and he is way better with other travelers… but I definitely wouldn’t recommend them personally.
Leave a Reply