Day 4
With so many banana plantation we can only start the day with a banana shake. It's delicious and reminds me of the ones I use to make myself after school. We have a few errands before leaving Arba. First, getting tickets from Arba to Bahir Dar for after the tour. On the way there we pass by cows walking on the road (in the city) but on their lane... clearly following the rules of the road. It takes forever to buy the tickets but we get the discount for having flown here with Ethiopian airlines. Our driver gets two spare wheels and we leave Arba. Just like yesterday we have to slalom between cows and goats. They clearly own the road and it's up to you, car, to find a way around. We come face to face with a big herd. One of the goats stops in front of the car and looks at us defiantly before grudgingly moving to the side. Goats are punks!!! We stop a few minutes to check out a tree full of bee hives.
Leaving the main road, we head towards Konso/Jinka. It's a gravel road but we don't really go slower. I now understand the reason for the extra 2 wheels. We come upon our first dancing kid. They have a little dance routine that varies from region to region and they ask for water bottles or tips. We happen to have one so we give it to him. They use them as canteen since they are out all day watching over the cattle. There's a lot of people on the road between the cattle, the dancing kids and the women with the goat-skin backpacks.
We take a break in Konso for coffee. They take it black here with a bit of sugar and you can optionally put a plant in it. It's called “tenadam”; It also has medicinal properties useful for upset stomachs. Today is market day in Konso. It's very colorful; the main attraction is these towers of fabric with sewing machines (models with treadles of course) next to them. The local trend for fashion seems to be adding a border of colorful fabric to a white piece. Women then wrap it around them artfully. In the market, the goats are once again misbehaving and stealing cabbage from the merchants.
The car decides not to restart. A crowd of people help turn it around and we try to kick start the engine going downhill without luck. shortly after we end up on a flat section so we all go out and push to reach the next downhill section that leads to the main part of town. It seems the fuel filter is dead so we can only hope to find a spare one here. A mechanics comes and solves the problem in no time. No need for a spare filter after all, it was simply unscrewed. The car is back on and we resume our journey. The landscape turns hilly again. It's an ocean of light green flecked by dark green trees. Some of the hills have terrace for culture adding other shades of green to the painting. Most of the cattle is off the road by now. They are grazing during the day. We still come across dancing kids but we have no water bottle ready for them anymore. The hills leave place to a huge plain. The way down is very impressive. In the valley they make coal and you can see the packaged stacks along the road. Two things remain constant, the goats and dancing kids screaming "highland highland". It was the name of the first brand of bottled water. It does not exist anymore but it became the generic name for plastic bottle.
After a quick lunch break our guide buys "tchat" for us to try. It's a plant and we chew and eat the leaves. It takes weird and leaves your tongue green but it's a social thing here, in the Harar region and in Yemen. It's supposed to give us energy. We're leaving the valley behind and start climbing into the mountains. The people we see have more and more traditional clothes. The cows are on their own and getting wilder. They now are completely unwilling to let cars pass and stare at us defiantly. We pass through the Banna tribe region. They have a distinctive hair style, it looks like dreadlocks and it's dyed to get a red hue. Their skin color is the darkest we've seen so far.
After countless hours on gravel roads we arrive in Dimeka, hometown of our guide for another quick break. We're getting close to our destination - a hammer village. We leave the road and after a few minutes we pull up in an empty village. One guy steps out of nowhere a few minutes later and after a very quick exchange, we turn back and head back to the road... To see another guy showing up out of nowhere. A long talk later we're back on the road and heading to Turmi. The story we get from our guide is that they have a problem with their fields and all the village is over there. It's seems to be a monkey problem (yes Nick, you're right about them!). From the road we can see that the little wooden towers they have in the fields are all manned.
In Turmi, there is a big group of Hammer women. They have a band with white jewelry on the head, red rasta like the Banna and goat-skin skirt and loose "top". Banna and Hammer are cousins even though their language and accent have differences. They are from the village we were in before. Our guide knows them well and we're introduced to them. In the process we learn a few words of their language (Fayao - How are you? / Nagaya - hello and goodbye / Bujurmi - thank you / Faya-faya - I'm good). We talk to Dovi with the help of a teenager who speaks English very well. She manages a program of the UN about erosion among other things. In return the village receives corn and other material things of value to them. She went to New-York and other cities in the U.S. for a month recently for the conference on indigenous peoples. Too many people, too many cars, impossible to cross the street she told us. We couldn't agree more ;)
We go grab a bite in Turmi to give time to all the hammer people to go back to their village. It's night already when we finally go. Finding the village is easy. Take the road from Turmi to Dimeka and make a right when you see tree snapped in 2. Then follow the trail to the village. They were waiting for us of course. We are seated on cow skin and a big bowl of "tesh" (honey wine) is passed around. We spend sometime, looking at the sky and listening to the whispered conversations. It's surreal to be in such a place 4 days after having left Paris... Our trip is definitely on!
Day 5
Tough night in our hut. Neither of us slept very well. We're sleeping on a hard surface and the village is full of noises strange for us. When we emerge, our guide takes us on a little tour. We visit the village then go check out the sorghum. They are two weeks away from harvest and kids and teenager are keeping monkeys and birds at bay. For that, they are standing on little towers and use some kind of a sling to throw rocks at thieves. Back in the village, we get ready to go. One of the women is sick so we take her with us to the hospital in Turmi. We're now 8 in the car plus one baby and a teenager on the roof! We drop them off at the hospital and go get breakfast. We have a few hours to kill before hitting the road again. Tonight we'll have the privilege to see a bull jumping ceremony. It marks the entrance into adulthood for boys.
While we were chilling, they drove the sick women back to her village. Everyone is back from all the different errands and we head to the hammer village for the ceremony. To get there is much trickier than for yesterday's village. We're in the middle of the savannah, crossing dry rivers and not always very sure of the way. We end up being rescued by a hammer guy. We were heading on the wrong direction it seems. We get there and are greeted with a crowd of women with bells attached below their knees and little horns going somewhere in procession. We follow them and witness a important part of the ceremony - the whipping. It makes us uneasy to see these women giving sticks to young men and expecting to be whipped once in return. It leaves scars on their arms and backs. Only close relatives (sisters, cousins) of the guy who is about to jump the bulls can be whipped. By this, they prove their love to him and give him courage. We head back to the village with everyone and it continues there. All the villages around are invited, 300 persons are expected + 2 "faranji" (us). There's a temporary shelter to host everyone with cow skins underneath of course. To keep everyone well hydrated, they have prepared a paste of sorghum that they mix little by little with hot water; difficult to describe the taste but it's not great. In another "court" of the village, the women sing, dance and jump for a while then some of them go get whipped again. And it goes on during the whole afternoon. It's 6pm and the final act hasn't started yet. We're still waiting for the cattle to come back from the fields and they finally show up. Now everyone is in the "dancing" court; the women keep on dancing and singing while the men, meaning the ones that already jumped, perform rituals of fertility. It doesn't take very long and we all go to the jumping place. The cows and bulls are brought in the center while the women keep dancing and singing in a circle around them. Then a line of bulls is made with people holding them at other extremities (head and tail) and finally the jumper... jumps. He runs on the Bulls' backs back and forth for a few minutes. Et voila! He's now one step closer to be a man. The day after they have a huge feast then he'll travel from village to village for 3 months to help other jumpers. During that time his family is looking for his future wife. That'll be one more step on the social ladder. As soon as it's finished we walk back to the car and leave. The sun is setting and the road is far from easy by day already. Our driver does a great job and we cross the 10+ river beds without incident and arrive safely in Turmi.