It took three days of driving to get to the South Omo region. The first tribe we encountered was the Konso. The Konso are not in fact an Omo tribe, but rather an interesting group that can be met along the way. As they lie just off the main Kenya-Ethiopia thoroughfare, the Konso are used to tourists and work relentlessly on extracting every possible birr from every hapless passer-by. However, their villages are well worth the visit if only to admire the beautiful two story stone huts and elaborate agricultural terracing.

The Konso village that we visited is, ironically, called “New York”. Nearby a massive valley has been etched out of the soft sandstone in Grand Canyon fashion. The water sculpted stone bears what the locals consider to be a remarkable resemblance to the New York City skyline - hence the name. I have serious doubt that anyone who has actually seen New York City would make such a comparison.

In any case, Konso New York can be best described as a seething cauldron of greed. They demanded an exorbitant entrance fee then additional money for every photo. This, I found, has become the norm throughout the Omo Valley, as the occasional traveler that passes through is the only source of money for the largely pre-economic tribes. In response to this I adopted a camera technique whereby I just sort of pointed the camera in the correct direction and took as many photos as possible - a few turned out surprisingly good, but most needed a little bit of Photoshop work (cropping and level adjustment) to perfect.

The Konso are in a transitional phase regarding clothing. Some missionaries must have come through and handed out a truckload of red and blue striped sport shirts as nearly every Konso has one. However, they have not yet fully mastered the art of wearing western clothing and so women will often stick their head through the head hole or often a ripped arm hole, and wear it as a necklace or scarf, thus leaving the remainder of their upper body unclothed. As for the lower body, the Konso women do have a traditional kind of billowing skirt, made from locally woven fabrics, that is designed to emphasize the size of a woman’s behind. Men wear wrap skirts or nothing at all. Some few have more elaborate Western clothing but wear them in a haphazard fashion. I saw one fellow with a pair of pants that were so tight he could not pull up the zipper, thus leaving the full of his manhood humorously and obscenely exposed.

The Konso are one of the few tribes in Ethiopia that have adopted western medical practices. Once a week a wandering government doctor will appear about 20kms from Konso New York and see all patients. On this day people from the villages put their sick on homemade stretchers and carry them the entire way. As it is a difficult journey in sweltering heat – especially for the sick people on stretchers – sometimes people die on the way. When this happens, the locals simply drop the bodies in the middle of the road and leave them for the truck that drives through every other day to carry back to the village for burial.

It was one such body that we found lying in the middle of the road around a blind curve. We were not going fast, but even at 20kms per hour it was impossible to stop quickly enough, and when we slammed on the breaks, our front wheels skidded on the body. I thought for a moment that we were going to be in serious trouble as it never occurred to me that the guy might be dead! The smart English speaking boy that we hired as a guide got out and literally kicked the body into a ditch on the side of the road and said, “Don’t worry, he dead.” As everyone else watching the event seemed nonchalant, I let the incident pass and we continued on to Turmi.

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