Today we head towards Turmi.
There is hope that we will see a bull jumping ceremony with the Hammar tribe.
Some people area now starting to get sick, and I've caught the head cold that is going around. It was a rough day for most of us. But also a day when I would see things that I have never seen before and will never see again.
We made a small stop at a school on the way to Turmi. The Alduba Juniour School has a lot of tribal and farming children who go from 8 am to noon to avoid the hottest part of the day. They study Amharic (the national language of Ethiopia), English, Math, Science and Sport. The top teacher salary there is $75 per month. That is after many years of teaching. To compare it, I heard that our drivers make $10 per day (although they have to pay for their own expenses on the road). The students were wound up when we arrived, so it was a little chaotic. Lots of asking for money or pens. Everyone chipped in some money so the teacher could buy more composition notebooks. The school was brilliantly painted with science and mathematic equations, and famous Ethiopian sites. Places we had been to in the north.
We found our hotel, the Turmi Hammar Village Lodge, and got settled in before the main event of the day. An event that Claude wasn't sure was going to take place. A Hammar bull jumping ceremony. When a young boy performs this ritual, he is on his way to becoming a man and being eligible for marriage. But first he's got to get over the bulls.
Most of these tribes are made distinguishable by their women. What the women are wearing, their body modifications, their hairstyles, especially, are indicative of what tribe they are from. The men, less so.
The Hammar women wear their hair in braids, which are slathered with butter and a reddish soil. The cuts are short, in a bowl style. They also wear animal skin skirts and shawls, and giant ankle bracelets. They are easy to spot.
We were told about the ceremony, but I was not prepared for it.
I don't think you can be prepared, ever. You just have to see it.
All of the women who are related to the boy doing the jumping are whipped by men with switches until they have oozing, bloody lashes on their bare backs. This is their public way of demonstrating their love and support of the boy.
When we arrived, some of the women had already been beaten, so their backs we bloodied and lacerated. They danced together, and had a drink that supposedly numbed the pain. The group dancing and singing is to build them up, encourage them, and show support for those being hit.
The men who do the whipping gather together to paint their faces and prepare. As I watched them paint their faces, a woman who had arrived late came up to the group singing loudly and smiling, and she picked one of the men out and grabbed his switch to give to him. She then pulled him over to a clearing and kept singing or chanting and (it looked like) egging him on. Then he whipped her, I think two or three times. It was -
Incredibly painful to watch. The crack of the stick on her bare skin. The violence. I immediately teared up. It was just...there almost aren't words.
It is another example of the complex nature of culture. I want to believe that this is how it is for them, they willingly participate in it, people have tried to stop them and they resist because it is what they believe in...
But when I saw that man crack that stick onto her, and her instantly bloody wounds...it was hard to not scream out myself. It seems so wrong. That this is how they show pride and family connection and bravery and how strong they are...by being able to take a beating that leaves them scarred forever.
All that boy had to do was run across some bulls backs. No scars, no blood.
But that isn't the way things work.
After the first set of whippings, we walked with the women to the area where the bull jumping was going to take place. We followed their bloody backs as they sang and walked, most seemingly unaware of the pain. Tomorrow they will be very aware of it. Like the Mursi, they put ash in the wounds so that they heal as very large scars.
Before and after the whipping, the women did some amazing chanting and dancing. They wear giant bells on straps just under their knees. Some also clang together their big ankle bracelets when they dance. They chanted and circled the bulls and cattle, sometimes pausing to do battle with the bulls. They would blow horns at it, put their arms up like they were horns and taunt the bull, and yell at it. Then they would all gather in a group and jump up and down and clang their bells and bracelets rhythmically. That part was the best. It was ear splitting, but wonderful to see and hear.
Then there was some more whipping, off to the side in a clearing. I did not go over and watch, but even from across the crowd, I could hear the crack as the switches found their targets, and see women emerge with fresh blood streaming down their backs. They would then join in with the the others singing and dancing.
Then the men gathered around the cattle and began running in a circle around the herd. As they did that, some others would pick out certain bulls and wrestle them into a line. Then the boy joined the group and ran across the backs of about six bulls. He was naked, and had a mohawk, just a little, skinny kid really. Although tonight he is a man. He did it four times.
At the end, the family of the boy joined closely together and held each other and sang a slow song.
Then the crowd dispersed immediately. They were headed back to the boy's family's home for a party and celebration.
As Claude said later, it was not an easy thing to see, but it was a great thing to see.
There is hope that we will see a bull jumping ceremony with the Hammar tribe.
Some people area now starting to get sick, and I've caught the head cold that is going around. It was a rough day for most of us. But also a day when I would see things that I have never seen before and will never see again.
We made a small stop at a school on the way to Turmi. The Alduba Juniour School has a lot of tribal and farming children who go from 8 am to noon to avoid the hottest part of the day. They study Amharic (the national language of Ethiopia), English, Math, Science and Sport. The top teacher salary there is $75 per month. That is after many years of teaching. To compare it, I heard that our drivers make $10 per day (although they have to pay for their own expenses on the road). The students were wound up when we arrived, so it was a little chaotic. Lots of asking for money or pens. Everyone chipped in some money so the teacher could buy more composition notebooks. The school was brilliantly painted with science and mathematic equations, and famous Ethiopian sites. Places we had been to in the north.
We found our hotel, the Turmi Hammar Village Lodge, and got settled in before the main event of the day. An event that Claude wasn't sure was going to take place. A Hammar bull jumping ceremony. When a young boy performs this ritual, he is on his way to becoming a man and being eligible for marriage. But first he's got to get over the bulls.
Most of these tribes are made distinguishable by their women. What the women are wearing, their body modifications, their hairstyles, especially, are indicative of what tribe they are from. The men, less so.
The Hammar women wear their hair in braids, which are slathered with butter and a reddish soil. The cuts are short, in a bowl style. They also wear animal skin skirts and shawls, and giant ankle bracelets. They are easy to spot.
We were told about the ceremony, but I was not prepared for it.
I don't think you can be prepared, ever. You just have to see it.
All of the women who are related to the boy doing the jumping are whipped by men with switches until they have oozing, bloody lashes on their bare backs. This is their public way of demonstrating their love and support of the boy.
When we arrived, some of the women had already been beaten, so their backs we bloodied and lacerated. They danced together, and had a drink that supposedly numbed the pain. The group dancing and singing is to build them up, encourage them, and show support for those being hit.
The men who do the whipping gather together to paint their faces and prepare. As I watched them paint their faces, a woman who had arrived late came up to the group singing loudly and smiling, and she picked one of the men out and grabbed his switch to give to him. She then pulled him over to a clearing and kept singing or chanting and (it looked like) egging him on. Then he whipped her, I think two or three times. It was -
Incredibly painful to watch. The crack of the stick on her bare skin. The violence. I immediately teared up. It was just...there almost aren't words.
It is another example of the complex nature of culture. I want to believe that this is how it is for them, they willingly participate in it, people have tried to stop them and they resist because it is what they believe in...
But when I saw that man crack that stick onto her, and her instantly bloody wounds...it was hard to not scream out myself. It seems so wrong. That this is how they show pride and family connection and bravery and how strong they are...by being able to take a beating that leaves them scarred forever.
All that boy had to do was run across some bulls backs. No scars, no blood.
But that isn't the way things work.
After the first set of whippings, we walked with the women to the area where the bull jumping was going to take place. We followed their bloody backs as they sang and walked, most seemingly unaware of the pain. Tomorrow they will be very aware of it. Like the Mursi, they put ash in the wounds so that they heal as very large scars.
Before and after the whipping, the women did some amazing chanting and dancing. They wear giant bells on straps just under their knees. Some also clang together their big ankle bracelets when they dance. They chanted and circled the bulls and cattle, sometimes pausing to do battle with the bulls. They would blow horns at it, put their arms up like they were horns and taunt the bull, and yell at it. Then they would all gather in a group and jump up and down and clang their bells and bracelets rhythmically. That part was the best. It was ear splitting, but wonderful to see and hear.
Then there was some more whipping, off to the side in a clearing. I did not go over and watch, but even from across the crowd, I could hear the crack as the switches found their targets, and see women emerge with fresh blood streaming down their backs. They would then join in with the the others singing and dancing.
Then the men gathered around the cattle and began running in a circle around the herd. As they did that, some others would pick out certain bulls and wrestle them into a line. Then the boy joined the group and ran across the backs of about six bulls. He was naked, and had a mohawk, just a little, skinny kid really. Although tonight he is a man. He did it four times.
At the end, the family of the boy joined closely together and held each other and sang a slow song.
Then the crowd dispersed immediately. They were headed back to the boy's family's home for a party and celebration.
As Claude said later, it was not an easy thing to see, but it was a great thing to see.
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