MEETING THE KARO PEOPLE

WEATHER: Hot and 30C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: I’m alive

BUMMER OF THE DAY: I’m alive

BUYS OF THE DAY: My hot Sprite I skulled in Arba Minch - hangover cure

WORD OF THE DAY: I’m alive

Well breakfast was at 8am.  Somewhere along the line I remembered to set my alarm and I was up and about at 7am.  I was a little worse for wear, actually I think I was still pissed from the Araki from last night, but it wasn’t mixed with anything, it was pure alcohol, so I should pull up okay right?  At breakfast as I ate the best scrambled eggs I have ever had and Josephine poured me a cup of tea talk was going around the table that I had slayed a hyena and had around 13 of those god awful shots.  I was still a little queasy, so I didn’t say too much for fear of losing my breakfast.

We were on the road at 8am, leaving early, which was fine with me to get us to where ever we were going earlier.  The ducks and I was back in car number 1 this morning aka ‘the sardine’ with Zeme as our driver.  I felt a little sorry for the ducks as all 3 of us have to fit in the back in car one and not being able to have a shower I wonder if I had that alcohol smell about me?  If I did the ducks didn’t say anything and trust me they aren’t backwards in coming forward, if it was an issue they would have said something.  As we headed back down the mountain Zeme had on some tunes and The Gambler came on.  Of all songs!  I’m in Ethiopia, on the top of a mountain after a BIG night and I get The Gambler playing.  AWESOME!!

We have 120km to travel today and is expected to take a few hours.  This gives you time to soak in the scenery and just observe the people as we drive.  As we head further south, you can notice that they are darker than the people from Addis.  They remind me of Kenyans, their skin is jet black.  I’ve also noticed that they are huggers.  If they see people they know, they instantly hug each other, and you can see they are heart felt hugs and they also have this groovy hand shake.  They put out their hand to shake, they put their other hand on the elbow and then you lean in and then bump opposite shoulders.  It is so cool and I just love to watch them do it.  The males are also hand holders and I like that in a cultural with none of this homophobic stuff here and it’s awesome.  The scenery has also changed the further south we go.  It is now getting drier and flatter as we left Arba Minch but there are still green trees and plants around, it’s just not as lush as from where we had come from. 

We arrived into Konso at 11.45am to our accommodation for the night and the place was called Strawberry Fields and it was an Eco-lodge.  They were individual round clay huts, but as I was on a single, John and I were given a hut to share.  Never fear I didn’t share my room with a 60 year old, there was a wall dividing us, but the rest were complaining how small they were inside, so I told them to settle and come and check out our half dome if they wanted to see small.  It was big enough for me though with a bed, a tiny table and a chair that if I sat on it would collapse under me, but it was good for me through my stuff all over.  The hut was made of mud and straw and they had white washed the walls half way up, so there was bits of dried dirt that would fall down on your stuff.  I can see now why, beside the mozzies, that they had a net over your bed while you slept.  Also John and my hut was the only one without electricity, but that’s okay.  I had my head torch and they would supply us with a lantern after dinner for the room. We had time for showers before we were to head to the Konso village.  The showers were individual standing bamboo huts and we all had a key to get into our individual showers.  It was pretty cool with the wind blowing through the bamboo screens, it felt a little liberating standing there nude as the breeze licked your skin AND they had hot water as well, so after 2 full days of not showering and still a little seedy it was just what the doctor ordered.  The toilets are also ecofriendly and they are drop toilets that didn’t have smell.  Can you believe that?  You basically have to lift the lid off the hole, after you’ve done your business you put a cup of ash in the hole with a handful of straw, pop on the lid and you are done.  It is a pretty amazing system and one that all the supplies are available locally.  There is no electricity during the day and the Eco Lodge has solar panels for the electricity at night, so you need to get in fast t charge your appliances as once the solar electricity is gone, it’s gone till tomorrow.  Now in full ET (Ethiopian Time) we have ordered dinner already so we shouldn’t have to wait for too long tonight and we will order breakfast tonight after dinner.  ET baby…..

So we left at 2pm after lunch and headed to the village of Konso.  The Konso society is largely agricultural and involves the irrigation and terracing of mountain slopes. Staple crops include sorghum and corn, with cash crops including cotton and coffee. Cattle, sheep, and goats are raised for food and milk.The village was on the side of a small hill so the view walking the tracks of the village was pretty amazing.  Polygyny is an accepted practice among the Konso, imagine more than one wife!  According to the 2007 national census, they numbered 250,430 of whom 10,470 or 4.18% are urban dwellers, the rest live in clusters of villages in their traditional huts.  Unlike most Ethiopian peoples, the Konso live in large defensive villages, each governed by an autonomous council of elders and divided into smaller administrative neighbourhoods. The social status of all males, and of some females, is defined by a, generation-grading system symbolised by stelae erection.

This was the first place that I have also been getting a lot of stares and some laughing.  Being a little precious from my nights drinking I asked Minaloo why they were laughing at me.  But he doesn’t speak the language of the Konso, so he didn’t know, but was taking a guess that it was because I was fat.  Well I told him politely that the word large was better than fat and when you look at it from their point of view the whole Ethiopian population is skinny, I guess I would be a bit of an unusual occurrence, assuming they don’t get a lot of ‘larger’ people travelling in their country.  So I didn’t get cranky and every time I walked past them and they laughed I took it all in my stride.  The Konso also farm on terraces and they will plant more than one crop on the terraces in case something doesn’t do well that year they still have something else to rely on rather than literally having all their eggs in one basket.  Pretty smart really – so they are mixed Agriculturists!!

Our next visit was to meet the Chief of the Konso people.  This guy is pretty important to the tribe even to this day.  He lives in a compound tucked away in the wilds of the village that took us 30 minutes on the worst roads to date to get there.  When we arrived we let him know we were here and he asked for a few minutes to get ready, so we took a walk to the families graveyard where his father and his grandfather have been buried.  It took us around 15 minutes of walking through the forest to get there and it was worth the walk.  The graves have a bamboo roof over them and they are represented by Waka’s.  The Konso are notable for the erection of Wakas, memorial statues to a dead man. These stylised wooden carvings are arranged in groups, representing the man, his wives, and one who has killed an enemy or an animal such as a lion or a leopard is depicted with his vanquished adversaries.

It is good luck to pick some leaves and leave them on the Waka, so not one to pass up some luck, I placed my leaves on both graves and hope that when I next need my travel god these will come in handy with my karma.  Unfortunately walking back Josephine took a stack over a tree root that was on the path, I mention this as I don’t want to be painted as the only mongo on tour that falls over stone sober, so Josie, together we fall and we are now keeping score on who is going to have the most falls on trip.  I have a feeling I know who it maybe, but I will not jinx myself so early on in the game.

The Chief was ready when we got back and we sat under a large bamboo hut (without walls and doors) and waited for him to arrive.  First impressions always count and when he breezed in and shook all out hands individually, he really had some charisma and charm about him and he felt like a leader.  His history in a nutshell was he was in Addis studying civil engineering when his father, the current Chief, passed away.  So being the oldest he was in line to take over his father’s place and dropped all his studies and the city life to move back to the village and take up his responsibilities.  Now that is cultural and traditional responsibilities all wrapped up for you in a modern world.  He is now married and has 3 children; his oldest is a son and who will take over from him when he passes away, he hopes anyway.  But his 8 year old son attends meetings and some Chiefly duties, so he is being groomed from an early age and he knows what is expected of him.  There are 300,000 Konso villagers and the Chief sees to land disputes, family disputes and generally just tries to keep the peace.  He is the only educated Chief, so he now has studied some courses in disputes and has a laptop and keeps in touch with the 8 other Chiefs via mobile phone, so the modern world has popped its head in there while still keeping the traditions alive.  We got around 40 minutes with the him and he was well spoken, his English was just about perfect and I could see he would be very approachable and a kind person.  After a walk around his compound that has been in his family for 5 generations we said our farewell to this pretty amazing person and headed to the Konso Museum for 40 minutes before heading back to camp for the night.

We’re not sure us staying at the Eco Lodge has anything to do with the food prices but they have been extortionate compared to the rest of the country.  In the ‘real’ world it is still considered cheap but we paid 1AUD for the tea instead of .30c, now it sounds like we are a bunch of tight wads and you don’t mind paying a little more when you are in the middle of nowhere but for it to be nearly triple the price is a little rich.  For lunch, dinner and then breakfast the next day I paid 20AUD total for the 3 meals, which is still pretty cheap right!  We shouldn’t whinge, but it is the principle.

So after a MASSIVE day hung over like a bastard, I was living by our Intrepid rule we introduced on my last trip of not going to bed before 8.01pm.  So at 8.10pm – I set off up the dark pathway with my head torch as the promised lanterns weren’t charged properly and after reading for a nano second I fell asleep in my half mud hut, in the deep south of an awesome country, under my net into a fitful and desperately needed sleep.