Tag Archives: environmental portrait

The Mursi people of Ethiopia’s Omo Valley have been called “one of the most fascinating tribes in Africa.” A pastoralist group originating in the Nile Valley, the roughly 7,500 Nilo-Saharan Mursi live in an isolated corner of southwestern Ethiopia, close to the border with South Sudan. Even today with improved roadways, their villages are remote: I was on […]

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“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” – The Buddha The end of the year – according to the Gregorian calendar is drawing near… Of course, the more you travel, the more you realise that many […]

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It takes a lot of time to prepare for a Papua New Guinean sing-sing.  Ancient masks and costumes – some pieces carved from wood and others woven from leaves and grasses: all decorated with paint, shells or feathers – have to be checked and repaired. New costume details need to be fashioned from leaves and grasses. And […]

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Once again, pictures of camels and colour are flooding my news feed: the Pushkar Camel Fair in Rajasthan is currently in full swing, and photographers from around the world are there, posting pictures that make me nostalgic for India. The Pushkar Fair, or Kartik Mela, is a multi-day livestock fair and cultural fête. Animal breeders and buyers descend on […]

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According to the guide books, the Mursi people have “an aggressive reputation”. This fierce reputation is probably what helps them maintain their cultural traditions and their animist practices in the face of the “artificial” geographic boundaries enforced by the Ethiopian state, the tensions between themselves and other tribes, and the onslaught of modern tourism. That reputation, […]

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