A Visit to a Daasanach Village, Omo Valley, Ethiopia

When I was young, I had a book with pictures of children around the world in their traditional National Costumes. I found the concept difficult to understand, given that where I lived, people dressed differently from each other, and fashion trends changed with every season.

I find it even more remarkable, these countless years later, that there are still so many pockets in the world where every item of clothing, every piece of jewellery and body art, and every hairstyle, is dictated by the community, and one’s place in it.

It was a rainy afternoon in the Omo Valley in a remote corner of south-western Ethiopia. I was travelling with photographer Ben McRae as part of a small-group Piper Mackay Photo-Tour. After a morning spent in a Hamar village (see: Hama Village Portraits), we were visiting a Daasanach settlement not far out of the market town of Turmi.

These two villages couldn’t have been more different!

Daasanach or Dassanech means People from the Delta; they are the southern-most of the tribes who live in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, and stretch across southern Ethiopia, Sudan, and down into Northern Kenya, concentrating in the delta region where the Omo River enters Lake Turkana

Less than 3% of roughly 50,000 Daasanach are urban; the majority of these semi-nomadic Cushitic people live along the Omo and depend on it for their livelihood, especially since being pushed out of their traditional Kenyan lands either side of Lake Turkana. Their cultural and agricultural customs are intricately tied to the harsh and often unpredictable conditions of the region’s semi-arid climate: they practice ‘flood retreat cultivation’ where the (usual) July floods on the Omo River leave rich silt behind. Unfortunately, recent years of severe and sustained droughts alternating with deadly floods have made Daasanach lives more precarious. Added to this, the damming of several large rivers that once fed Lake Turkana and the increased use of river waters for irrigation have reduced water flow. The riverbanks are suffering from deforestation and are hosting additional disease, and the shrinking lake has been overfished, putting extra pressures on food supply.

The village we visited was not far from town, and some of the young people (male) who hired themeselves to us as local guides had good English and high ambitions. My young guide wanted to become a doctor; an aim I had difficultly reconciling the simplicity (poverty?) of the surrounds he was living in. He was still in High School, and with luck, might be eligeable for a scholarship, but his ability to study was completely restricted to ‘town’ where he had limited access to electric light and internet.

These tribal communities face an ongoing struggle to try to maintain traditional values, and at the same time bridge the huge divides between ‘our world’ and theirs.

It was dark. It was time to return to our modest accommodation – complete with running water, electricity, and patchy wifi.

Back in my room, reflecting on my own education and advantages, I couldn’t help but wonder what the future holds for the smart young people in these traditional villages.

I wish them well.

‘Till next time,

Responsible travels!

Pictures: 18October2018