Thursday September 29th John visited the Dassanech tribe, about an hour and a half drive from our base in Turmi, Ethiopia. They are nomads and are agropastoral. They grow sorghum, corn, pumpkins, and beans. They also raise cattle and goats. The morning we got there they were celebrating the marriage of six families daughters. Each morning for one month the mothers and fathers come out of their huts and put on special clothing made from animal furs and skins. All of the families and other tribe members gather to sing, dance and celebrate.
We started Friday September 30th with an explore of the local market in Turmi. It was fairly quiet in the morning, and we enjoyed walking around taking photos. While Sara was standing in the shade of a building a young boy of about 15 starting talking to her. Eventually some older men joined and asked if she would buy him a book. Turned out the young guy was in school and really wanted an Amharic-English dictionary. After some back and forth with a starting ask of $50 we had purchased the dictionary for $20 - the only cash we had on us. With frequent requests for money from people it was nice to help someone with their goals.
John headed out later to camp with the Karo tribe. Sara, still not feeling great after four days started some antibiotics and stayed in the lodge. After driving about two and a half hours on dirt roads he arrived at Kara Dus, a Kara tribe village. Their village was next to the Omo river. The Kara tribe was John's second most favorite tribe primarily because the men do some extraordinary body painting.
After spending the night trying to sleep with the noise of the screaming monkeys John headed back to the lodge for lunch before visiting the last tribe - the Arbore. They have permanent villages and grow crops and raise cattle and goats. Their huts were made from long reeds which was the first time we had seen that approach. The black and white photos in the album are from the Arbore. Sunday October 2nd we were up at 5am to drive to Jinka, with two and a half hours on more mountain roads before arriving at the very small airport with plenty of time before the daily flight to Addis. We were sad to say goodbye to Fitsum, Israel and Tuko, especially John who had just completed a long time wish to visit the tribes of Ethiopia.
After spending a leisurely Sunday afternoon in the hotel in Addis we had an early start on Monday to get to the airport for our flight to Zanzibar. After checking in our bags Sara went to try and retrieve Barry's binoculars from custody. After asking a security guard where to go he kindly walked her over to the other terminal and after asking several people and providing the required paperwork managed to find the right people to help. Unbelievably after paying about $30 the binoculars were found in what looked like a disaster of a storage room and returned to Sara. She was then personally walked back through the security lines and watched as we both passed through the immigration checkpoint to ensure no sneaking back into the country was achieved!
We left Africa on an overnight flight Monday Oct 7th, and after a 12 hour stop in Doha finally arriving in London late Tuesday evening. A delightful four days followed staying in a rented farmhouse with Sara's mum Christine, sister Emma and partner Clive. We enjoyed some visits, walks and meals with her aunt Midge, cousin Jane and partner Sue who we haven't seen for many years. It was a wonderful way to end our extraordinary adventure in Africa!
