CeremonySep 2025
How I know when the bull-jump will happen
It isn't a calendar. It's a phone call from a cousin, a count of cattle, the way the rains came. Here's what I actually watch for before I tell a traveller to book.
Read the note →MarketJul 2025
Monday in Turmi, from the inside
Tourists arrive at ten and miss the morning. The market is half-finished by then. I grew up buying salt and beads here — let me tell you when to come.
Read the note →RiverMay 2025
Crossing to the Dassanech
The Omo is a border and a highway at once. Crossing it means trusting families I've known for a decade — and them trusting me with you.
Read the note →PhotographyMar 2025
On photographing people who are not a backdrop
The lip plate is the photo everyone wants. The cattle ceremony is the thing worth seeing. I'll always steer you toward the second one.
Read the note →KaroJan 2025
Four hundred years of body paint
Ash and ochre, patterns that haven't changed in centuries. The Karo are fewer than three thousand people, on a cliff above the river. My neighbors, in the southern sense.
Read the note →On guidingNov 2024
Why I only take one group at a time
I don't scale. I can't be in two villages at once and still be welcome in both. That's the limit, and it's also the whole point.
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