Ethiopia - Daasanach Tribe

[Manfred M]

Another group that we visited were the Daasanach, another pastoral group that live near the Omo River. These people were also quite aggressive when it came to taking pictures. The village itself was the least impressive of all of the ones we visited, both with respect to the location and the construction. The lighting was not particularly good for photography.

The dugout canoes were what we used to cross the Omo River to reach the village

[Donald]

Wonderful stuff, Manfred. Keep them coming.

[John 2]

National Geographic fodder without a doubt. Enjoying these Manfred. Aggressively anti or aggressively commercial??

[chauncey]

Gotta echo Donald, they are indeed great images.
But, to go off in a tangent and show my middle class upbringing...when I look-up Ethiopia on a map, it abuts Somalia which, in my mind, is not the safest place on the planet. Was that ever a concern on your planning for this excursion?

[Manfred M]

National Geographic fodder without a doubt. Enjoying these Manfred. Aggressively anti or aggressively commercial??

I'm not quite sure as to what you are asking here, John. The tourism into the area is definitely commercial. The people really do live this way. The Ethiopians refer to both "ethnic groups" who have adopted a more modern life-style and tribes that still live more traditionally. The tribes have gotten into wars (there is a reason you see so many AK-47s) and are still very much living as subsistance herders (with some planting) and are sometimes still nomadic as they wander around finding pastures to graze their cattle and goats. Cattle are a sign of wealth and are not used for meat (unless the animal is very old and close to death).

[Manfred M]

Gotta echo Donald, they are indeed great images.
But, to go off in a tangent and show my middle class upbringing...when I look-up Ethiopia on a map, it abuts Somalia which, in my mind, is not the safest place on the planet. Was that ever a concern on your planning for this excursion?

Not only does it border on Somalia, it also borders on Eritrea (where the last border war was with Ethiopia), South Sudan and Sudan, if you are looking at unstable areas. Another border, which is with a stable country is Kenya.

We were quite close to the Kenyan and South Sudan borders.

It's all about risk management; there are parts of the country that are not that accessible to tourists for security reasons, so we stay away from them. Other area are not too bad, so we don't mind visiting these; getting real here, the biggest risk to us when we travel in these developing countries is getting hurt or injured in a traffic accident, rather than by terrorists or rioters. The press tends to forget about reality when they report; and yes some tourists get caught, but for the most part these are the stupid ones that get into areas of the country where they really should not be traveling to.

[Mike Buckley]

Another very nice set, Manfred.

some tourists get caught, but for the most part these are the stupid ones that get into areas of the country where they really should not be traveling to.

Exactly.

As an example, most people including me would think of Turkey as a relatively stable country. Even so, there was one particular area my wife and I would have liked to visit when we were there but did not. That's because it was too close to the less safe area near Iraq and Iran where radical Turks wanting to change from a secular government to an Islamist government had been causing havoc at the time. This is also near the area where three American hikers were imprisoned in Iran because they had supposedly crossed the border into Iran.

There are also lots of places in the United States (I'm an American) that I would not go to purely for safety reasons.

[John 2]

I'm not quite sure as to what you are asking here, John. The tourism into the area is definitely commercial. The people really do live this way. The Ethiopians refer to both "ethnic groups" who have adopted a more modern life-style and tribes that still live more traditionally. The tribes have gotten into wars (there is a reason you see so many AK-47s) and are still very much living as subsistance herders (with some planting) and are sometimes still nomadic as they wander around finding pastures to graze their cattle and goats. Cattle are a sign of wealth and are not used for meat (unless the animal is very old and close to death).

You said that they were quite aggressive when it came to taking pictures. I wondered if they aggressively against you're doing that or aggressively seeking payment as you mentioned in one of your earlier posts of a different tribe.

[Manfred M]

You said that they were quite aggressive when it came to taking pictures. I wondered if they aggressively against you're doing that or aggressively seeking payment as you mentioned in one of your earlier posts of a different tribe.

Agressively seeking to pose for pictures for payment.

[John 2]

Agressively seeking to pose for pictures for payment.

It's the world we live in .