Embracing the absurd

Ever in touch with the absurd, I am reminded again of how at any waking moment--at this very moment--there are billions of different realities. As we in the U.S. herald the launching of the iPad into our cyber-environment, as we get into our hybrid cars and watch our plasma TVs, there are the people of the Omo Valley in Ethiopia, profiled in last month's issue of National Geographic (arguably my favorite magazine of all).

The tribes which populate the Omo Valley (the Kara, the Banna, the Bashada, the Hamar, and several others) all lead lives that are in stark contrast to the 21st century vibe in the U.S. The Mursi women still wear ornamental clay lip plates, making their mouths look like small frisbees. The Suri tie on armor made of goat hide and fight each other with long poles. There is still the Hamar ritual in which women demand to be whipped until they bleed, and there's the cattle-jumping initiation rite, in which boys run along the backs of cattle to prove they are ready for manhood. And they do most of these things--in classic National Geographic picture form--buck naked, without an ounce of self-consciousness or embarrassment. And I think to myself, what a strange and wonderful world! (Intentional song reference here.)

It goes deeper, though. The differences transcend mere clothing or artifacts. In this part of the world, mingi is a kind of very bad luck. In southern Ethiopia, many tribes believe it is a bad omen if children are born deformed, if their top teeth erupt before their bottom teeth, or if they are born out of wedlock. Tradition dictates that such children must be killed before mingi spreads. The writer of this article (Neil Shea) notes, "I met a Kara woman who gave birth to 12 children before she was able to be married; she said she killed all of them. Parents do not necessarily want to obey, but communal pressure is strong. Sometimes the child is abandoned in the bush, its mouth filled with earth; sometimes it is hurled into the river."

Reading National Geographic is more than a trip through a time machine. It's traveling to another planet--although in this case it turns out to be the other side of our own planet. But, Happy Easter! And because you are where you are--reading this off of a laptop somewhere--put on some clothes, dammit!