Travel 
Omo Bend and the Omotic Tribal People
1-2 February 2018
Termite mound
Playing Ethiopian dodgeball with the goats, ruts, rocks, swales and riverbeds of the road, for two hours we bounce our way to the village of Gorcho. This is a new landscape of flat land, huge dry washes, red soil and towering red ‘chimneys’ of termite mounds. I definitely would not want to be in this area when the rains fall. There is much evidence of massive flooding and fast, dangerous rivers of water. Today it is hot and bone dry.
As Bette Davis warned in All About Eve –
Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
First the rooster crows, impatient for daybreak. A mass can be heard from somewhere to the south. The Call to Prayer echoes to the east. A hungry mosquito can be heard attempting to breach my netting. The familiar ping of “I’ve got mail” tells me the internet has been turned on. Ravens leave in mass, calling to all their friends that the early bird will get the best pickings. A donkey brays his complaint that his workday is about to begin. My tent walls are thin and the morning noises tell me it’s time to rise. The only thing missing is the sun which is still an hour below the horizon.
It is a morning of rutted roads and clouds of dust. It reminds me of childhood when faced with that long Thanksgiving drive to a meal with obnoxious relatives. You dread being around the bully cousin or the picky grandmother. I have heard so many horror stories about the Mursi tribe that I wonder “why go?” We have been given clear instructions about our visit, just like mama used to warn the kids to “behave, or else!”
I leave the north. Flying above Ethiopia, my perspective is of zigging zagging canyons with a sliver of river at the bottom; huge buttes with small villages on top; ridges; endless brown; rocky, volcanic topography – what looks to be an incredibly inhospitable landscape. I see few tilled fields that seem ample enough to feed the population. Wars were fought on this land and woe to the ignorant of its ups and downs, steep escarpments and narrow valleys, and what looks to be a single ribbon of road into the distance. Italian invaders learned the hard way, taking days and back-breaking labor to move their trucks and tanks but a few miles. From up here, I can see why.