A country with a tumultuous past, present and future. At the same time, a place of unparalleled beauty. For outsiders, famine, war, poverty and drought are the things most synonymous with Ethiopia. Even now, it’s still one of the least developed countries in the world, so those preconceptions wouldn’t be entirely baseless.
During my month-long visit, I experienced extremes. Ethiopia’s diversity of terrain means there are wide variations in climate and settlement patterns. Within the space of two days, we drove from the wet season in the capital Addis Ababa, before being greeted by a thick blanket of heat and humidity in Logiya in the Afar region.
Based in the North-Eastern lowlands of Ethiopia, the Afar region is notorious for having the most fragile environment within the country and is also known as the hottest inhabited place on Earth. Within the past decade, the region has undergone four major droughts, wrecking environmental havoc that has almost decimated their pastoralist livelihood. Community elders spoke of the deterioration of pastures and consequent depletion of bred cattle and goats. As the majority of Afar live as nomads, their livestock represents the basis of their economic foundation and with this being threatened, so is their very livelihood.
The Afar have a deeply paternalistic attitude, which is obvious from birth to burial. At the birth of a baby boy, two celebratory gunshots are fired into the air while female births go unacknowledged. Seven-year-old girls are expected to assume a role of servitude within the household and conduct daily tasks alongside the women, while males are free to do as they please. At the end of their lives, male graves are more distinguishably marked and revered. The Afar have a traditional saying that seems to embody much of what I saw: ”One should give an ear to a woman but not take seriously what is said.”
In a lot of ways, the country still lingers behind the rest of the world, both practically and symbolically. According to the Ethiopian calendar, for instance, it’s the year 2001. When I boarded the plane out of the country, the millennium had only just passed over. By the time I flew out of the country, watching the land recede below, I had left eight years and countless life stories behind.
Tammy Law is a freelance photographer from Brisbane, Australia who pursues photo documentary stories. Her work has been referred to as, “evocative documentary… that includes social justice issues and the ostensibly mundane urban spaces in which we live”. She draws influence from the unearthly qualities of Edward Hopper’s paintings, Lynne Cohen’s tribute to space and Noor Photo Agency’s social commentary. With a strong community focus, she has produced bodies of work on ageing day-labourers homes in Japan, post- earthquake China, domestic living in Inner Mongolia and harmful traditional practices in Ethiopia. Her photographs have appeared in publications like the Sydney Morning Herald, Frankie Magazine and The Big Issue.
Her website can be seen here.
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