I visited Ethiopia, the land of Origins. And this is how the story of my Art Business started.

By popular demand (from visitors to my current exhibition), I am republishing this article here. I originally wrote it in 2017, it was commissioned by the Anglo-Ethiopian Society magazine.

Elizabeth Blunt, who is mentioned in the first line, is a BBC journalist who was based in Addis Ababa. We are both members of the Anglo Ethiopian Society. If your interest is piqued, find out more about the Anglo Ethiopian Society.

How the Women of the Hamer Tribe Changed my Life

by Zoe Akroyd Parker

“The tourists take all these photos and we don’t know what they do with them. Do they laugh at us?” the Hamer tribeswomen asked Elizabeth Blunt.

 I was stunned when I heard Elizabeth recount this story, and I also felt quite tearful.  I was sitting in the audience, enthralled by her talk, Reporting Ethiopia 2007-2009.   It never occurred to me that the Hamer tribeswomen might think that people would laugh at them, because after I met them my whole life changed in a most wonderful way.

I had never considered visiting Ethiopia until one evening in February 2015, when my cousin introduced me to a group of Ethiopian men whom he was working with. They were all working as translators on a documentary for channel 4. It was called The Tribe and it followed the lives of the Hamer Tribe in the Lower Omo Valley.  During that evening, which we spent at Lalibela restaurant in Tufnell Park, London, I was mesmerised by the Ethiopian men’s description of life in the tribal villages. I loved their photographs and stories, and by the end of the night I had already made up my mind to go.