a very interesting documentary about a white British woman that goes to live with the women of the Afar from Ethiopia.
unlike most of the other documentaries in which some Western, typically white person goes to live with an indigenous group, this involves a white woman. not only is she a woman, she’s one that has no relative relation to the people or to any academic field that may be interested in them. she’s a recovering alcoholic from Britain who is looking for an experience to help her accept herself (yes, very…Eat Pray Love type shit, but informative nonetheless).
she learns a number of things about the Afar women that i don’t think is really learned on typical expeditions like these. like the fact that women do like 90% of the work, are beaten by their husbands, and practice female circumcision to the extremity that they have to be cut back open in order to have children.
it’s also interesting how they look at white people in general. i wonder how blacks from elsewhere would be regarded by them.
