As I was about to leave, one of the village leaders came up to me and asked if we would drive one of their teachers to a village some 200kms away. As it was on our route I had no particular objection but I’d be damned if I were going to do something like this for free when I had just been charged some 125 birr for what was essentially nothing. In a moment of indignant fury, I yelled for some 30 minutes at the astounded chief regarding the rudeness of his village. As my guide nervously translated, the chief frowned more and more. At about this point it began to dawn on me that I was probably going to die. Before me was a six foot five, frowning, naked man with a machine gun and ritual scarification proudly declaring the 50 or so men he had killed during his 40 years as a tribal warrior. When the translator finished the Chief gave his gun to an aide and, to my utter shock threw his arms around me in an embrace. He thanked me for explaining the ways of the white man, apologized for his tribe, and invited me to stay in his home. I accepted and thus began one of the most remarkable experiences of all of my travels.

Once accepted into the village setting everything changed. Villagers no longer asked for money and instead begged me to photograph them so that they could see their faces in my digital camera. They brought out food and drink and even slaughtered and roasted a goat in my honor. Karo peoples rarely eat meat and the goat-slaughtering gave the entire evening a festive bacchanalian air. Villagers and herdsman gathered from the surrounding countryside to taste the rare meats. Although there is very little food in most villages, they do have a fine local whisky that is most similar to Araki or Ouzo, and packs a similar punch. We got drunk as day wore into evening and the sun set over the village. Our campsite for the evening was not far from the Chief’s hut.

In the morning, we drank a traditional Karo coffee that is brewed rather like a tea and includes the bean husks. This wonderful coffee is mild and delicious and does not require sugar. As I watched the village come to life, I sipped the coffee out of a large wooden bowl carved from the bole of a single massive tree. Women and men emerged from their prospective huts and began the work of the day: weaving and making bean paste (a dietary staple of the entire Omo region), for women, and standing under a shady tree for men. Eventually we said our farewells and the Chief thanked me again for my enlightening words. During the night, he gathered all of the money I had spent on photos and returned it to me and asked me to visit again and stay as long as I liked, for I was now like a man of the Karo.

This beautiful experience was a sharp contrast to my experience with the next tribe on my itinerary, the Mursi. The Mursi are considered the wild men of the Omo Valley. They are the most remote of all Omo tribes, and even among the other Omos they are known for their viciousness. Murder and violence are simply the Mursi way of life: every one of them is a merciless killer and has probably already finished off a childhood friend or two as part of the courtship tradition. They are a purely warrior tribe, and although they have handicrafts, they do not engage in any sort of agriculture. They will however, occasionally lay into an elephant with their Kalashnikovs, as they did just before I arrived. The Mursi were only too happy to flaunt the government by proudly displaying the monstrous, fly ridden, steaming carcass. They are also of a different racial stock from the surrounding tribes being of Niliotic rather than Omoiatic / Kushitic origins. The Mursi are known for the distinctive practice among their women of wearing large lip and ear plates. This practice developed to prevent Mursi women from marrying into enemy tribes.

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