MEETING THE DORZE PEOPLE

WEATHER: Heading to 2800m so it was a little cooler but sunny

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Going into a local bar at the Dorze market

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Falling over (sober) on our way back from the waterfall

BUYS OF THE DAY: Internet for 38 minutes cost me 1.50AUD

WORD OF THE DAY: Yo yo yo yo yo yo – YO – this is how the Dorze people drink shots

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Yellow bellied storks, storks, Maribou, Egyptian Geese, Clovers, Massive crocodiles, Goliath Heron, Fish Eagles and Hippo’s.

Our second day on the road today and I am looking forward to seeing more of this beautiful country.  I was up at 6.45am for a 7.30am breakfast and after a little fluffing around we were on the road at 8.40am.  I was in car number 4 today and I am teamed up with the old chooks from Brisbane Colleen and Tui If you can believe it these 2 ladies live in the suburb across the highway from me.  It really is a small world isn’t it!  So the good thing is I am out of the sardine and I have been blessed with the front seat and today’s driver is Lemma. 

Our first stop today was at Lake Chamo where we boarded boats that took us on a 2 hour cruise of Ethiopia’s 3^rd largest lake.  The lake is 39km wide by 55km long, so it is a large body of water.  We set out with the main purpose of seeing crocodile, hippos and birdlife.  There was another group on the lake, so we headed straight for the crocodiles.  I was thinking BIG deal crocodiles, we have them back home but I tell you the first guy we saw was over 6m long and he was MASSIVE.   We pretty much saw all the ages; we saw some baby ones, teenage ones and then the big daddy.  Seriously they were gigantic.  We then headed to the place where the hippos were relaxing and there was also a paradise of pelicans, I rekon there would have been over 200 of them all congregated on the lake, so we sat there for around 30 minutes and just watched all the action.  No photos of the hippos mouth open, but there would have been at least 20 of them there and they were pretty close to the boat, so they were cool to watch while the ‘twitchers’ got their bird spotting done.  The boat cruise was actually quite relaxing and it was a beautiful day, so it was nice to start a day on the water with the wind in your hair and a few wild animals. 

So at 11.15am we were on the road back for the 20 minute drive Arba Minch where we had lunch at this cool outdoor restaurant under massive trees in the shade, which was really good, as it was pretty hot today and the shade really does make a big difference to the temperature.  We are starting to get the idea on ET (Ethiopian Time) so we ordered lunch as was told it would take 40 minutes and then we all went off to get whatever jobs we needed doing.  There was an internet café at the front of the restaurant, so I went and sat on that for 38 minutes to be exact and it only cost me 1.50AUD.  Can you believe that?  Cheap cheap cheap.  It was good to get on the net as I have gotten Beth to change my flight from Addis to Paris to Addis to London now, as I am catching up with Dave, Simbob, Paps and Preswick from Africa and I am also catching up with Rachel from Contiki and also my hostee friends will also be in town on Thursday night, so I am going to have a few busy days in London which is good.  Add onto that I need to see the travel doctor there to get my next batch of malaria tablets for South America, buy some new clothes (I’ve been wearing these for 4 months now) and try and pop in and see the Brazil consulate and see if they can issue a visa for me in 1 day.  Doubt it, but I can only ask.  All this in 72 hours.  I’m going to need the river cruise to relax after all that.

Just before leaving the café, the chooks said that they had seen 2 Dic Dic’s in the car park, the car park of all places!!!  To remind you the Dic Dic’s was my team for 23 days in Eastern Africa and we became legends on the tour as being one of the best teams that Simon had ever had, well in my opinion anyways, so to see some of them in Ethiopia would be super awesome.  So I went to investigate and there were 2 of them resting under a bus in the car park!  I couldn’t believe my luck, so I had my camera and I got the car park attendant to take a photo.  Well he wanted one better so he tried to catch the Dic Dic for me, and I am embarrassed to say that I didn’t try and stop him when he pulled the leg of the Dic Dic to get it from under the bus, I WANTED that ‘perfect’ photo with my team mascot!!  The Dic Dic got away needless to say but her didn’t stray far (I take comfort he wasn’t hurt) and then I got to get within 1m of him and got a great photo!  Team Dic Dic has been remembered in Ethiopia.  I will have to remember to Facebook Simon about that! Dic Dic’s in a café in Arba Minch – who would have thought after we tried to see them on 56 hours of game drives in East and South Africa.

We left Arba Minch at 2pm for the 45 minute drive to our accommodation for the night in Dorze (said Doorzee).  We are climbing up to 2800m so the weather also changed with the climb and the temperature dropped at least 10 degrees, but the sun was out, so it made a pleasant change.  The road was quite steep and was also not paved, so it was a bit of a rough ride up, but it was certainly worth getting to the top with the local market in progress.  The local market is on twice a week on Tuesdays and Saturdays and when we pulled up in the truck that sight that met us was amazing.  There would have been over 1000 people in an open grassy area all set up with their wares for sale, from herbs, to clothes, water pipe, fresh fruit and vegetables to the cattle side and like in any culture the local bars.  We were told about the children before we got out of the cars, they want to come up and hold your hands and then at the end ask for money.  So we have been discouraged to do this which is easier said than done when these BIG brown eyes, cute as a button look up at you trying to take your hands.  The children here are BEAUTIFUL.  So we met our guide for the afternoon, Mekonen and he walked us through and explained all the goods.  He was born in the village and he has started his own accommodation business employing the local community and using the local community for it all, and this is where we will also be staying for the night.  It is an amazing accomplishment and he has truly done a great job.  The market was massive so it was inevitable that we would all get split up as we all got separated with picture taking and trying to bargain for the cost of photos.  I was lucky enough to get lost with the local himself Mekonen and we had 30 minutes to kill before heading back to the cars, so he asked if I wanted to visit a local bar and taste some local alcohol called Honey Wine.  Sure, why not.  Get into the real experience.  So we walked to where the bars were lined up and they were packed with black, drinking men.  There would have been 10 bars all lined up and from the front they looked like a cubby house entrance and there were people spilled out the front of the establishments, on the verandahs and then it ran 3 rooms deep behind.  So we went to a bar called ‘High School’ and Mekonen asked if I wanted to sit inside or out?  So I said hoe about inside hoping it would be less busy as outside was packed wall to wall with men drinking out of science beakers, so how much more can it be packed inside.  Well it was double packed inside. No light except the natural light from the front windows as we pushed our way through 2 rooms to get to the guy that was pouring the Honey Wine from a large kettle over an oil drum (that was the bar).  It got a little hairy ad we stopped at the bar guy, as the floor was muddy and I slipped down the last step, but luckily the room was that packed that there was no chance I would have hit the floor, there were that many bodies there to catch me, and besides I grabbed the first thing I could when I knew I was falling and some guy sitting on a bench didn’t look too upset to have a white woman grab his upper thigh!  I felt a bit awkward once our 2 beakers were poured on the payment, I didn’t want Mekonen to think I was a scab, so I pulled out my purse to which he quickly waved it back.  So with beakers of Honey Wine in hand, we headed further into the labyrinth of the bar to an outside section that was also the alley way for the back entrance.  At least we were out of the slippery dingy darkness and 2 drunk guys got up and gave us there bench seats for us to sit down.  So looking around I was the only female and I was the only white female in the establishment.  I felt safe enough with Mekonen though, so after chatting with the owner and a few of the locals (well I didn’t as they didn’t speak English) it was time to get back to the group.  Thankfully we kept heading down and out the back door, so we didn’t have to go past the 100 drinking men at the front and I got to have a peak at where the local brew was being made.  The poor guy was all on his own stirring a massive cauldron of this honey wine over a fire and a batch looking like it was ready to go.  Well with the amount getting consumed and the guy brewing it all out the back, at least we knew it was fresh.  As for the cleanliness of the beakers – well I was just happy to take a punt.  It was an awesome experience and totally glad I went, I was too scared to take any photos though, but it will be something I won’t forget it in a hurry.

The countryside this high up was green and lush.  We drove for 15 minutes into some farmland, parked the cards and then headed up to see a waterfall.  There were cows grazing, long green grass, bubbling streams, walking tracks and I have to say it felt like we were in Europe somewhere, like Austria somewhere.  It was a little surreal but beautiful all the same.  So with some jumping over streams, muddy banks and rocky crops we made it to the waterfall.  I am a bit impartial to waterfalls as they can be a little hit and miss, but this one was pretty cool and definitely worth the 45 minute walk.  As you do when you leave your car here, we picked some locals who walked with us back to the cars.  Well we were nearly back to the cars and the worse thing happened, I lost my footing and I fell into a ditch backwards.  One of the local guys that we picked up tried to catch me, and to me I was in slow motion and knew exactly what was happening and managed to save my camera as I landed literally in a ditch that was at least a meter deep between a fence line and the walking track.  I’d like to point out I was sober as a judge, beside the 1 Honey wine I had consumed that was like 5% alcohol, it literally was just bad luck and a shot to the pride as I picked myself up out of the ditch.  With only a small scratch on my elbow (which was bleeding) and a bruise on my leg I was in one piece, but how embarrassing!!!!  So another fall, but I was sober for once and that made a nice change. 

So it was time now to head to camp and we have really been spoiled and we are staying in local huts that have been built for the Dorze Lodge.  They are said to look like elephants and if you really concentrate you can see the ears and the entrance is the trunk but they were very cool indeed and I got one all to myself.  So after unloading the cars, Mekonen took us for a walk around the compound and showed us how his community weave, and it is a man’s job to weave, the woman don’t do this, they spindle the wool for it but are not weavers.  We were told how they build the huts which they still live in today.  They are 9-12m high, they take 3 months to build one and they can last up to 100 years.  They need some upkeep every 20 years or so, and over this time they shrink in size to sometimes less than 7m as they are eaten by termites over time and they get shorter and shorter.  It is extraordinary, they build them knowing this will happen eventually and make the huts with this taken into account!  They can also be moved if required by 40 people and they are mainly built with false banana leaves and bamboo.  The Dorze people could live on three things and three things only and they are bamboo, cotton and the false banana tree.

That brings me to the next thing we were shown and that was just how important the false banana tree is to their culture.  They use the leaves for housing, umbrellas etc.  They use the trunk for food, ropes and they also use the roots.  The whole tree can be used for everyday living.  We saw how they made the banana bread and it is quite a process.  They take the bark from the trunk and mash it down to a stringy paste.  The stringy stuff is then used for other things and then the pasty stuff is out underground for 6 months to ferment and then it comes out in dough like form that is then kneaded, rolled and flattened into a pizza like base and then cooked over a large flat plate on a fire.  We got to see the whole process (less the 6 months waiting – they had one fermenting already) and we got to taste the final produce and it was okay, I wasn’t a huge fan, but knowing how much work went into just that piece of bread is pretty amazing!    

We pretty much had free time till dinner, so we could walk around the accommodation compound where we met some of Mekonen’s family and saw the false banana plantation that they had growing.  We also went for a walk to their local church where we met some more beautiful children and a further look at village life.  It is pretty peaceful up here and as we were walking back it started to get dark and the near full moon and the stars were starting to come out and they looked amazing.  There is nothing better than looking at the sky when there is no artificial light to take away from them. 

Dinner was going to be a little way off, so Mekonen took the group to his local bar just down the road from the huts.  It was nowhere as busy as the place I went to in the market, but they had Ethiopian music blaring, people dancing and drinking and it was still pretty cool.  The men in here were on their way home after the markets, like any male all over the world, stopped in for a few honey wines with his mates before heading home.  These were also served in the beakers and out of a massive stainless steel pot but they also had beer on the bar menu if you wanted.  The Ethiopians really know how to dance and they love it.  The Dorze people use the one hip move and they can move.  So we spent an hour or so here before we got the call that dinner was ready.

There is an Ethiopian white spirit called Araki, and it is made primarily of fermented corn and it is 65% proof.  So Mekonen introduced us all to this wonderful little drink that you shot just before dinner.  We had a few more at the local bar and then a few more with dinner and I guess you can see where this is heading.  I remember shotting with Zeme and Minaloo, getting some photos, dancing with the local dance troop with the skin of some animal wrapped around my neck and a spear in my hand as we danced around the fire and then it was 3am and I was in my bed.  Well I have a feeling that Mekonen got me safely back to my elephant hut, he seemed to be my keeper all day, so thanks to a new friend made and with an address and an email in hand we will definitely be keeping in touch.

What a great day and an even better night.  I think I am really going to love Ethiopia and what she has to offer culturally and scenery wise.  I really didn’t know what to expect of the country and it was probably the only part of the trip, that if the tour cancelled I wasn’t going to be too disappointed, but man am I GLAD that it all ran to plan, as I think I am in LOVE with country and its people and it is only day 3.