By Robin Esrock | Toronto Star
OMO VALLEY, ETHIOPIA –- It’s the traveler’s Catch-22. We want to explore and interact with exotic people from exotic lands, but the fact that we’re interacting changes the dynamics of the encounter. This unfortunate reality is illustrated in southern Ethiopia, one of the most culturally diverse regions on the planet.
A photo op of this boy, or any other member of most
Ethiopian tribes, involves a cash transaction that can
make a traveller feel sad and empty.
[Photo by ROBIN ESROCK]
Fifty-three tribes inhabit the area, most have unique traditions that range from incredible art to self-inflicted mutilation. Tour operators offer the chance to meet several of the tribes found in or around the southern Omo Valley, and an increasing number of tourists brave horrific roads and long drives in order to go tribal. But the experience comes with challenges.
The root of the problem is popularly known as the “Ferengi (Aramaic for foreigner) Frenzy,” the mob that surrounds tourists in the region wherever they seem to go. Whether it is the result of prolific non-government organizations (NGOs), aid workers or irresponsible tourists, ferengis are heavily associated, by rural people in the south, with free handouts. While it is tradition in Ethiopia to refuse gifts and be generous with what you have, anyone booking a “tribal” tour will find these traditions hard to come by. Instead, ferengis (also the name of an alien race from the Star Trek series) are often mobbed for money, pens, empty water bottles, anything. Especially, and sadly, by children with few clothes.
Our Land Cruiser stopped off the side of the highway to visit a band of Alaba, a Muslim tribe living in dark mud huts with thatch coverings. Immediately, children with their hands out surrounded me as our guide negotiated a price with the leader of the family. An argument ensued, a price was settled, the atmosphere became as welcoming as a doctor’s waiting room. A band of several dozen people stood looking through me, admiring my cheap watch, pulling my shirt with the request of “one birr.” In Ethiopia, it is customary to pay anyone you take a picture of one or two birr for their image; one birr is equivalent to 10 cents Canadian. It’s fair and well-intentioned, but many locals now see it as a quick and easy way to make money.
Like many travellers, I always ask people permission to take their picture, with the aim of capturing a moment, an authentic image, the picture to speak a thousand words about life in that country. An Italian tourist expressed the problem when he told me, “I don’t mind paying for a photo, but I’m finding it hard to find people being natural. They want to pose for me, so I can pay them.”
After entering a dark, smoky hut and asking some casual questions, it was time to leave. Most tourists spend about 15 minutes with the tribe, longer than most exhibits in a zoo, but not by much. As uncomfortable as I felt, it was about to get much worse.
The Mursi Tribe, numbering between 6,000 and 10,000, are nomads in one of the country’s most remote regions. Famous for the clay lip plates worn as a sign of beauty by their women, ritual scarification and stick fighting, the Mursi are embroiled in an unfortunate dispute with the Africa Parks Board, which is creating national parks in the tribe’s roaming area.
As one of the most extreme tribes to be found anywhere on the continent, the Mursi have been visited by tourists for decades. Foreigners are fascinated by a “primitive” culture as alien to the West as whales are to poodles. It’s a three-day drive to the town of Jinko, and takes more than three hours to drive just 27 kilometres on a bulldozed dirt road into the Mago National Park.
My guide warned that visiting the tribe in the afternoon was a bad idea, because of rampant alcohol abuse and the unpredictability of violence within the group. The Mursi are also aggressive in charging for photos: one birr for an adult, one for a child, and three for a mother and child. They only accept crisp, new one-birr notes.
Deep in the bush, the four-by-four pulled up to a small village of a dozen thatch huts. Immediately, we were mobbed by a tribe both frightening, fascinating and thrillingly exotic. With their faces painted, the women made it impossible not to stare at them and their lips that extended inches below their chins.
“Take picture, take picture, take picture!” I was told, then pushed, poked and prodded by half-naked men, women and children, several of whom held semi-automatic rifles that were used in inter-tribe warfare. As more four-by-fours of tourists arrived, the tribe swept themselves into a frenzy, the tourists took photos while their subjects violently grabbed cash notes. More and more people did their best to get into the photo.
It was sickening, yet the photographs are undeniably incredible. “We want people to stay longer, some don’t even get out of the car. They come, take picture and leave,” a Mursi man told me. But how can tourists be expected to stay longer when they’re mobbed with such feverish aggression? When it was nothing less than a human zoo, everyone was exploited.
Perhaps the solution is organized structure, such as what I found with the Konzo. Tourists pay the government-run central office a fee to visit the tribe in the southern Omo Valley and are assigned a local guide.
While kids initially surrounded me with familiar pleas for money, the guide kept them at check, explaining fascinating traditions and customs. I was told that half the tourist fee is distributed to the tribe, and, although it might not be enough, it benefits all parties.
It is, of course, heartbreaking to turn down children, but aid organizations and charities say giving money, clothes or coveted empty water bottles in Ethiopia only breeds a culture of begging.
A nutritionist for a local NGO told me Ethiopia has moved on from the famine of the 1980s. Kids just want things as a sign of prestige. Better to donate to groups that know local traditions and how best to help.
(Robin Esrock is a Vancouver-based travel writer and TV host.)