We were entering the lands of the Surma, one of the largest tribes west of the Omo. After that first figure, others appeared: boys herding goats; men melting away into the grass; a young woman naked in a river.
In the late afternoon, we arrived at Tulget, a Surma
settlement straddling a long ridge. Few things were as novel as white folk in a
car, so naturally the whole village immediately dropped what they were doing to
get a good look at us. Men with spectacular, elongated earlobes and women with
huge lip plates crowded round to gaze at us as if we were circus freaks. I knew
they were dying to poke us. Stanley Stewart (to be continued)
