Today we drove into Mago National Park, not far from Jinka. If at all possible, the road got even worse, no wonder the guidebook says this is one of Ethiopia’s “wildest and most inaccessible parks”. Our major aim was to visit a Mursi village that was located in the park. Thanks to their very unique look, the Mursi are probably the best known of the Omo people and are thought to number around 6500. They are mainly pastoralists who move around their territory according to the seasons. Some Mursi practise flood retreat cultivation, particularly in the areas where the tsetse fly prohibits cattle rearing. The most famous Mursi traditions include the fierce stick fighting between men and the lip plates worn by women. Made of clay and often quite large, the plates are inserted into slits in the lower lips when a girl reaches the age of puberty. With time, the plates are exchanged against larger and larger ones, thus stretching the lip to an extend that some women can pull them backwards over their head. Well, this was as much as I could read about them before actually meeting the Mursi face-to-face. But no matter how gross the stories seem written in a book – nothing quite prepares you for what you get to see when you meet a Mursi tribe…

Before we got that far, however, we first needed to arrive at the park to pitch out tents and had to argue with a park official who wanted us to pay an additional “agency fee” on behalf of Nati Tours as our tour operator. As usual, we couldn’t get much information out of Mike whether yes or no this was normal, except for the fact that he didn’t have any money to pay the fee. As we kept insisting that we wouldn’t pay, the guy said we could still do it upon exiting the park and let us pass. Luckily, he wasn’t there when we left the next day and I still doubt that such a fee actually exists… Around lunchtime we were joined by a park ranger who would accompany us to the Mursi village. After more than two hours drive in the wild, our butts hurt from the bumpy road and our excitement had reached its peak to see one of the world’s most remote people.

When we finally arrived at the village, we were greeted by a group of about 30 men and women, all dressed up very traditionally, standing in a big semi-circle obviously expecting us. No matter, how remote they might live, the poisonous effect of money had apparently reached as far as the middle of nowhere in Mursi territory: before we even had time to get out of the car, our ranger had to pay the ‘village admission fee’ for us. Further to that, we were informed that taking photos cost 2 birr per person per picture (only 0,20 Euro but a lot of money in Ethiopia). So here we were, facing 30 Mursis eagerly staring at us, and we were expected to pick those we would like to photograph. I felt like at a human meat show being in the uncomfortable position of the judge. At first, I couldn’t even focus on selecting anyone for pictures because of the shock I had to overcome while looking at them. ‘Like creepy ghosts’ was one of the first thoughts crossing my mind. How on earth could anyone voluntarily do this to himself???

Starting with the men, they were quite tall and looked all thin and muscular. Their features were not necessarily the typical ones of black people, they had fine lined faces and most of them looked pretty good. They were dressed in some kind of woven plate around their waist. Lots of them had body paintings, mostly in white, decorating their chest, arms and legs. Some ornaments looked like the result of scarification or branding. Their heads were shaved and only few of them wore some kind of simple jewellery. Most of them were armed with a long fighting stick or proudly carried a rifle over their shoulders. Compared to the women, the men basically only looked scary because of their warrior outfit. The women, however, – judged by Western terms – were amazingly ugly. Unspectacularly dressed in simple goatskin, most of my attention went straight to their heads. They were shaved as well but lots of them wore strange head decorations of feathers or what looked like small metal curls. Their ears were pierced with some sort of fruit earrings that looked like yellow cherry hangers and those who did not wear lip plates, had those fruits dangling through their lips, too. Together with their white painted faces, they somewhat looked like ghost-like aliens from another galaxy. Compared to the men, women wore much more jewellery, although most of it was what looked like simple metal rings, not even especially shiny. Young women seemed to be the most colourful with some pretty face decorations that looked similar to those of the children. Overall, kids were “dressed” in much more colourful body paintings and already babies were decorated. I felt embarrassed to stare at these people but at the same time couldn’t take my eyes off them. The whole scene looked very surreal.

In order to get over the initial shock of this encounter, we asked if we could go and visit their village first. Actually, the chief seemed to be surprised about our request, as if usually tourists were only coming for pictures. Apparently, the Mursi had learned to welcome white people only for quick moneymaking in exchange for photos. We explained to our park ranger that we actually expected to see a bit more for paying a village admission fee. In fact, we were not even IN the village yet, since they had been waiting for us outside the fence that marked their village territory. It took the Mursi some discussion but in the end they agreed for the ranger to take us inside. Basically, it was a normal bush village with nothing extraordinary to see. Their huts looked like many huts we had seen before but we were not allowed to enter them. It seemed that almost everyone who lived in this place, was part of the group waiting for us outside, because the village was pretty much deserted. So we returned to the Mursi group.

Next we tried to figure out a way to take as many pictures of different people as possible without each of us paying a fortune. So in the end we decided, we would photograph different people and then exchange pictures later. Still, we had to make our choice who would be part of the ‘lucky ones’ to receive 2 birr in exchange for a picture. Alternatively, we could pay with razor blades and sweets which means at least as much to the Mursi as cash. The one thing we forgot and should have taken with us though, was soap - another very popular ‘currency’. Anyway, we finally got to pick the people and I still felt awkward about it. Probably all of them had spent some time this morning to get themselves dressed up for us, trying to look as nice as possible, and now we were basically judging who was “beautiful enough” to deserve being photographed. Looking into these hopeful eyes and NOT choosing someone felt terrible.

Overall, the atmosphere was weird. There were all these scary looking Mursi, eager to impress us with their outfits but also constantly demonstrating their superiority by waving around with their spears and guns. They were obviously expecting us to spend quite some money here but I must admit that we were not very well prepared and at some point simply ran out of small bills, so we had to stop. It seemed as if there were still quite a few Mursi who expected to be photographed and they started to shout and grab our bags, sleeves and pockets. I had read about this kind of behaviour before, so I wasn’t surprised but it felt strange to suddenly be right in the middle of it. One of the women actually seized my arm and I couldn’t believe how strong she was! Her hand was like a vice (= Schraubstock) and she wouldn’t let go until the ranger came to my rescue. My arm really hurt! I was only glad I had taken off my watch before arriving at this place, since the Mursi are known for “shoplifting” from tourists during these photo sessions…

Once their intimidating behaviour had reached this stage, we were pretty much ready to leave. In total we had only spent 30 minutes at the Mursi but since we were done with our pictures, there was nothing more to do than to start our 2-hour ride back to the campsite. In the car, we all felt weird. Before we came here, we thought this would be a village visit as the ones we had done so far: seeing how people live, talking to locals and trying to understand as much of their culture as possible. At the Mursi, it was nothing like this. We still had no idea, how these people lived or what their values were. There was no such thing as personal bonding; they didn’t show the slightest interest in mutual exchange or any type of communication. All they wanted was our money. Funny enough, somehow I felt exploited, although objectively you would think it should have been the other way around. As a matter of fact, we were pretty disappointed and questioned the sense of driving four hours through the wild for getting what we just experienced. Sadly enough, later on we could only agree with the Mursi’s reputation amongst other tribes we asked about them. Basically all tribes were scared of them and a boy at the market in Key Afar very beautifully summarised the general opinion by saying that the Mursi were “strong, mean and ugly”. Well, I have nothing to add to that…

Back at the campsite, we had a break. The plan was to go for a walk through the park and try to see some game. Again, we had to be accompanied by the ranger but he first wanted to have lunch and take a nap. Well, nothing to say against that except that his “nap” took until 4:30 pm which basically made it impossible to go for a long walk because it gets dark around six here. We were pretty pissed but there was no way we could set off on our own. In theory, Mago National Park includes buffalos, lions, leopards and elephants and I wouldn’t have wanted to run into any of them without an armed guard... So we had to wait for the ranger to show up. When we finally started our walk, we soon had to cross a little river. While Xavier was busy to protect his video camera equipment, Mohamed got wet feet and I was forever thankful to Ihab for being such a gentleman and help me to cross the river and remain dry!

Having reached the other side, we followed the ranger on a sand path which was surprisingly wide and well established. It was almost wide enough for vehicle traffic and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was indeed used for that. Although we found animal droppings and could see trails crossing the path, sightings were very rare. All we saw from very far and only briefly were some antelopes. Maybe no wonder, since we only remained on this human ‘highway’ and the ranger didn’t seem to be very motivated to leave the road and maybe show us some side tracks. Instead he walked in front of us, only spoke when we asked him a question and carried his rifle over the shoulder in such a way that we had to pay attention not to walk exactly behind him – it was the first time I realised what it feels like to have a gun pinpointed at my face...

After only half an hour, he suddenly said we have to turn back, otherwise we would get into Banna territory and they might shoot at us, thinking we were from a hostile tribe. I don’t know if that was true or if he just didn’t feel like continuing anymore. In the end we had no choice but to go back the same path we had come from. We crossed the river again and returned to the campsite where Mike had started to prepare our dinner. While the ranger put up his tent (as he was supposed to spend the night with us for safety reasons), Xavier and I took care of the fire. Mohamed and Ihab helped “in the kitchen” and we had what turned out to be one of the best dinners of the whole tour: pasta with corn, canned mushrooms and tuna for those who wanted (= everyone except me), plus salted mango for dessert, a creative invention of Mohamed. It was delicious! Other memories related to this campsite include the baboons all over the place, the coldest night we spent in tents so far and a “toilet” that was so rotten that I didn’t have to go for the entire time of our stay here...