Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

The first weekend we were in Yabello we had the chance to go out to really rural Ethiopia. We packed our food, tents, sleeping bags and water for the two days and piled into the Land Cruiser. Nati took us about 150km out of the city through nothing to nothing.

As we drove along the road there were always people on the side of the road screaming and waving at the jeep. The children especially were excited by the car.  Everyone drinks a milky drink in order to get them through the day instead of eating as they are out working in the fields. They need water bottles in order to carry their ‘food’ around for the day so the children scream ‘Highland Highland’ (a local water brand) as we pass by in hopes that we will chuck a water bottle out the window. Often times they would do a dance for us by standing on their heads and waving their feet in the air.

We drove through a few different tribes during our trek to nowhere. The first tribal area we drove through was the Booranna tribe. They are one of the largest tribes in Southern Ethiopia/Northern Kenya with about two and a half million people. The next largest group is in the Konso area. We ended with the Rashi tribe.

The Booranna, generally speaking, are nomadic cattle herders. The men spend their days moving the sheep and cows around to different water sources and grassy patches. They will walk with the flock for miles at a time. Starting before sunrise and making it home just in time for dark. While the men – and boys sometimes as young as seven – are out herding cattle the women are in charge of finding wood and water. The women also walk for miles to find either and then carry it back. The young girls also help the women carry the supplies after they reach the age of 12, younger than that they are responsible for looking after the toddlers.

The Konso tribe is much different than the Booranna. They are farmers instead of shepherds despite the fact that the land doesn’t look like it could grow anything. It’s more or less desert. We drove through at the start of the day when everyone was gathered to get ready for the workday. They hold a meeting together and then march down the road to wherever it is they will be working. They chant as they run/march carrying spears, guns and shovels. The men and the women share the workload in this tribe. They have carved terraces out of the mountainsides in order to be able to grow their crops.

The last tribe that we spent the most amount of time with during this trip was the Rashi tribe. We drove up in to the hills to visit a village. We were the first foreigners they had ever had in the village and the first white people the majority of them had ever seen. The villagers were all quite timid at first and kept a safe distance away from the four white people but quickly warmed up. Every step we took we had a large group of upwards of 50 people following behind.

We spent the afternoon in one of the mud huts to relax while they found us a place to set up our tent. Some of the older boys in the village had to stand watch at the door and beat the children away with sticks. Literally. They had a coffee ceremony for us and brought us some fresh bananas for lunch. Some of the friends of the hut owners would take turns coming into the hut to watch us.

After our afternoon rest was over we went to the outskirts of the village to set up our tent on the school grounds. We were on the top of a hill overlooking the village and valley below. It was a surreal experience to be in rural africa like that, all you can see are mud huts, donkeys, cows and nature. It seemed that the whole village came out to watch us set up camp and by the end of it we had about one inch of space around the tent there were so many people with no concept of personal space.

We set out the next morning as the children ran at full speed alongside the truck waving and screaming. We traveled to another community to visit one of the missionaries working in the field. This village had also never seen white people before but were much braver than the first village. The women especially were quite bold constantly rubbing our faces, pinching our arms or putting their hands in our hair. Their curiosity got the better of them and just couldn’t resist finding out what we felt like. By the time we left we were covered in dirt.

I really enjoyed driving around visiting the different tribes. It was really what I imagine when I think of Africa. This will definitely go down as one of the most memorable experiences we’ve had.