August 19th, 2008 
Sheila Simkin Lunch and a visit to a Konso Village with a local guide, “Choo-choo” while Henock cleaned the Toyota. He kept it immaculate and couldn’t stand it when it became covered with dust.
Dara (the Konso village) doesn’t receive as many visitors as the other villages along the main road and we were greeted enthusiastically. Konso people are different from the other tribes we’ve visited to now. They are a pagan society with a specialized agricultural economy. They construct stone terraced fields, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The villages are on hill tops, surrounded by stone walls and you enter a Konso house on your hands and knees through a wooden tunnel. (We never actually entered a house.) Very smart because if your visitor happened to be an enemy, it would be easy to knock him off.
The village squares used to contain Konso wagas, carved wooden sculptures raised in honor of Konso warriors that died with a phallic ornament worn on the forehead.
Unfortunately, people started to steal and sell this primitive art (it’s become a valuable commodity similar to New Guinea art) and now the Konso people erect stone monuments.
A traditional village is divided into nine compounds with nine clans and within each compound there are three sections:
- a pogala mugla (representative of the clan chief);
- a mora (community house) where adolescent boys spend the night. Boys, 12-18, sleep in the rafters above the community house and are responsible for the welfare of the village at night. Fire, war, illness, with an elder supervising; and
- a ceremonial square with generation poles.
Boys marry into different clans at around 18 years of age and are not allowed to drink alcohol until they marry. Each village also has their own local bar, busy in the afternoon when men and women sit around drinking for the remainder of the day.
Another weird practice was to embalm clan chiefs after death, leave them in their favorite chair and tell everyone else they’re only sick and can’t talk. How bizarre. This could go on for up to 9 years after a chief died! Wouldn’t you think…embalming or not..there would be some sort of smell after 9 years? I sincerely doubt they do this anymore but if they do, they’re not talking about it.
Dara children did go to school and had a wonderful time practicing English with us. The Ethiopian Government is trying to send more teachers into remote areas but it is a long, slow process. School is usually broken into two sessions, morning and afternoon. To further their English education, I proceeded, with great success and hilarity, to lead the children in a rousing rendition of “Head, shoulders, knees and toes.”
Be a responsible traveler and if you ever take a photograph of someone and promise to send it…PLEASE SEND IT! They never get photos of themselves and one man in Chencha commented that he had been promised a photo of himself many times and never has received one. He will now if Henock follows through and delivers the stack of photos I sent him!
Sue, our wonderful Explore guide in Laos, took photos of the village people everywhere we went and would bring the developed pictures to them on her next group trip. A wonderful, wonderful idea..
Back to the Edget Hotel that was the place to drink at night and a local truck/bus stop. Massive stereo speakers booming, going strong until 10:30 pm. People shouting…the help loading cases of soft drinks into a cooler outside our room at 11:00 pm. Blessedly, the power goes off at midnight. Slept until 4:30 am when the trucks and buses rev’d up to leave, and then the local mosque’s call to prayers. But the Edget Hotel was still one of the few places that did turn it’s electricity back on at 6:00 am.
I’ve received a few comments from readers that: I’m not adventurous because I talk about “toilets”…”rooms”…”lack of electricity”…should stay at home…and my writing is “banal.” Perhaps banal at times (I prefer truthful and how many adjectives are there…), but have you ever tried to insert contact lenses by flashlight? I freely admit it…I hug my flush toilet when I return home…and my fellow readers deserve to know the good along with the “bearable” when they travel.
Posted in 
Tags: 
Sheila,
I’m really enjoying your Ethiopia account and plan to sign up for Wilderness Travels trip for 2010. I had my girlfriend read your newsletter and she was, because of your honest reporting, able to decide that it was too rugged for her. So keep up your authentic and un sugarcoated accounts. Paul Theroux would be proud.
Debbie:
How very nice of you to say that! It’s comments like this that make my day but please tell you friend that Ethiopia was still worth all the hardships. One of the best trips we’ve ever had!
Sheila
LOVE
I admired what you Wrote about Dara, a village in Konso.
However I want to comment on two things.First,the Konso people are not considered as the pagan people. Most members of Konso community are the followers of protestant religion while others are followers of Ortodox church and other religious.Second, the tourst guid, Ato Choo Choo, focused on his mother rather than other members of the community. There are a number of key informants who have valuable information about the village under consideration.
Therefore,this two things have to be corrected.
Thank You
I appreciate your time and comments. Unfortunately, travelers are really at the mercy of whatever information their guides tell them along with where they are taken. It is good to hear your insightful comments and thanks so much for taking the time to visit Travels With Sheila and comment. Best regards, Travels With Sheila
this place is so wonderful with meaningful life…ohhhhh i have a big memory of the area…i want to comment and add on the above report made. konso people are not agrarian also if u see kebeles like segen genet, Malega ena Dhugeya..etc they were also pastoralist…. above all if U want to see konso and by chance if u are happen to be there please donnot forget to see Kala house and to have time with him. he is the traditional leader of the konso people, ohhh he realy adorable and fine person with a lot to be told…
Thanks helping make this article more complete. Dara was a wonderful experience and we could have spent the entire day there, interacting with the people.