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DISCOVERY ADVENTURE ESCAPE SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2017

ANDY HASLAM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES EXPLORER Of Rivers and Rituals

the . A woman, heavily adorned “It’s an at-risk ecosystem, with at-risk com- Sunset over the Touring ’s By ANDREW McCARTHY in beads and bracelets, ground sorghum on munities. But it is still a very wild place.” Mr. Omo Valley. The “Your George W. Bush came here two years a large stone in the nearby shade. Men, Jones was born in Nigeria of English par- valley is largely dry Omo Valley, with ago and not a person recognized him.” some carrying AK-47s, sat in clusters. Small ents, raised in East Africa and educated in savanna, with the “No one?” naked children scampered past. Goats and England. “When it came time to put on a Omo River cutting a “No one knew who he was.” cattle roamed freely on the dusty flood suit and go into town,” he said, “I came back nearly 475-mile-long a sustainable “Would they have known Nelson Man- plain. There was no electricity, no running to Africa.” swath down to Lake dela?” water, no cars. Mr. Biwam, who guesses his Mr. Jones, 45, has been creating custom- Turkana on the travel outfitter. “No. No one here would have seen TV. No age to be “about 40,” looked around. “It is a ized tours to the continent for more than 20 border. one here thinks beyond Omo.” good place,” he said. “The people are true.” years. Wild Philanthropy is his latest ven- I was speaking with Lale Biwa, a member I had come to the Omo Valley with the in- ture — an enterprise designed to build sus- of the Karo people, in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley. novative tourism entrepreneur Will Jones tainable tourism with a mutually beneficial We were surrounded by low, circular huts to get a view into the lives of some of Africa’s exchange between visitors and the people made from sticks, with pitched grass roofs, most traditional tribes. “I’m particularly in- and land they visit. Mr. Jones also operates in his home village of Dus, on the banks of terested in the Omo,” Mr. Jones told me. CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 C M Y K Sxxx,2017-11-05,TR,006,Cs-4C,E1 C M Y K Sxxx,2017-11-05,TR,007,Cs-4C,E1

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EXPLORER ETHIOPIA Of Rivers and Rituals in the Omo Valley CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The elder kept talking as Mr. Biwa trans- the only permanent tented camp in the Omo lated. “And now is a prayer for rain. For the Valley, not far from Mr. Biwa’s village. women and children. A prayer that all bad This southwestern corner of Ethiopia is feelings be carried off across the river.” Af- home to seven primary tribes who coexist ter each invocation the assembled replied in with varying degrees of peace. The land is a deep, guttural moan. largely dry savanna, with the Omo River Finally, the three men who had carved the cutting a nearly 475-mile-long swath down bull sliced open the only remaining part of to on the Kenya border. The the animal. They reached in and produced discovery of human remains dating back globs of warm dung and dispersed them. nearly 2.5 million years prompted Unesco Each man began to spread the excrement to dub the Lower Valley a World Heritage over his legs and across his chest in a com- site in 1980. mitment to protect those they love. But today the Omo is a region on the Afterward, I slipped away. But hours lat- precipice. The Ethiopian government has er, in the dusk, I walked back alone from our recently completed the third of five pro- camp and entered the village again. As was posed dams upriver. The dams threaten to usually the case, a small child was the first alter the lives of the communities that have to greet me. The light was fading quickly, as inhabited this valley for millennium and de- it does near the Equator. A group of men pend on the river’s moods for survival. huddled near the Parliament and Ceremony “This was the second year in a row that House, but otherwise the village was quiet. the flood crop failed,” Mr. Jones told me. “It The small boy shadowed me and I began to is the only time anyone can remember that hear a loose kind of chanting. I turned to- the river never rose.” ward the sound. There was a soft breeze in The area has also fallen victim to hit-and- the gloaming; the heat was finally off the run tourism — people driving down from day. Then the unmistakable register of an Addis Ababa, storming into villages, cam- AK-47 rang out. eras blazing, then leaving in a cloud of dust. I leapt into the air. My head snapped in all I encountered one such scrum at a local fes- directions, looking for the origin of the gun- tival. Witnessing the feverish pursuit for fire. Was I going to be shot as an intruder in Right, a parliament documentation of “otherness” reflected the night? My young companion laughed at and ceremony house back at me my own motives for being there. me. He looked directly up into the sky, indi- in the village of Dus. It is an issue every traveler to remote or in- cating the direction of the shot. I tried to Below that, members digenous regions needs to reconcile. smile, and, more slowly now, continued to- of the Karo tribe, left, “There is a circuit of exploitation here,” ward the sound of the crowd. My small and Daasanach tribe, Mr. Jones told me. “It’s one of the reasons friend reached up and took my hand. The right. Below that, the we cultivate relationships with the local voices became more insistent. It was nearly Omo River. people, trading with them, trying to create a dark. Then I heard it again — this time, a

mutually beneficial exchange. And it’s why PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDY HASLAM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES rapid barrage of gunfire. Then another. The we’re primarily using the river as our road. boy smiled in reassurance. I dropped his The river allows us access to villages inac- hand and beat it back to the campsite. cessible any other way.” In the six days we The next morning, as we loaded the boat spent on the river we saw one other motor- for our trip farther downriver, I learned that ized boat — carrying supplies for an NGO a village elder had died suddenly and the downriver. gunfire had been part of the mourning With Mr. Biwa as our guide, we headed to process. a small village inhabited by the Hamar peo- We set out before the heat of the day. For ple. The Hamar, numbering 45,000 through- seven hours heavy bush lined the banks. out the valley, are known to be pastoralists. Occasionally children splashed in the croco- The village was overflowing with cattle. As dile-infested water and villages were visi- in Dus, the dwellings were simple, built of ble through the foliage. Baboons scampered sticks and grass, and well ordered. Young up the steep banks. A rare Pel’s fishing owl men tended cattle while a woman skinned swept overhead. At the dire river outpost of and butchered a goat with the help of her Omorate, we had our passports inspected, toddler, who hung pieces of the animal on a paid the local graft and carried on. fence beside an AK-47 and a belt of ammo. “It’s a bit of a no man’s land from here to “The AK-47 has replaced the spear,” Mr. Lake Turkana,” Mr. Jones told me. Jones said. The heavy bush yielded to a more open Mr. Biwa nodded. “As long as you have flood plane. Large villages of the AK, you are respected,” he said. “Your fam- Daasanach people, whom we had come to ily feels safe and proud. Someone with no see, began to line the river. These villages AK, people look down on them. If you do not differed from others we had seen in the bi- have AK your family will go to someone zarre-seeming platforms, 10 feet off the who does.” ground, that had been constructed to store They were American-made, I was told, and protect the sorghum crop from the an- gathered during the war in neighboring Su- nual flooding — flooding now in jeopardy dan. because of the damming upriver. But they are not cheap,” Mr. Biwa said. We set up camp on a high bank. The local “How much do they cost?” I asked. villagers assumed free run of our site and “Five cows,” he said. we were absorbed into daily life. Dugout ca- Beside firearms, I witnessed few other noes, listing and overfull with people, were accommodations to the contemporary constantly crossing and recrossing the world in the Omo. Yet for a place so far off river. Voices carried back and forth across the grid, news traveled fast throughout the the water long after dark. valley. While in the Hamar village we heard On an excursion farther downstream, the word of a nearby bull-jumping ceremony. river began to splinter. Dusty land gave way The bull jump is a ritual initiation to man- to the high grass of the delta. Soon pelicans hood for both the Hamar and Karo commu- swarmed, then Lake Turkana was upon us. nities. We headed east. After the confines of life on the river, the ex- AT THE END of a long, deeply rutted road we panse of the inland sea was daunting. came upon a dusty village in the midst of a Here too, the environment is threatened. celebration. Old men and women gathered “It’s said Turkana could drop 20 feet with in the shade. Young men painted their faces the dam,” Mr. Jones said. “The effect on the red and white. Young women were draped delta would be anyone’s guess.” in skirts and wore large bells wrapped FROM FISHERMEN AT Turkana we learned around their calves. Their hair was ornately that not far upstream, numerous done in rings caked with ochre-colored Daasanach communities had begun to mud. Each carried a small horn and blew it gather for a Dimi ceremony. They had come incessantly. from miles away for an event that happens When one young woman turned away only every few years and lasts several from me I noticed fresh welts on her bare weeks — culminating in the act of female back, dripping blood; she seemed unaware circumcision. and continued to dance. Then I saw her ap- proach a young man, stand close in front of him, and blow her horn in his face. She be- ‘It’s an at-risk gan to jump up and down, her bells clang- ecosystem, with ing, her horn blaring. The young man bent at-risk communities.’ to the ground and picked up a long switch and raised it over his head. The woman blew her horn more insistently, then sud- We left the boat and were immediately denly stopped. She stared at the young confronted by two dozen teenage boys, each man. He struck her with the whip, which with a bow and arrow. After an initial stand- snapped around her body and lashed across off, they happily showed us the sharp tips of her back with a sharp cracking sound. She their weapons. We carried on across land did not flinch. She lifted her horn, blew it in littered with the bones of what I assumed to From top: a Karo boy his face and danced away, fresh blood rising be cattle, through heat so intense it was dif- on her back. The same performance was re- painted in preparation ETHIOPIATH OP NORTH OOMOOM ficult to breathe. The earth shimmered and of a ceremony; peated again and again by many of the huts began to materialize on the horizon. young women. Their backs were covered in scarification and O M O R I VVER E The Dimi gathering was in the early colored beads on a old scars and new welts, yet none of them stages; only a handful of families had ar- displayed any outward signs of pain. Daasanach woman; rived. Outside the temporary huts were and a Kara As the sun was setting, a dozen bulls were poles hung with leopard skin cloaks and os- led to a clearing and aligned flank to flank. tribeswoman working SOUOUTHOUT OMOMO trich plume hats for men, and colobus mon- the fields near From near right, The women clustered together and began key capes for women. The skin of several Karo people jumping, their bells ringing out, their horns Lumale. DusD people who came to greet us was already guarding their blasting. Others began to chant. Suddenly a painted yellow in preparation for the danc- village; a Hamar naked young man leapt up on the back of ing that would accompany the coming cere- bull-jumping the first bull and raced across the spine of Omooratate mony. ceremony in Turmi; each. He jumped down after the last bull, Back by the boat I encountered a man KENYAK and tribesmen but then he was up again, racing across 50 MILES with his entire chest and stomach covered preparing for the their backs in the other direction. He re- in the well-ordered markings of scarifica- ceremony. peated the back-and-forth exercise three YEMEN tion. times. If he fell it would be a disgrace he SUDAN “This is to indicate that he has killed in would carry for life, Mr. Biwa had warned battle,” Mr. Biwa explained. me. But the youth never faltered — the next DJIBOUTI The man glared at me. When I extended morning he would awake a man, able to sit ETHIOPIA my hand to shake his, he broke into a tooth- among the elders. some grin. semicircle on a bluff above the river. Seating The women continued to blow their horns tled our engine through the brown water. na. Atop the cliff, two men stood sentry. One cuts, causing the skin to welt in intricate In time, more than a dozen women SOMALIA On our last evening, the sun was hazy was arranged from the youngest to the and the celebration continued on into the “The Nyangatom are fierce fighters. They had an AK-47 slung from his shoulder; the patterns. They made this two-mile walk to emerged from the honeycomb-shaped near the horizon over Sudan. I walked into most senior elder. I was offered a spot in the night. We drove away under a moonless sky, pushed us across the river. Our women tell other wore what in a more urban setting and from the river twice daily — in Africa dwellings that looked as if they could nei- the village behind our site, and then kept dirt much too far along the timeline for my the Southern Cross hanging low, silence fill- us we are weak. Not just with their words. might have been called a hipster hat. The carrying water is women’s work. ther contain nor shelter life. One old woman walking to the next village, and the next. liking. ing our car. They dance — in front of everyone. It is a tribes wore a mishmash of clothing — At the outskirts of the village, a half-doz- began to chant, then just as suddenly Children began to follow. Soon their num- A bull was being roasted over an open fire shame we wear.” brightly colored traditional wraps, animal en expressionless men loitered. The tallest stopped. All wore heavy ropes of beaded bers were more than a hundred, the bolder THE NEXT MORNING we headed up river to a in the center of the gathering. Three men We passed large crocodiles cooling them- skins and adornments, mixed freely with sported a vaguely military-looking beret, necklaces piled high and were wrapped ones shook hands, some touched my hair — small village of the . Re- with machetes hacked the animal to pieces. 200 MILESES selves on the muddy banks, their jaws rest- Chelsea football jerseys, rakish caps and fa- worn at a jaunty angle, and an AK-47. The from the waist in once colorful cloth, and then ran away giggling. Eventually I began lations between Karo and Nyangatom have Chunks of meat and fat, clinging to large THE NEW YORK TIMES ing open. Black-and-white colobus mon- tigue shorts — creating an all too apt picture rest held long sticks. Some wore rubber several held small children. Fatigue hung in to chase them — the boogeyman to their de- long been strained. Intertribal conflicts bones, were deposited onto small beds of keys leapt from branches of fig trees. A dug- of Africa’s disparate influences, all vying for sandals made from scavenged truck ties; the blistering heat. It would have been diffi- lighted screams — as the sun fell. over cattle rustling and grazing land have leaves before the assembled. A part of the out canoe sat unattended on the riverbank. dominance. the others were barefoot. cult to imagine daily life clinging closer to When the entire animal had been con- On the way back, on the outskirts of our kept the valley bristling with internal strife animal I couldn’t identify was dropped in A Goliath heron lumbered into the air. The men on the cliff greeted us with Many Nyangatom are seminomadic and the edge of existence. sumed, one of the elders got up and began to campsite, I came upon an old man setting for decades, passed down from generation front of me. The old man beside me with In time the heavy foliage lining the river stares, and we set out across the arid land. this village appeared haphazardly thrown “The cradle of mankind is no Garden of speak. fire to a dead tree near a clearing. In the to generation, Mr. Biwa said. heavily pierced ears and a pointed stick pro- thinned, then grew sparse. Thirty-foot cliffs Distant hills of Kenya were visible to the together, as if built in a rush, without care. Eden,” Mr. Jones said softly as we tracked “He is making a prayer for the river to morning I told Mr. Biwa what I had seen. “Where we are going, this was our land truding below his lower lip offered me his began to rise up and the landscape turned south. Three young girls with water jugs There was no central meeting area, no back cross the barren land to the boat. rise,” Mr. Biwa told me. “It was a prayer,” he said. “A prayer for until 15 years ago,” Mr. Biwa said as he throt- knife. He watched as I sliced into the myste- parched. Ahead, on the west bank, bony cat- balancing on their heads silently caught up sense of organization. Children did not rush Back down the river, the mood was more “Don’t they know about the dam?” I the river to rise.” rious blob, then grinned as I put it in my ANDREW McCARTHY tle were drinking from the river, kicking a with us. One carried the designs of scarifica- to greet us. We huddled with the men in the celebratory — a ceremony was underway in asked. We climbed into our boat and headed is the author of the young mouth. Just beyond the circle a dozen choking dust high into the sky and across tion — small, raised scars created by rub- scant shade of a scraggly date tree. Ciga- Dus. Two hundred men from Mr. Biwa’s “It is a difficult thing to understand,” he back upstream on a river that was unlikely adult novel “Just Fly Away” and the travel hooded vultures gathered. memoir “The Longest Way Home.” the sun, casting everything in an eerie pati- bing charcoal in deliberately administered rettes were passed around and smoked. Karo community were gathering in a large said. to do so.