The Ari people live in villages around the town of Jinka in Southern Ethiopia. They wear mostly western style clothing. The women plait their hair and the men wear a short shaved haircut. Our guide took us to one of their largest villages where we spent most of the morning watching as the villagers went about their daily lives.
The Ari are mainly maize farmers; but, like all Southern Ethiopians, they keep a small herd of cattle and goats. They are friendly, open and industrious. From the maize they distill corn liquor. They gave John and I samples of this clear liquid when we visited their small still. It was pretty smooth, with a somewhat eathy smoke flavor due to the dung they used for fuel.
They are also known for their wonderful pottery. We watched a young woman take red clay that was gathered nearby and fashion a flat plate used for roasting coffee (buna) beans. There are several social classes among the Ari. Only women are potters and only pottery families can intermarry. The same marriage restriction holds for the blacksmith who hand forges knives and uses his animal hide bellows to bring oxygen to the fire. The blacksmith that we watched, told us that he has been training his daughter, the first woman Ari blacksmith, to carry on his trade.
An Ari woman taught Ann how to pour injera batter onto the hot injera pan and let us taste fresh corn injera. Injera can be made from several plants - tef and corn are the main ones. Injera is the traditional Ethiopian flat large round "bread" that provides the plate for eating all of the special Ethiopian dishes like "Tibs" - small chunks of meat fried with fat, garlic, onion and tomato. Injera is traditionally served and eaten communally. The main dish is placed in the centre of the injera with small portions of other foods surrounding it - a bit of each in front of every person. Cutlery is not used. Thus, the first step before eating, is to wash one's hands. The hostess brings a pitcher of water and a small wash basin. She pours water over the hands of each person at the table. After everyone has washed, the injera is uncovered and everyone can start eating. With only the right hand one breaks off small pieces of injera and uses them to pick up the food. Ethiopians love hot, spicy food and always have a variety of chile pastes or powders at every meal.
Like many other parts of Ethiopia, the Ari also make another form of "bread", kocho, a highly nutritious soft cake made from the pulp of the false banana or enset. In one of the pictures above, John and Sammy, our guide, stand before an enset plant. Later in our journeys we watched the making of kocho.
Pictures: Ari girl clutching a 1 Birr note(the cost of taking her picture); John and Sammy with the enset plant; Ari woman making pottery;Making injera;
Ari blacksmith; Ari women plaiting hair and nursing
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