Turmi to Arba Minch - Day 8 of 10 Omo Valley Trip
Trip Start
Jun 24, 2005
1
29
Trip End
Nov 01, 2005
Arba Minch,
Ethiopia
Sunday, April 6, 2008
The Arbore use lots of silver to adorn themselves.Often this includes fairly amusing items --- such as half of a man's link watchband hanging down the middle of someone's forehead. The visit if fiarly pleasant as they don't take themselves or our interactions too seriously. They playfully tease their members who misbehave (eg won't get out of a photo they have not been selected to be in). But they don't appear to have a school or a teacher (my now favourite way of centralising the gift giving) and it is too crowded a situation to find any quiet time with any villagers. No one speaks a word of English.
Fuad, our driver helps me identify the village chief. I give him several bars of soap and indicate in front of those around tat he should cut it up and share it with them. Who knows if this will happen.
We lunch at Weyto. The food here now looks GREAT since our culinary expectations have been adjusted by our 5 days of Omo Valley travel. But Weyto is still so hot, so dusty, so sad.
As we climb out of the Omo Valley for the last time, the air becomes enjoyably cool again. A tourist 4WD is having mechanical trouble and we stop to investigate. Seems their clutch has gone totally kaput.
It is the car transporting the 'Italian Princess' (our nickname) we've been seeing at the tourist spots over the past few days.She travels alone except for her personal driver and interpreter/cook. As we pull up beside her she sits in the dead car gazing into the sky and sucking on her cigarette....as though we don't exist.
Honey, you in a dead car now and yo money ain't takin' you nowhere today.
We offer her and her interpreter a lift to Konso which she graciously accepts (her driver will stay with the car, this seems to be their preferred/expected arrangement). It rains heavily as we pass Konso Village and is still falling when we reach Konso town. The town is the same sea of mud it was during our outward pass through. Our group collectively decides to push on to Arba Minch since Konso is a muddy mess and we know the Kebele Molla Hotel in Arba has great hot water, delicious chicken salad and stunning breakfast views from its terrace.
We find the Arba hotel nearly deserted. So we revel in having our own African palace for a night. Two bottles of Ethiopian red wine are enjoyed over a long leisurely dinner discussing the impact of our visits with the tribes both on us and on the tribes themselves. Should we have made this trip? Was it OK to give gifts? Are we helping or harming them? Have we been selfish or generous by coming?
