Soon after arriving the village leader came over to meet us. At this stage I didn't understand any Afar so communication was difficult but no more difficult than the language barrier was in Russian, China or Vietnam. After a few minutes he took us to the village restaurant for injera, a flatbread with a spongy texture, typical of Ethiopian cuisine followed by an Ethiopian Coffee ceremony. I never got around to taking a photo of injera when I was in the Afar but I took the following photo a few weeks later when I was eating at a restaurant in Addis Ababa.
The food was good, the coffee great, everyone was friendly and somewhat curious. We returned here almost every afternoon for injeria and coffee. Later in the week one of the children was using my camera and took the following photo without us knowing.
Life in the Afar was good, slow-paced, peaceful and without phones, laptops and the Internet time was soon forgotten. Wake up when the sun comes out and go to bed soon after it gets dark, eat when hungry all pretty simple. We were lucky, the guys who gave us a lift to the village offered to take us fresh water everyday. They were running a cotton farm close to the village and were traveling back and forth daily. The alternative (which I was prepared for) was a 3km walk to the river to collect muddy water to use for drinking and cooking.
We still made daily trips to the river to wash as we there is no water in the village. Prior to my arrival there had been rumors of crocodiles in the river but this hadn't deterred anyone from washing in the river. The first day we went to the river to wash there were a few crocodiles on the bank opposite!
Our home was a mud hut on the end of the village. We had mosquito tent to keep the bugs out. Breakfast was normally oats, powdered milk and sugar. Lunch injera, popcorn and coffee and then in the evenings we'd cook. This involved collecting firewood, preparing and cooking in the dark. The first few days we had the vegetables we'd taken with us from Awash but they didn't last long in the heat and it's not possible to buy any in the village so the vegetables in our last few meals were soggy beetroots and carrots!
The days filled themselves very fast, time seemed to fly by and one day blended into the next. It's quite a difficult experience to describe and I'm not sure that my photos to it an justice either. In one way the photos maybe misleading, this village is the safest and most peaceful place that I've ever visited yet as an outsider looking at my photos you may think very differently.
For example the reason the children have guns is for protection from animals and neighboring tribes. The children leave the home around 6am and do not return until evening. The spend the day herding their families herds to pasture miles and miles away form the village. Should the herd get attacked by a wild animal the children need to be able to protect themselves and their herd.
We were accepted into an amazing community so far untouched by tourism, not only were we accepted into the community but we became part of it in a very short time. It's quite an experience to visit such a unique and rare community, I doubt there are many places like this left in the world. There's something very special about the village, the people and also a rare innocence associated with it. Later on our first day there we were invited into a neighbors house for a cup of buna. It's a local brew made from river water, milk, salt and sugar. It's quite a big deal to be invited into someones home to share buna with their family so it would be very disrespectful to refuse or not to drink it. We were both handed a cup of buna, mine had some dust and a fly floating in it. Anna whispered to me, its probably going to make you sick but you'll have to drink it. Turns out I quite liked buna and ended up helping Anna finish hers on a few occasions. Although you had to be very careful about how fast you drank it, you didn't want to drink too slow but if you drank too fast you'll soon get another cup!
The reason we were there was due to Anna's involvement with the Barefoot Initiative, an Australian based NGO. If you are interested in donating to the Barefoot Initiative to help fund their continued work in the Afar you find details of how to donate on their website. Part of my contribution to the initiative was doing an art project with the community during our stay. I'll explain more about the art project in a future blog post. The art project was a pretty amazing and rewarding experience. As far as we could determine there wasn't a word in Afar for paint and most people have never seen paint before. Originally we planned on doing painting with the children but soon the adults and elders were getting involved as well. People would drop by daily to paint or sometimes just to watch. Seeing their faces and reactions to putting paint on paper was amazing. Quite a surreal experience to be sitting painting with a group of children while they leave the AK47s to rest against the wall beside you and in some cases they started to paint their guns!
Overall an unforgettable experience made so by an amazing, friendly, welcoming community of people in a very remote beautiful village in Ethiopia.
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| Injera in Ethiopia |
The food was good, the coffee great, everyone was friendly and somewhat curious. We returned here almost every afternoon for injeria and coffee. Later in the week one of the children was using my camera and took the following photo without us knowing.
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| Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony in the Afar |
We still made daily trips to the river to wash as we there is no water in the village. Prior to my arrival there had been rumors of crocodiles in the river but this hadn't deterred anyone from washing in the river. The first day we went to the river to wash there were a few crocodiles on the bank opposite!
 |
| Watch out for the Croc! |
Our home was a mud hut on the end of the village. We had mosquito tent to keep the bugs out. Breakfast was normally oats, powdered milk and sugar. Lunch injera, popcorn and coffee and then in the evenings we'd cook. This involved collecting firewood, preparing and cooking in the dark. The first few days we had the vegetables we'd taken with us from Awash but they didn't last long in the heat and it's not possible to buy any in the village so the vegetables in our last few meals were soggy beetroots and carrots!
 |
| Our home in the Afar |
The days filled themselves very fast, time seemed to fly by and one day blended into the next. It's quite a difficult experience to describe and I'm not sure that my photos to it an justice either. In one way the photos maybe misleading, this village is the safest and most peaceful place that I've ever visited yet as an outsider looking at my photos you may think very differently.
For example the reason the children have guns is for protection from animals and neighboring tribes. The children leave the home around 6am and do not return until evening. The spend the day herding their families herds to pasture miles and miles away form the village. Should the herd get attacked by a wild animal the children need to be able to protect themselves and their herd.
 |
| A child returning with the herd in late afternoon |
We were accepted into an amazing community so far untouched by tourism, not only were we accepted into the community but we became part of it in a very short time. It's quite an experience to visit such a unique and rare community, I doubt there are many places like this left in the world. There's something very special about the village, the people and also a rare innocence associated with it. Later on our first day there we were invited into a neighbors house for a cup of buna. It's a local brew made from river water, milk, salt and sugar. It's quite a big deal to be invited into someones home to share buna with their family so it would be very disrespectful to refuse or not to drink it. We were both handed a cup of buna, mine had some dust and a fly floating in it. Anna whispered to me, its probably going to make you sick but you'll have to drink it. Turns out I quite liked buna and ended up helping Anna finish hers on a few occasions. Although you had to be very careful about how fast you drank it, you didn't want to drink too slow but if you drank too fast you'll soon get another cup!
The reason we were there was due to Anna's involvement with the Barefoot Initiative, an Australian based NGO. If you are interested in donating to the Barefoot Initiative to help fund their continued work in the Afar you find details of how to donate on their website. Part of my contribution to the initiative was doing an art project with the community during our stay. I'll explain more about the art project in a future blog post. The art project was a pretty amazing and rewarding experience. As far as we could determine there wasn't a word in Afar for paint and most people have never seen paint before. Originally we planned on doing painting with the children but soon the adults and elders were getting involved as well. People would drop by daily to paint or sometimes just to watch. Seeing their faces and reactions to putting paint on paper was amazing. Quite a surreal experience to be sitting painting with a group of children while they leave the AK47s to rest against the wall beside you and in some cases they started to paint their guns!
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| Art class in the Afar! |
Overall an unforgettable experience made so by an amazing, friendly, welcoming community of people in a very remote beautiful village in Ethiopia.
looks so isolated, and poor..
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