Bull-jumping to Nairobi

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Hello from Nairobi!

Well I made it to Kenya! But not before a couple of fabulous weeks in the South of Ethiopia…

My time in and around the Lower Omo Valley was nothing short of incredible, and certainly my best of the trip so far. My time in Ethiopia was fascinating in general, but if I was going to return to the country then I’d head straight down to the South. The sheer number of different ethnic/tribal groups in such a relatively small space is breathtaking. I made my way around the region for 5 days in a hired vehicle with three other guys, including Woodser. I saw plenty of nice scenery, and interesting Wikipedia-worthy tribes including the Hamer, the Banna, the Dasanech, in the burning hot lowlands near the Kenyan and Sudanese borders, and the Mursi (famous for the lip plates their women wear, and the way in which they scar their bodies for beauty). All were very colourful and have retained their traditions for years and years without integrating with the other groups living nearby. We even slept under the stars in a couple of Hamer villages which was a really nice way to get to know the community and how they live.

After the lads headed back up to Addis, I decided to stay on in the region, as there was a rumour of a Hamer bull-jumping ceremony going on in a village near Dimeka. I stayed with a family in their hut near Dimeka and then put a lot of effort into working out where the ceremony was, and how to get there. Not so easily it seemed!

There is no public transport in the region anyway, but this place (a village called Buska) turned out to be 36km from Dimeka up in the hills. I persuaded a guy with a motorbike who was delivering measles vaccines to a village called Lala 6km from Buska to run me up there, and agreed a price for him to come and collect me after the main ceremony finished. The journey up there was incredible in itself! The wind in my hair, with the African sun beating down on red red roads and the dry white grass, passing Hamer tribesmen and women herding their animals along in their traditional dress (Google some pictures!) - exhilarating.

Once in Lala, I was lucky enough to bump into a Hamer dude going to the ceremony, so he accompanied me. It was a knackering old walk for a couple of hours via the huts of his family and friends to collect some clothes and drink some Tela (a thick home made hot beer made with lots of grains I think). All the time we could hear some horns being blown from the village away in the hills, alerting the surrounding population as to where preparations for the ceremony were beginning. There was something so authentic and exciting about climbing through the mountains, stopping to detect the trumpeting of a ceremony which has little changed over the years and which remains an integral part of every Hamer boy’s life. This party had not been advertised on Facebook…

Eventually we reached the village. I was the only non-Hamer there but everybody was happy enough to see me. Photography can be a tricky, and expensive, pastime in the Omo Valley, so I kept my camera tucked away for the time being. People were arriving from all over the hills and valleys of the area. Women in their goatskin tunics and skirts, and with bells tied around their legs. Hamer women always have their hair died red and plaited with clay, and their backs bear scarring from weddings and coming of age ceremonies where they beg male family members to whip them as a symbol of their love (something a little difficult to come to terms with). The men also had colourful clay hairdos, often with an ostrich feather stuck in it. They wear material wrapped round their legs like a mini skirt. There were plenty of guns around, but I think that these days they are a symbol of wealth as much as anything (I was told I'd have to stump up 3 cattle for an AK47 in a previous discussion with villagers in Turmi). Nobody really spoke Amharic, let alone English, so it was fun communicating. A lot of women had obviously already been whipped that day and were now dancing around like mad. I sat with the blokes who appeared to be concentrating their energies on Tela consumption.

A few other tourists turned up not long before the actual jumping, which was useful as they had a guide with them who negotiated a price with the chief to take photos. By now there were hundreds of people in the compound (it wasn’t really a village so much as a couple of houses), and a hell of a lot dancing, drinking and singing going on. Soon the party moved out of the compound and onto the hillside where bulls were gradually being calmed enough to form a line. Women were dancing up to male relatives (boys who are also jumping bulls this year), some of whom whipped them. Crazy. One naked lad looked nervous amongst the assemble bulls. The ceremony is essentially a coming of age party, and he would have to jump onto and over a row of around 12 bulls. He completed it successfully several times!

I imagine the party went on all night but I paid the guy I'd walked with some dough to accompany me (running) back to Lala and my awaiting motorcycle at around 8pm.

The journey back is a story in itself, but essentially the motorcycle broke down minutes into our journey, and we had to walk back to Dimeka. The moon is so bright here that navigation oughtn't be a problem, and a 'short-cut' paid off until we got lost in a forest, then heard hyenas very close by and suddenly realized just how precarious our situation was. We slept from 4.30am til 6.00 outside a tribal hut just out of the forest, before completing our trek back to town knackered. From there I got a ride on the back of an Isuzu truck to Konso (so uncomfortable on these bumpy dirt tracks sitting on empty coke bottles!) and on to Arba Minch.

This provided the perfect setting for my final weekend in the country, as the town was hosting the ‘1000 Stars Festival’ (http://www.myspace.com/arbaminchfestival) which featured fifty-something tribes from the region performing songs and dance in their traditional dress.

From there, it was a 1,400 Kilometre-ish journey overland to Nairobi, the bulk of which was completed in the cab of a truck over the course of 44-hours from Moyale. The journey would have been a lot quicker had it not been for SIXTEEN Police checkpoints along the way…

The roads were SO red, but the areas we passed through were so sparsely populated that it was quite a boring journey really, bar the odd buck or hyena. The prices in the towns we passed through were surprisingly ok and similar to ethiopia - the food was even cheaper! The semi-nomadic pastoralist settlements we passed through must have been at least as poor as those in Ethiopia, which nowmakes it even weirder to be in Nairobi…

I had dreamt of the large coffee and carrot cake I've just scoffed in a cafe here, but the overwhelming feeling is just how strange it is to have so many big buildings and imported products around me, and so many western things available, and so much money really! It really pushes home again just how poor Ethiopia is. Apart from a few corrupt officials, successful businessmen and aid workers, there isn't really anybody with money in the country, and not a lot to spend it on. There are different classes in Ethiopia but almost everyone is poor really, and this poverty is all around you in Addis. Whereas here in Nairobi they seem to do a ‘good job ‘of keeping the poor out of the city centre, where prices are quite high and some people drive Mercs.

It's been tough-travelling the last few weeks so I'm going to splurge a little here - priorities are coffee, cake, curry and cinema, as well as replying to a backlog of emails, catching up on sleep, and writing around a thousand pages of my journal!

I’m off to Mombasa tomorrow, after the Liverpool game of course…

Lot’s of Love,

Ben 😊

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