Paul Rankin had to leave the team and depart for Addis to be in time for his flight back home. Nicolas Villaume and Darout Gum’a drove to Bonke to watch the bridal beauty contest at the Soafe ceremony. However, we had a bad car that couldn’t get through on the terrible roads of Gaatse after the rains, and thus, were obliged to return to Arba Minch.
On the way back, we arranged for a meeting with female community members at Ganta Meche. We had decided that an extra meeting to hear women's views was needed to balance the rest of our itinerary, which had mainly been listening to male representatives in rural societies where men are the community decision makers, in contrast to female emancipation in Ethiopian cities.
Subsequently, we met 10 female elders and younger community members. We explained the LCS mission and way of working, asking for their reactions and comments. Both the elder and the young women said they supported the LCS mission. However, they disclosed that the young generation considers old cultural ways as outdated phenomena. Woizero Taddelech Bottola added that though the young generation disobey cultural practices, all they do should not be considered as bad: there are some progressive values in the behaviour of the youth.
Finally, Woizero Dunkane Douqa told the group two stories, which have the moral values of unfair competition and mischief as their themes. These stories were recorded by Nicolas and replayed to the gathered people.
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