Ethiopia: Southern Nations – The Human Zoo of Omo Valley
This is what’s wrong and disgusting with the Omo Valley – hordes of tourists descending on the tribes invasively to photograph. When I visited the Hamar tribe, it was the Bulljumping ceremony day, and so loads of cars loaded to the rim with tourists were in the village, including a very large group of mostly Italian photographers and another sizable group of Chinese. For the life of me, I don’t understand or agree with the need to bring an ultra long massive zoom lens camera to photograph people from a couple meters away. The big-camera people quite visibly disrupted the tribe at a borderline assault on their daily lives. One Chinese guy pranced and danced around the Hamar people with his massive camouflaged camera as if it was wildlife on a safari. And two Italians got into a shouting and pushing and shoving match between themselves for a better spot to photograph the Hamar people as the latter watched in bewilderment. It was so disgusting! For the record, I never owned a massive camera and never will and I think it’s a privilege to visit a tribe and see their life rather then invade like it’s a human zoo.
