Doza Market and Tera Sega

We move from the humidity of the Lower Omo Valley up above the mist to reach Doza at 1800m. This is the first time I’ve felt a chill in the air here in Ethiopia. I’ve come up to Doza for the weekly market. The fine mist from the elevation quickly turns into a downpour and I huddle with the locals under the bit of overreach from the only building in this open-air market.

The field is littered with hobbled horses and the vendors have covered themselves with umbrellas, tarps or plastic bags. Cast your eye across the vast open-air market and it is a colorful patch of plastics, rain and red clay dirt.

For the first time in the Lower Omo Valley, there is a sense of color, abundance and variety. The lumpy tarps shield giant piles of potatoes, carrots, and cabbages from the rain. There is wild honey in small pots, piles of white enset wrapped up in banana leaves creating a delightful presentation on the eyes hiding the disappointment that is to come when you put it in your mouth. There are vendors everywhere and we are greeted with warm, curious, shouts of “sister sister!”

I hate myself in for not having grabbed another roll of film and for leaving the digital camera behind because of the rain. I carefully shoot through the twenty frames that I have and rely on the iPhone for the rest. The scene here in Doza overwhelms me and its hard to figure out if each precious frame should be spent on a close ups or attempting for the entire scene so you can see what I see.

We walk behind the market and stop for tera sega, raw cow meat served with chili powder, an Ethiopian specialty. From the outside, one can easily mistake the shop for a butcher shop as much like a butcher shop; there is a raw hunk of meat hanging out front and men in bloody aprons. The raw meat and the butcher come chiefly is a statement on the freshness of the meat and to make sure that you get the cut you desire.

Chapy, our other local guide and I find a bench in the narrow room with a single key light as illumination, packed dirt floor, and full of locals. We dipped hunks of raw cow meat in chili powder, burning our mouths and ease the fire with local honey wine. This honey wine here in Doza is sweeter and a little stronger than what we had sampled in Kay Afar. The chili powder is fierce; Chapy dips more tera sega in it, put it in his mouth and says it tastes like love. An old Omotic woman comes in the shop, sits down right next to me, says nothing and orders nothing. She quietly sits there for a few minutes and then leaves silently. A man sits down next to Chapy. His order of tera sega arrives as a solid piece. He pulls out a sharp knife from his pocket and skillfully slices apart his raw cow as he eats. Tera Sega isn’t much of a culinary treat. It’s just raw meat and lacks the specialty and flavor of Kobe beef. It is the scene, the tiny room illuminated by the sky light, the locals, you being the only foreigner in the room that makes it all so special.

On our way out of the market, Chapy buys a length of sugar cane from one of the kids. We suck on pieces of fresh sugar cane and walk back in the rain.