The Mursi Tribe

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The next morning Elie and I hitched a ride in an already full truck. We wedged ourselves in the back, hugging our knees, bags falling on us and my head rhythmically hitting the cabin side. Elie jumped out somewhere along the way and the men drove me all the way to Jinka. I had nearly ran out of cash, my bankcard wasn’t accepted anywhere in the South of Ethiopia and I was relying on the possibility of a Western Union money transfer from my Mum in Sydney to my next destination in the bottom right corner of Ethiopia: Jinka. The driver of the truck took the last of the cash that I had, leaving me with a few coins, enough for one meal. I didn’t even get a discount for the economy class seats and all the new bruises I had acquired.

At Jinka I booked into the cheapest room at one of the cheapest hotels. The main problem with cheap hotels, apart from the fleas, was the toilets! Western toilets were only found in pricey joints, but for cheap-skates and budget back-packers at the end of their trip, like myself, I only had limited options and that included a shared hole in the ground. Plus, the guy at reception was willing to let me pay the fee the following day. Once again I had found myself penniless in Africa, and begging the universe to help me out before locals had to take the law into their own hands for thieves like I potentially was about to be.

I told the guy at the hotel that I had never had to use a toilet like that before to do… well… a ‘number two’. Of course I didn’t use that expression with him, I politely gestured and raised my eyebrows and he got the point.

Luckily for me I had found a helpful gentleman named Bereket willing to demonstrate for me. He spread his legs hip-width apart and crouched on his haunches; “see! It is easy! Just like you were doing it in a bush or on the street!”

I told him that I never done it on the street before and he was astounded!

That afternoon I did it. I used a hole-in-the-ground toilet for the first time (other than to urinate) and needless to say it was slightly traumatising. Firstly, the door did not lock. Secondly, it didn’t matter anyway considering the gap beneath the door when shut was so high it only covered my face and not all the important parts. Then there was the issue of aim and splash-back… although it felt liberating giving it a go, and being relatively successful, I also hoped that that first experience would also be my last.

That afternoon there was a knock at my door. It was Lalo’s brother. I wondered how he had found me, it wasn’t the first time I had been tracked down in my hotel, and I had that uncomfortable feeling again that every time I stepped foot into a new town whispers spread that a lone and vulnerable young white woman booked in to hotel X. Lalo obviously told his brother I was visiting Jinka, but Lalo didn’t know when, or what hotel I was staying in.

“Lalo said you want to see the orphanage? Come to my office so we can talk business”

I knew what this meant, he wanted me to sign up to the $25 a month.

“I want to see the orphanage” I corrected him.

“Ah yes of course. He replied. But first, the office”.

It frustrated me. If the orphanage was working I would have happily volunteered the sponsorship money, but for them to expect me to sign up to supporting them without even seeing it first not only was frustrating but also infuriating and disappointing.

I declined his offer to see the office and the orphanage.

That night I also got a call from the Bereket inviting me for a drink with him.

“How did you get my number?” I asked. But as soon as I said it I knew. When checking in to the hotel I had to sign in my details, including my mobile number, which I did without question considering that I was asking to pay on check-out. I also declined his offer. But my mobile rang 4 or 5 times that night, each time I ignored his call.

……….

Although Bereket offered to be my tour guide, I went with a guy named Andy. He was Gino’s friend, and seeing as I had no problems with Gino I wasn’t worried about Andy.

Andy picked me up on his rusty red motorbike at 6am. We arrived at Mago National Park, the home of the Mursi tribe, too early to pay the entrance fee, so we just rode straight through the gate.

About 7km into the park a tyre burst, we had no phone reception, of course! We were in the middle of nowhere. So we took it in turns to push the bike back to the park entrance, often uphill.

I was half way up an undoubtedly steep hill, sweat pouring down my face, and breathless I thought “I am actually paying to be doing this right now”. At that point a group of kids ran up to me, they could clearly see the strain I was under and yet without hesitation they all held their hands out and screamed:

 “youyouyouyouyoumoneymoneymoney”

At the park entrance 7 helpful village men made me a cup of tea while each of them huddle around the bike attempting to patch the tyre. The puzzled looks on their faces didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. But after an hour they finished, the tyre looked acceptable, I paid them and off we went again.

Back on the road we passed the point where the tyre had punctured. It was only another 10km along the track into the park when Andy took a corner too fast and before I knew it we were sliding along the ground.

We landed several meters apart, somehow he had flown free and I had landed with the bike on top of my right leg. Andy rushed over to lift the bike off me and help me up. I dusted myself down, told myself that it didn’t hurt and got back on the bike a little shaken.

Andy didn’t say a word. Maybe he was embarrassed. It took him a half an hour to notice the blood running down my leg and dripping off the side of my foot before he said sorry. It was my arm that hurt most though. I didn’t tell him about it, there wasn’t any point.

It wasn’t a good start to the day. At the time I put it down to not having had a coffee. But perhaps I should have taken it as a sign to not go any further.

Despite the puncture and the crash the rest of the ride through the Mago National Park was beautiful. It really felt untouched by tourists, construction and human damage.

However when Andy pulled off the pathway and slowed down at the edge of a Mursi village the first thing that I noticed was three large and obnoxious white Land Drovers.

Standing at the bonnet of each eyesore were six Farangi’s (white people) all with their camera’s poised ready to shoot.

Before Andy had even switched off the ignition a herd of black bodies had enveloped us.

“photo,photo,photo” They said as they swarmed in.

I slipped through them, I needed air, I needed to get my bearings.

The people that had surrounded me were quite exceptional to look at, though the aggression with which they had swarmed around me and demanded money had dampened any excitement I could have felt by marvelling at their adornments.

Some of them had white painted markings all over their bodies. Some had bullhorns swinging from their ears, many were draped entirely in heavy sets of beads and jewellery. The most amazing sight though were the plates worn in some of the women’s lips, the size of tea saucers, brown with etched lines of decoration. Their lower lips sat perfectly round well bellow their chins.

I sidled up to edge of a Land Rover.

“Now this is touristy!” I lamented. “How much are they asking for a photo?”

“5 birr… we’ve only taken 1” drawled out the high-pitched thick American accent.

I watched as they came closer to me again, lining themselves up and posing for the camera. Some of them had a woven basket under their armpit, and in the basket was a pile of 1,2 and 5 birr notes.

I was repulsed. Not by these people dressed up and posing for photos, but repulsed by us. By the line of white people facing them like it were a rugby scrum, cameras poised like weapons. I was repulsed by money itself, dirty pieces of paper, doing irreparable damage to the life of people who as far as I could tell had very little use for it. And I was repulsed by myself: What had I come here for? What massive global problem was I contributing to just by being there. I had become a part of this money-making scheme that is destroying the essence of a culture already on the brink of extinction. Of course I was curious, dying to see and learn something about these exotic people, just like people visiting a zoo to see wild animals from worlds away. But just like a zoo, in order for us to gawk and giggle, some beings have to suffer, trapped and exposed, stared at and judged.

Andy pulled me from the shooting line, insisting I walk around their village and look at where they live. Of course we were followed; “photophotophoto”.

The village was so small it felt like a movie set. It was just a few stick huts and there were no cattle, and it made me think that maybe this was all a tourist-ploy, a money-making set up. And that actually made me a little happier. I hoped that their real village, their home and their sanctuary was hidden from the eyes and cameras of us tourists.

Two of the women that followed us insisted I take a photo of them. One had a baby strapped to her back, and both of them had large protruding lip plates. I agreed and snapped a few shots, paying the obligatory fee. Through the lens of my camera I studied their blank faces, I was dying to know what they were thinking. The baby was covered in snot and flies and hung loosely off his mother’s back.

Then they took the plates right out of their lips and handed them over; “moneymoneymoney”.

The loop of their limp purple lips sagged even lower. Swinging down to their throat, like damp wet washing slung from a clothesline.

I bought both lip plates. ‘Why not go all the way with exploitation?’ I thought to myself. They were surprisingly light and made of clay. I wondered how many more generations of women would wear plates like this in their lip? Would these women’s grandchildren be giving up these delicately patterned plates for Adidas t-shirts and Ray-Ban sunglasses?

Several more people emerged through the clearing “photophotophoto”. They were grabbing at my arms and trying to open my bag.

There was a human moment though when they all stopped to study my own stretched ears, tattoos and visible scars. They laughed and chattered amongst themselves. It must have been odd for them, to see this foreigner marked similarly to them. Potentially I was the first white visitor with ears that mimicked their own.

When I poked out my tongue to show them my piercing they all gasped in horror. One girl tried to grab my tongue and they all stepped up for a closer look. How ironic it was that my tongue stud amazed them so much. I had travelled a long way to be shocked by their bullhorn ears and plate-stretched lips, and it was me who was astounding them!

When the shock had worn off them they started up again “photophotophoto”. I told Andy I wanted to leave. “Now?” he didn’t understand. “Yup now.”

I had been there all of ten minutes and it had been 8 minutes too long already. I wanted to get out of there, and I wanted to get out of there right away.

When I had dreamed of being there I had dreamed of talking to them, asking them about their lives and why they wore their plates. I had been dreaming in a naive lala-land. These people didn’t want to sit down and explain their life to me and share their stories with me, and why would they? They had most likely been harassed and probed and examined by foreigners all their life.

On the ride back through the beautiful Mago I had a lot to think about. About travel in general, about various societies and globalisation, and I also thought about my sore arm and leg, throbbing relentlessly since the bike had crashed.

Along the path back to Jinka clouds of butterflies swept up around us, lovely of course, except for the sharp sting of the ones that hit my face, caught in the speed of the bike. We saw monkeys and the most beautiful coloured birds I had seen since David Attenborough’s Life DVD. I silently wished that the Mursi tribe will magically be left alone to live in peace and that the Mago will stay as untouched and as beautiful as it was then.