Global Team for Local Initiatives Helping People Help Themselves

Hamar women bear two types of scars: beauty scars and "loyalty" scars. Beauty scarring -- usually a pattern of small rectangles across a shoulder, upper arm, or back -- are optional. Often girls go together to have their scars cut. Loyalty scars are done out of tradition, not beauty. During the ecooli -- the bull-jumping ceremony that marks a young man's right of passage -- the initiate's teenage relatives taunt the young men of the tribe, urging the men to whip them. The resulting scars display the girls' loyalty to and love for her brother or cousin. If a girl does not have any scars from the ecooli people will say, "What? Didn't she let herself be beaten for her brothers? What kind of a girl is that?" If someone has only a few scars, people say that she does not bear the pain for her brothers. She is considered a coward. "She shall go away!"

These two young beauties are great friends. One often finds them carrying younger siblings as they tend the goats. Kongi, on the left, is wearing more jewelry, a sign that her father has more wealth than Yishi's father.

Hamar women wear goat hides trimmed with colorful glass beads and cowry shells. Their hair is twisted into tight coils and rubbed with red clay, which gives it a distinctive rust color. Young women wear beaded necklaces and chokers. Once married, a woman adds a metal marriage collar. Hamar women are the property of their husbands. They spend hours each day fetching water, grinding grain, carrying anything that needs transporting, tending the crops and goats, caring for the children, making the food, and feeding their husbands.

The woman is the transportation system of the family. She carries water, wood, sorghum, straw for roofing or bee hive making and babies. Her energy is becoming more and more depleted as the drought worsens and food becomes more scarce.

When a Hamar girl becomes engaged, she is whipped by relatives of her fiance while he "jumps the bulls." For the first four months of her marriage, the new bride is "trained" by her mother-in-law and is restricted to the mother-in-law's house. She and her new husband do not have relations for four months -- only after they move in to their own house -- a house the bride has built out of sticks and grass.

When a woman has given birth to many children, her husband will -- if he can afford the bride price -- marry a second wife to help her. Once the new marriage is celebrated, he returns to his homestead and tells the first wife he has married again. The first wife will then give her approval and the two will discuss the bride price with the new wife's family. Presents will be given and the first wife will prepare the new wife's hair, shaving it and rubbing it with goat butter and red clay powder called assili. Once the new wife has had her period twice, the first wife will tell her that she may now sleep with her husband. She will tell her how to lay down the cow-hide and how to prepare. The husband will then know that he is permitted to sleep with his new wife.

Years ago, a man wearing a grey and red-ochre clay hair bun with an ostrich feather was broadcasting the fact that he had bravely killed an enemy from another tribe or a dangerous animal, such as a lion or leopard. Hamar men still wear the hair bun, although hunting has largely ended with the decline of wild game, and tribal warfare is discouraged by the government. The bun often takes up to three days to construct. One generally sees a curious paper clip-like object stuck somewhere in the hair - it is used to scratch under the headdress!

DiTradition says a new mother gives her newborn baby butter even before the baby is given the breast. Unfortunately, this is a major cause of baby diarrhea. The most contagious type of diarrhea is that of a young child. In an area where people are chronically undernourished and dehydrated, diarrhea is particularly dangerous. Diarrhea is a leading cause of death for African children.

Young Hamar children take care of younger family members as soon as they can carry them. It is very common to see flies on the faces of these little ones - along with runny noses.

Very few Hamar children go to school. In the 10 kebeles (counties) surrounding our target area, only 89 children out of a population of many thousand have graduated from primary school, which goes through 8th grade, over the last 5 years. For most children, school is a many-days walk away and prohibitively expensive. Even more important, there is no tradition of education and families need their children at home to help with farming, tending the animals, household chores, fetching water, and caring for younger siblings. An educated girl is devalued because she will command a smaller bride price.

The south Omo valley, home of the Hamar, is becoming less fertile each year. The sparse rainfall leaches through the soil, causing the water in the few wells that still work to be salty. The only animal which thrives here is the goat!