Jinka

Pick you up in Jinka airport up on your arrival. Firs stop is Mursi Tribe in where you will noticed the feature of the Mursi women wearing ornamental clay disks (debhinya) in their bottom lips as symbols of beauty and adulthood. When a girl is in her early teenage years, her bottom lip is cut and kept open with the clay disk until it heals. After it, we will drive back to jinka for lunch. You will then hike to Ari Village for 2 hours back and forth. In almost all villages you’ll meet potters, blacksmiths and women grinding grain to make the Ari version of injera, which uses maize or sorghum instead of tef and has dagussa (‘finger millet’) mixed into it. If you’re lucky someone may invite you to try bunaketele, a delicious drink made from coffee leaves, chillies and several spices including lemongrass. After it, over night in hotel.

Turmi

In the morning after breakfast we will drive to Kangaten. A small town located on the other side of the Omo River crossing over a bridge to visit the Nyangatom tribe. The elders of both sexes wear a lower lip plug the men's made from ivory and the women's from copper. Young girls wear a dress made from goat- or sheepskin with unique decoration made from nails. After visiting this Tribe's village for as much time we need and head to Karo, Karo Tribe's village of Korcho located in near by the shore of Omo River where you will make a great deal of interactions with these unique tribes of Karo (The least numbered tribes in terms of population size). Visit their door to door activities by walking through their villages and interact with them by entering their home. then you will continue your journey Hamer tribes small town of Turmi where you will meet the tribes including Banna and Hammer on our way down. In the late afternoon we will visit deep communal village of Hammer tribes.

Jinka

In the morning after breakfast we will drive to Omorate, the border town with Northwest of Kenya where the unique tribal communities of Dasenech are found. We will cross the Omo River with a local boat made from Fig tree. The Daasanach tribe are found in the most southern part of the Omo Valley and they live at the point where the Omo River delta enters Lake Turkana. They are primarily pastoral people, growing maize, beans and pumpkins at the time of year when the delta floods. During dry seasons they rely on their cattle and goats for milk, meat, and hides. Their homes are dome-shaped, made from branches covered with hides with mats covering the floor. In the afternoon, we will drive to Turmi if there is bull jumping ceremony you will attend that. They perform every 3 days. A deep-rooted traditions, values, and culture - bull jumping is a ceremony performed by the Hamer tribe as a rite of passage for young men. We will then drive to Jinka for over night in your hotel.

Jinka

After breakfast visit jinka museum. Behind glass cases starting with the Karo and the Bodi with the others in the next big room: cow skin skirts and clothing, baskets, weapons, utensils, body decorations, musical instruments, games. Then Mursi women lip disks and ear plates, the small stools / headrests (keri) that Banna and Hamer men carry around. While I recall seeing some of these in the Addis museums, the grouping by people helped with the compare and contrast. Most of all the groups have a pastoralist lifestyle element based on cattle, though many have also been practicing agriculture to supplement. A few groups, such as the Mursi, are still nomadic, moving from one location to another as they feel they need to, but others practice sedentary farming, living in villages with fixed locations, with only the men going out afar to tend their animals, sometimes for weeks at a time. From museum, we will drive to Airport then fly back to Addis.