living with the Hamer tribe
Around the middle of the road between two of Southern Ethiopia's larger towns - Arba Minch and Jinka, there is a signboard that reads "Welcome to Hamer." The sign marks a dusty road that continues for almost to 100 km of African bush, towards the region of Turmi, the heart of the Hamer tribe.
The Hamers are one of the majority tribal groups in Ethiopia's ethnically diverse Omo Valley. They are proud and self-reliant, depending only on nature, their animals and their land for survival. Virtually everything about their world has a strong connection to the world of their ancestors, very little has been accepted from the outside.
Spending time with the Hamers is like going back in time, into a different dimension. Every aspect of their life is dramatically different to those, which we are used to in the modern world. While big changes are inevitably somewhere on the horizon, it is almost impossible to imagine that anything will ever be different in the land of the Hamers.
