Modern Gonzo in Ethiopia

Fortunately, and with no disrespect to Nigerians in general, 98% of the plane continued onwards to Lagos, depositing us in Addis Ababa just two days after the country celebrated its millennium. Ethiopia does more than follow its own Christian calendar (the Julian, as opposed to our Gregorian), they also tell the time differently, with 12 hours of day, and 12 hours of night, so we arrived at eight, but it was really two. Thus, I arrived in the country a full seven years younger and ahead of my time. Our luggage, on the other hand, took an hour to make its way to the conveyer time, or, if you prefer, just a few minutes in Africa Time. Oh Africa! Birthplace of Humanity, Land of Beauty, the Place that Progress Forgot (or at least, Overlooked). We had missed the Millennium Party due to scheduling, but Addis was still aglow with festive colored lights, its roads wide and dusty, snaking through tin shacks and creaky wooden scaffolding, holding up leaky cement construction. The Greeks called this the Land of Burnt Faces, a politically incorrect term that has nevertheless given the country its name. It is one of only two countries on the entire continent that has proudly never been colonized, but it is also a highway lined on either side with war and famine - the tragic car wrecks of history. Speaking of which, there was no time to explore the capital just yet; an early morning flight was ready to take us north, to incredible rock churches that have survived from the ancient kingdom of Lalibela.

As if. Cars break down, boats break down, I've been on a train that broke down, and a gondola once got stuck too. So it came as no surprise when the twin-prop Fokker 50 took off after a quick stop in Bahir Dar, circled over Lake Tana - the source of the world's longest river, the Blue Nile - and bumpily landed again. The plane had broken down. So the passengers, made up of adventurous international tourists, Rastafarians, and a few locals walked into the airport to be served up coffee, bread soaked in berbere sauce, and rain drops of misinformation from the airline. It was the weather, no, the weather instrument, no, we're not sure, more coffee? Five hours later, a replacement plane arrived, but unfortunately, it broke down too. So the passengers from the replacement plane were transferred to our plane, which apparently now worked, and we would have to wait for a replacement replacement plane. I didn't mind so much, because one of these fokking Fokkers was bound to go down, and my bet was the one that "suddenly" fixed itself. The airport toilets didn't flush and there was no water, but I sat through my first Ethiopian coffee ceremony (which can take an hour) and unplugged the cafe fridge to do some work on my laptop. Three hours later, an unmarked Fokker arrived to the cheers of the by-now somewhat irate passengers. Then the airport staff, with whom we'd be mindlessly bantering with all day, turned all professional and emptied our bags as a security precaution, barred us from going outside, and wanted the tape from Sean's camera. It was all rather odd, but eight hours later the plane took off, and, where was I, yes, the ancient kingdom of Lalibela.

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It must have come as a surprise to European missionaries arriving on the Dark Continent, eager and ready to convert heathen savages, only to discover that Ethiopia was the second country to adopt Christianity as a state religion, as early as the 4th century. An ancient kingdom, known as the Aksumites, was one of the largest, most civilized, and prosperous nations of its era, benefitting from its position as a vital trading post between Africa, Asia and the Middle East. While Europeans were living in caves and hogshit, northern Ethiopia was awash in colourful art, incredible architecture, music and commerce. The Aksumites faded with the rise of trading posts along the Red Sea, but a new kingdom arose in the 11th century, led by a King Lalibela, who decided to build a New Jerusalem in Africa, just in case the rising Islamic empire swept the real Jerusalem into the paper shredder of history. And thus began the construction of the churches of Lalibela, hand-carved into red volcanic rock, a mind boggling accomplishment. Jordan's Petra is similarly carved into a rock face, but the 11 churches of Lalibela stand on their own, like the finished masterpiece of a sculptor. Built alongside its own River Jordan, Lalibela is rich with symbols, icons and religious images. And uniquely, they have survived and are still in use to this day.

Lalibela attracts tourists - Italians, Spanish, Japanese - the resulting influx barely enough to support the town that surrounds the churches. The Ethiopian word for foreigner is "ferengi", and be it an accident of decades of foreign aid, or just irresponsible tourists who should know better, ferengis in Lalibela (and elsewhere, as we'll soon discover) are good for only one thing, and that is, handouts. Seconds after departing our van, my ass still vibrating from the stone road, I'm surrounded by children asking for birr (Ethiopian currency). I'm prodded and poked and stare into dozens of upturned hands. An old toothless woman walks up from behind and gives me a sloppy wet kiss on my arm. So accustomed to my personal space, I try not to freak out. A guard walks up, raises a stick, and the children scatter. We enter the main gate and buy $20 tickets and pricey $30 video camera permits, and are assigned a compulsory guide as well as someone to watch our shoes when we enter the churches . UNESCO , in an attempt to preserve the main church of Bet Medhane Alem, have installed ugly scaffolding around it, designed, no doubt, to ruin all photographs. Still, the fact that this huge building was carved top-down from solid rock is staggering. We take off our shoes, and enter inside. It is dark and cold and still has much of the original carpeting on the ground (we were warned to wear long pants because of the fleas). Light streams in from small windows, the ceiling blackened from centuries of candle smoke. Voices echo, dark corners hide piles of carpet and wood, angles and demons. Forget the polished gloss of Europe's superstar churches. Here, you can feel every one of Lalibela's 800 plus years, breathe in the past (along with the thick dust). A robed priest is happy to pose for pictures for a few birr, protecting the sacred inner chamber, housing a replica of Ethiopia's holiest object, the legendary Ark of the Covenant.

Recall Raiders of the Lost Ark: Indiana Jones gets wind of a Nazi plot to find the ancient Ark of the Covenant, built by the Israelites to house the tablets of the Ten Commandments, given to Moses by God. The Nazis want it because, according to biblical history, the Israelites were invincible in battle so long as they had the Ark at their side. It apparently unleashed a powerful light that decimated their enemies. Moses apparently had to wear a veil after he gazed at the Ark, as it burnt his face. The Nazi's believed the Ark to be nothing less than a powerful weapon, and they were right, the suckers , as Indiana cleverly looked away and the Ark unleashed its supernatural power, killing all the bad guys, and melting the creepy Nazi guy with the glasses (which gave me nightmares for months). Classic movie, mixing myth and history - and the best part is, the truth is possibly not too far off.

I first became inspired to visit Ethiopia after reading The Sign and the Seal by Graham Hancock. An English journalist formerly with the Economist, Hancock spent over a decade researching the real story, becoming a literary Indiana Jones, with the resulting book a fantastic mix of history, myth and adventure. For what became of the Ark remains one of history's greatest unsolved mysteries. Its disappearance has been linked to the Knights of Templar, King Solomon's relationship with Queen Sheba (which resulted in the birth of the first great Ethiopian ruler, Menellek), and all manner of conspiracy theories. Since Ethiopia's holiest object is the Ark of the Covenant, and its language shares many Hebraic commonalities, and the country even held tribes of "lost" Jews, Hancock spent much of his time figuring out how this all came to be. His logic and conclusions are controversial but sound, and having briefly met the guy many years ago, I can testify that he's definitely no conspiracy theory nut. Accordingly, the Ark (or an ancient replica) is believed to exist in Aksum up north from Lalibela, where it is zealously guarded by priests, and not even the President of Ethiopia is permitted to see it. An Israeli traveller tells me her investigations lead her to believe the Ark was destroyed, or maybe it's sitting in a big warehouse somewhere in Washington D.C, we'll probably never know. But here in Lalibela, where the Ark passed through, you can still feel the magic of the mystery.

We explore the rock churches, walking inside carved rock tunnels, peering inside doorways to find weathered priests reading leathered bibles. If only I could blink and take photos with my eyes - the images are unforgettable. Bet Golgotha, another dark and dusty rock church, houses the tomb of Lalibela and is forbidden to women. The priests don their robes, display the ancient crosses, 11th century religious paintings still hold their bright colours. By lunch time, we are escorted out the three main churches, and head over to the House of Saint George, by far the most visually impressive of the lot. Shaped like a Greek cross, it is blessedly scaffold-free, carved into a gash of surrounding rock. The bones of 14th century pilgrims protrude out of "hermit holes", where holy men once meditated. Channels have been carved for rainwater to flow, and a priest points out King Lalibela's olive-tree wooden treasure chest from eight centuries ago. My white socks are red from the earth. The sun breaks between the clouds, the church begins to glow.

As we crawl out the open tunnel to surface level, I see the open hands again, pleading and begging. Julia and I walk down the main street, and the harassment is thick. We're warned that children, speaking good English, will tell heartbreaking stories and ask for money for school books, only, it's a scam, the books are actually exchanged for money, or never bought at all. Kids want ferengi email addresses, to email about their lives in Ethiopia. Only, it's a scam, they actually want to guilt you into sending money. They surround us like a swarm, fighting amongst themselves for priority. It's hard to keep things in perspective. I want to connect with locals, I always do, but I also want to connect with real people, and I want the communication to be pure. I don't need to buy friends. A boy named Jordan tells me, it's OK, he doesn't want money.
"Look, Jordan, I want people to visit this amazing place, but you guys make it very difficult and uncomfortable, and then nobody will come, and that hurts everyone." "We are not all like that," he explains, somewhat annoyed. So we begin to chat. He tells me that his parents are farmers, and he looks after some crops, and is never hungry, and is going to school. I begin to feel awful about my earlier sweeping generalizations - here I am, another white, rich, western asshole ready to dismiss the natives as beggars and thieves. Everyone's not out here to use me, to get a buck. I feel much better. Then Jordan tells me, after all this, that he needs some school books.
Damn. I sweep, I generalize.
Africa can be like a beautiful girl you meet at a party. There's an incredible connection, you laugh, you cry, you open your heart, you embrace. Then she puts out her hand, and tells you to pay up. I told Jordan to stay in his fictional school, and decide then and there to find a real charity, and make a sizable donation.

I'm saved that night by a guy named Kassa, who I meet at a small hole-in-the-wall bar selling 40c beers (new record - the cheapest I've ever found). Local reggae music, spiced with Bollywood, is blearing from the TV, and I'm perfecting my local dance moves, which consists of twitching my shoulders while keeping my legs still. I've got a nice buzz from the tejj, local fermented honey wine. There are no girls in the bar, since no decent Ethiopian girl would ever go to a bar, unless they are willing to sleep with you for money, which I am told, is perfectly acceptable in this part of the world. Kassa and I talk about life in Ethiopia, in Canada. We sympathize, we laugh, and naturally there's no financial arrangement at the end of the conversation. But if I thought I'd made peace with being a walking money bag, I was yet to experience the true ferengi Frenzy. For that, I'd have to fly back to Addis, and drive five days into the south.

I wake up to the sound of a women screaming in sexual climax. Unfortunately, she's not in my room, but rather, in the room next to mine, although with the cardboard walls she may as well be lying in my bed. A cockroach runs across the floor. It's 6am. The plane from Lalibela made it back to Addis late last night, a few hours late, not bad considering what it took for us to get there. I had hoped to check my email, but the email is down at the hotel. The entire country is still using dial-up, and it takes a few hours to check my inbox from an internet cafe down the road. There is only one service provider, the government. There is only one cell phone provider, the government. There is one TV station, the government. After decades of brutal communist rule, in which thousands were murdered and starvation was used as a political weapon, the current left-wing liberator is conforming to the typical pattern of African rule - when power comes, so does corruption. The most recent elections were declared a farce by UN observers. Most people voted for the opposition. The opposition lost. Sounds like the U.S, in a way. Anyway, on ETV the president is talking and talking and talking, and hours later, he's still talking. The Derg, the horrific previous government, pretty much killed anyone who didn't like Red, including Haile Selassie, Africa's most recent emperor. When Ras Tafari crowned himself Emperor Haiie Selassie, he spawned a religion in Jamaica, and thus Ethiopia is a popular destination for those with dreadlocks. After being unceremoniously strangled, His Highness remains were subsequently found to be buried under the incoming crackpot dictator's porcelain throne, that is, his toilet. These are the things I'm thinking about, while the woman continues to scream, a different kind of rooster, a cock will doodle doo.

It will take three days by Land Cruiser to the Lower Omo Valley, one of the most culturally diverse regions on the planet. 53 nations live in Southern Ethiopia, most with unique customs and traditions, as different from western life as whales are to shitsus. It takes some time to navigate out of Addis, stuck behind trucks and buses puking thick black smoke directly into the back of our throats. There are cows in the middle of the road, herds of goats, overloaded donkeys. Children run in front of the car, and before long, we see the first of many road kill, a donkey, split in half in the middle of the road. Our driver Ayalew honks repeatedly, at animals and people - the road is an obstacle course requiring absolute concentration. Bob Marley on the iPod, we leave the city behind, the lanes become narrower, but the countryside is lush with all the shades of green from the rainy season. After a few hours, the asphalt disappears into a strip of never-ending craters. Tin shacks become mud houses become wooden huts with thatch ceilings. Small towns are crowded with people and livestock. Kids play ping pong and foozball under the shade of trees. Shacks sell everything, and the only building that looks like it's from this century belongs to the ominously sounding Ethiopian Insurance Corporation. Hand painted street signs show donkey carts, and celebrate" Happy Millennium", and show a dead baby, and the only word I can recognize is AIDS. Ethiopian writing is all dashes and squiggles, with English words appearing occasionally and usually misspelt. After 250km, we drive through Shashamane, welcomed by a hand painted billboard of Bob Marley. Rasta colours are prominent, as are tall foreign men, their dreadlocks towering over locals.

Each kilometre along the bone shaking, acacia-tree lined dirt road seems to wipe another century off humanity's recent progress. No glass, no cement, no electricity, or phones, or wide screen TV's. No tennis courts and swimming pools, no basements, no driveways, nor cars to drive them. No windows or patios, or dishwashers and washing machines. Forget about laptops, battery-powered toothbrushes, mattresses, linen, or bathtubs. Throw out the microwave, blenders, desks, cabinets and sofas. Here we are exactly how we were, before words like Globalization, or the Renaissance, or the Industrial Revolution, or Cyberspace. Living in round huts, working fields during the day, sleeping around a fire in the dark, using wooden headrests as pillows, on a bed of thin, dried animal skin.

Then a mosque, with a single minaret, and the huts have a crescent symbol above. After the Eastern Orthodox Church, Islam is the country's second religion, and unlike the civil war in neighbouring Sudan, Christians and Muslims live in peace. The purpose of the road trip is to visit tribes along Ethiopia's Rift Valley, and the Alaba, would be the first. The Land Cruiser pulls up, and immediately we are surrounded by desperate, impoverished looking people. Children are wearing western style clothes that resemble rags, torn and filthy. Hands are out. I feel sick to my stomach, and so it begins.

However right, moral and well intentioned, the fact that you are expected to pay money to locals for photographs has hideously backfired in Ethiopia. I see nothing wrong with remunerating someone who appears in my photographs. It's only fair to reward them for the right to capture their image. The problem is that it has become a business in this country, encouraging desperate people to appear in tourist photos as a means of making easy money. When I take pictures of people in foreign countries, I aim to capture an image that speaks, ( a thousand words?) about life, and the people who live it. It is never the intention to manipulate people, or take photos of them without their permission. I look for the authentic, the real, the moment. So consider the impact of a mob demanding I take their photo, and pay up seconds after I do. Gone are the moments of people being people, replaced by people doing whatever it is that will get foreigners to pull out their cameras, and their wallet. It's undeniable exploitation, by both parties, and the result left me taking timeless pictures with an accompanying memory I'd rather forget altogether. One of many examples: We stop to join a group of locals on a donkey cart on the side of a highway. I ask first for permission, and then how much it will cost for the fare. I am told 20 birr. Julia and get on the cart and the poor donkey heaves on, a few pictures are taken. People are laughing and smiling and I feel generous so I pull out a 50 birr note (about $5). What ensued was a pushing match, the group turning on each other, demanding more money, grabbing me from all directions, literally ripping the money out of my hands. I was threatened, shoved, and had to run for the safety of the car. All because I wanted a photo, for which I was prepared to overpay the agreed price by more than double! How could it not taint an experience? As one guy told me in Jinka:
"The money makes everybody go crazy!"
"All they know of ferengis is of NGO's and tourists," Da Witt, tells me over coffee in Addis. He's a local nutritionist who works for an NGO. Like our guides and drivers, he laughs off the Ferengi Frenzy, as it is called, but there is little doubt it has left a negative impact on our team. There is an Ethiopia where it is customary to refuse gifts and handouts. There is an Ethiopia where people care and support one another, are warm and open and friendly to strangers, eager to learn from each other. Unfortunately, if you're a tourist in town for two weeks and plan on visiting locations suggested by a tour agency, chances are you won't see it.

I needed to find a way break through, and while music may be the international language, football trails a close second. We stop in a town and I buy a soccer ball. For the Konso people, well known for their agricultural terraces, I wanted to break the cage of the human zoo. Right away, things were different. Tourists pay a feeup front and get a local guide, who told me that the money is split with the tribe. Although children flooded us with their familiar hands out, our local guide named Chu Chu kept them in line. He explained the significance of tribal walls, how unmarried men live together and serve the community, how trees are used to determine the age of the village. At last I was learning something, and then I pulled out the soccer ball, and learnt a whole lot more. Whether I was merely distracting the kids or tapped into a desire to genuinely interact with a strange ferengi, we chose sides, played some soccer, and had some fun. Whether I'm deluding myself or seeing the truth, for a half hour I wasn't a human handout, just a traveller in a strange land trying to connect. Next Chu Chu showed me a traditional game called grayka, involving a piece of wood and a lot of jumping (the jump being my forte), and soon everyone was in on the act. It was only once we began to make our way to the car that the frenzy took hold again, the calls for money, or "Highland" - empty bottles of packaged water. I tipped Chu Chu well, he responded with genuine sincerity, and I left feeling a little better about the way things could be. It's a catch-22 in any country. Tourists want to interact with indigenous locals, but the process of interaction changes the way locals live, and in the end, what you get is the extreme dysfunction of the Mursi Tribe. But we're not there yet.

Another long day in the car, on bulldozed roads that would kill a suburban SUV in minutes. We pass curious baboons, brave enough to jump on the hood. Vultures and large hawks sit on acacia trees, postcard perfect. I meet man-sized maribu storks, their beaks red from the blood of gutted catfish. Bright blue and yellow birds play chicken with the car's front grill, and everywhere are cows, donkeys, goats, children loaded up with backbreaking hay, and always screaming "Highland!" with hands out as we pass. Many are naked. A couple wave their dicks at us. Some break dance, hoping we'll stop and take a picture. In turn, we break for the night in Arba Minch, a university town that overlooks two beautiful giant lakes connected by a hill called the Bridge to Heaven. The landscape is absolutely stunning. We're in malaria country, so there are mosquito nets over the bed. There are also four condom packets on the bedside table. At least they make no pretensions, like the nine sisters I meet hanging around in town when trying unsuccessfully to get online at a small internet cafe. The oldest is unnervingly direct about what I might get for a few dollars. Holding her hand was the youngest. She is two years-old.

One more day, and the dirt road gets even worse. It takes nearly three hours to drive just 27km, and this time, we're attacked by a swarm of tsetse flies. When I wrote that observation down in my notebook, I admit by swarm I meant 15 to 20. An hour later, there were close to a thousand flies, clinging to the side of the Land Cruiser, their syringe-like needle ready to puncture our skin and suck our blood. These little bastards are deadly to cattle and humans, although we are reassured that they were harmless since "nobody is dying in the area." Our destination is the Mursi Tribe, nomads famous for their women with lip plates, aggressive stick fighting, and all round "am I on planet Earth?" cultural extremities. We were warned that this tribe are particularly aggressive when it comes to photographs, demanding 2 birr for an adult, 1 birr for a child, and 3 birr for a woman and baby. Apparently, you can put a price on people. We were also advised not to visit in the afternoon, when they become intoxicated and potentially violent. Running late after a fascinating visit to a cultural museum in Jinka (in which I learnt much about female circumcision and the cultural traditions of the varying tribes), we finally reached the camp around 3pm. Since we would be camping overnight in the bush nearby, we decided to leave the cameras and experience what would happen if the photo-frenzy was removed. The car pulls up to a small village, made up of a dozen or so huts built of twigs. Men are hanging about under a tree, some with AK-47's. We are attacked. Children with white face paint and men with patterned scars and big, bare-breasted women clutching babies and women with bottom lips hanging below their chins and women with clay plates and men with sticks and everyone is screaming "take picture! take picture! take picture!" We show them no cameras and I admit I am scared to open the door, to embrace this alien world. Deep breath, here we go. Our guide Mulu, mild mannered with the kind of face you want to trust implicitly, begins a form of negotiation. We are invited into the chief's hut. It is no bigger than a three-person tent, with a fire pit in the middle. A live chicken sits to the corner, along with some basic cooking utensils. The chief, Shalima, introduces us to his three bare-chested wives. Two of them hold babies, one with a horrific burn on his hand. One wife holds an AK-47. Shalima chawks and spits in the middle of our crowded circle. Outside the tribe gathers, playing with Julia's hair through the thatch. The smell is intense, sweet and metallic, like dried blood. Mulu negotiates a price for us to come and film the village the following day. We ask the chief questions, but the communication is stilted and sharp. Mulu says the chief is talking gibberish, drunkalese. Jerry cans of fermented, incredibly strong moon shine lay about. My legs cramp. There is one flash of something I can recognize, when Mary holds one of the babies and the baby begins to scream. His mother takes him with the universal look of care in her eyes. Recognizing it puts me at ease. Otherwise, I am speechless to find myself here. I have never felt so foreign, so fish out of custard. We get up to leave, and the tribe throws themselves forward. A drunk man grabs my arm. The chief wants 50 birr for letting us in his hut. Mulu continues to negotiate as I pull away and make for the car. Children are hitting the window. No sooner have we managed to close the door than Ayalew floors the accelerator. The drunk man is screaming at the chief, who turns around and hits him hard across the face. We speed into the bush.

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The Mursi are currently embroiled in a conflict with the Africa Parks Board, who is turning their natural habitat into a national park. Armed scouts patrol the region looking for poachers, and the Mursi are being increasingly confined and restricted on their own land. Fights with neighbouring tribes occur periodically, and with the flood of AK's arriving from the Sudan, so do fatalities. They survive by drinking milk and animal blood, grinding corn into a powder, keeping a few animals. Lately, they survive on tourists arriving daily in 4x4's, taking pictures for 15 minutes, and leaving in a cloud of dust. There is no better description I have found to describe a human zoo. This particular band belongs to one family, and one guide tells me they are related to a guard at the Parks Board, who bulldozed a road and set up the village purely as a means to cash in. The next village is another 20km away, and tourists don't want to drive the extra hours. But they sleep on the floor in their huts, this is no act, this is their normal behaviour. When women stretch their lower lip two inches to insert a plate as a form of beauty, and tourists take pictures through car windows, normal behaviour becomes complicated.

I awake in my tent to the growl of baboons, who have surrounded the campsite. Long tailed colobus monkeys play in the trees above. I'm camping in Africa, alongside the Omo River, and I'm nervous about the day to come. I didn't come this far, days of tough travel, not to get photographs of what I can hardly believe I'm seeing. And yet how could I photograph these people who are exotic exhibits in a controversial, somewhat confused human zoo? We drive back to the village, but this time, it is 9am. It is strangely quiet and passive. People are waking up, painting themselves. Some recognize us from the day before. Mulu and the Chief arrange for the women, several dozen, to sit together and show Julia how they make their clay lip plates. I stay back, take photos, start peeling back the roll of 1 birr notes. It feels awkward and it is awkward. The strangeness of the scenario leaves me numbed. I take a picture of a woman and her baby, and she demands only new 1 birr notes (some of the money in Ethiopia is so used it could crumble in your hands). "Take picture!" I am prodded and pushed and when I start talking to one person six more join in hoping to get in on the photo. A young girl holds an AK-47. To take the picture, she wants 2 birr. I agree, the photo is incredible. I take the picture, pull out two notes. "Three! " she says. "But you said two." "Three!" "Two." "Three!" I am arguing with a child who has a loaded AK-47 about the fact that she just added 15c more to the price of her photograph. Do you see how ridiculous this is? No wonder some tourists don't even get out of their cars. Eventually it becomes so intense I have to retire to our Toyota bubble, just to escape the constant harassment. Children tap on the window. "Photo photo photo photo photo!" Like fearless warriors, they don't stop. Meanwhile, Julia's period of female bonding comes to an abrupt halt when another Land Cruiser arrives with some Italians, and then Japanese, and then Polish, and then English. The tribe is in a feeding frenzy, there is money changing hands everywhere, ripped away, all desperation, no gratitude. In order to shake things up, I try stick fighting with a Polish guy, to distract the commerce with something amusing. It works, for a few minutes. A tribesman even comes over and shows me how to hold the stick. Then he wants money. The tourists I speak to are dumbfounded, although fully aware that we are the reason this has happened. If tourists stuck around longer, there wouldn't be the feverish desperation of the tribe to get their money. If the tribe didn't attack tourists with their feverish desperation, tourists would stick around longer. And so it goes... Check out the pictures

A UN Land Cruiser pulls up, and we meet a small film crew , a remarkable Mursi man named Oli who is filming a documentary about his tribe, in turn being filmed by an international crew. Having spent 11 months in Australia, at last there is someone local to communicate about all that I have experienced here. He tells me us that due to the Parks Board, the Mursi are forced to live like beggars, like animals. But this village is an anomaly, not the norm. It is dependent on tourists, who take their pictures and leave as soon as they can (by this time, half a dozen cars have come and gone, and we are the only ones left).
"I want tourists to see we are human, not a zoo," says Milisha, Omo's friendly brother.
"But how can they in this environment? There needs to be a program, a structure, that allows two cultures to communicate and benefit from each other, without this mayhem," I reply.
We agree. Is this the fate of indigenous people around the world? Communication, respect, understanding - I suddenly have enormous respect for anthropologists. The tribe has calmed down now, the scorching afternoon has come and men are in the shade of the tree, drinking from plastic jerry cans. We retreat into the van and drive off for the last time. It is the eve of Yom Kippur, and I am preparing to fast as I have done so since I was 13 years-old. We all belong to tribes of peculiar traditions.

We travel to learn. We travel to challenge ourselves, our expectations, our thoughts of the world. If I want a holiday, I'll book an all inclusive hotel on a beach. If I want to party, I'll go to Ibiza. It's never easy travelling in developing countries, and harder still in a country where foreigners are largely associated with financial aid. Ethiopia's landscape is inspiring, its culture and history fascinating. As more travellers discover it, perhaps the frenzy will subside, perhaps it will get worse. Either way, the country just might be the very reason I started travelling in the first place.