About the Eloquent Suri of Ethiopia Project

One of the key aspects of this project is support for the Light of the Suri mother tongue education project. If you’re ready to add your support for that initiative, please click on the DONATE button to do so. If you’d prefer to learn more, please read on (and be sure to watch one or both of the engaging short films on this page!).

In the Beginning

This project began when I took a photo tour in the Omo Valley of Ethiopia in late 2019, just before the coronavirus pandemic. The lower Omo Valley hosts a vibrant cultural tapestry, including numerous small ethnic groups with a wide range of languages and traditions. Our first visit was with the Suri, a small (fewer than 35,000-member) people group who live in the remote southwest corner of the country. I was immediately smitten with this beautiful and resilient people.

The Suri paint their bodies in intricate patterns, using natural pigments ground from local rocks and mixed with water. Carefully sculpted scar patterns are another popular adornment among them. Adorned or not, they are a joyful and creative people. During my 2019 visit, I focused on capturing that creativity and beauty in photographs.

Soon after my return from Ethiopia, the world went into pandemic shutdown mode. I spent much of my pandemic learning more about the Suri people, including their culture, art and language.

Prior to the late 1990s, there was no written version of the Suri language. The Suri Literacy Project (SLP), over its 20-year run, helped to change that by creating teaching materials, training Suri teachers and nurturing the mother tongue literacy of Suri children and adults through informal classes. A 2013 SLP video featured several of the senior SLP teachers, including Gergere Siralugu. He had learned written Suri in the project and spoke passionately in the video of the importance of MTE:

“It is important to educate our people in Suri so our language and identity will not be lost. All people in Ethiopia have a right to learn in their own language. We want to hold onto our language too, so that we will speak it forever. We will continue to teach Suri to our children so they will know it.” Gergere Siralugu, 2013

During my pandemic-time immersion in all things Suri, I became especially fascinated with learning about the Suri language, including from the stories and drawings that members of the SLP had created for literacy primers. These stories provided engaging glimpses of Suri culture.

In early 2021, my first generation Eloquent Suri of Ethiopia exhibit debuted at the Pacific Grove Art Center in California. The exhibit featured black and white renditions of my Suri portraits, interspersed with stories and drawings of Suri life drawn from the literacy primers. I also developed a small book with the key content of that exhibit.

I was delighted to take copies of the book with me on my second visit to the Suri later in 2021and leave one with each of my portrait collaborators. Our Eloquent Suri short film tells the story of that visit, which was the foundation of my second generation Eloquent Suri project.

As the film also reports, I learned just before that second Suri visit that the Suri Literacy Project had run out of funds and ended. The SLP’s demise was a huge disappointment to many Suri, who believe strongly in the importance of Suri mother tongue education (including literacy). We immediately started investigating Ethiopian partner organizations that could help to revive mother tongue education among the Suri.

Launching the 2nd Generation Project & Suri Mother Tongue Education (MTE) Revival

The 2nd generation Eloquent Suri exhibit is now on view in its third formal venue. The new exhibit aims to broaden and deepen coverage of the fascinating Suri people.

The Ethiopian constitution and polices call for minority language students to be able learn in their mother tongue as the main instructional language through sixth grade. But so far in the Suri community, that goal is nowhere near being met.

As a recent and very important step in the right direction, students in some Suri schools learn with written Suri for one period per day. This is a far cry from the government’s goal that essentially all primary school classes to be taught in Suri, but certainly better than no teaching in Suri at all!

One big plus: the teachers for those Suri classes are fully funded by the government. The new arrangement is much more sustainable for the long term compared to the 50%-donor-funded SLP teachers.

Except for these recent Suri-as-a-subject classes in some schools, primary grade Suri students learn in Amharic, a widely used language in Ethiopia, but essentially a foreign tongue for most Suri students. How would you have done in your primary grades, learning in your own language at most one period a day, with the rest of the school day in some foreign language?

During our late 2023 visit to the Suri, we talked with the principal of the Anjo primary school. Even though she doesn’t know the Suri language, it has been obvious to her that when her students are taught in Suri, they are much more engaged and enthusiastic about learning. We saw dramatic differences ourselves when we visited classes taught in Suri versus Amharic.

Light of the Suri: a New Suri MTE Initiative

With the help of generous donors, SIL Ethiopia (silethiopia.org), a language development NGO, launched a Suri MTE initiative, with a primary emphasis on seeking effective ways to help the government deliver on its long-postponed goals for Suri MTE. In 2023, SIL celebrated its 50th anniversary of supporting minority language communities in Ethiopia. It was a long-time collaborator with the SLP, as well.

Gergere Siralugu agreed to lead the training. He’s the veteran SLP teacher quoted above (from ten years earlier!), who is also pictured here, leading a training class.  The first multi-day training session happened while we were in Kibish in late 2023. Nine teachers of Suri-as-a-subject classes from three nearby schools were brought together for the training, which aimed to enable and encourage the effective teaching of Suri as a subject. Several of the group were veterans of the SLP. A second multi-day round of training happened in April, 2024.

Over 500 Suri students in those three Suri schools are already benefiting from this training!

This training marked a critical step in the revival of MTE among the Suri and was a momentous occasion, especially for Gergere and the veterans of the SLP among the trainees. They chose a celebratory new name for the project: Hɔldina Suri (Light of the Suri in English). This name emphasizes the liberating and enlightening benefits of Suri MTE, not only for students, but for the entire community.

The Light of the Suri project was budgeted at about $7,500 for the 2023-24 academic year. Our budget goal is $10,000 more for the 2024-25 academic year, which will allow a modest expansion in the program, potentially including additional teachers and schools. As of July, 2024, about $5,000 of the 2024-25 support is in hand, thanks to recent generous donations.

We’ve created a simple logo to unite and motivate the informal network of donors and friends who support the Light of the Suri project. You can use it to promote the project in your community; please see details below the logo.

Here again is Gergere Siralugu, still stressing the importance of the Suri MTE initiative, ten years after his 2013 quote above:

“A few years back, we had a Suri Literacy Project in this community, but it stopped. We want it back! May God bless the people who are helping us to bring the written form of our language back into the community. We want to tell them that we are so happy and so excited. We want the next generation to be able to read, write and most importantly, learn in their own mother tongue. We know that Suri can serve as a base language for other languages as well.” Gergere Siralugu, 2023

Bonus: play the short video below to learn the Suri alphabet and an example word for each letter!

The Omo Valley Context

The valley’s prehistory is rich, earning it designation as a World Heritage Site. Fossils found at the Omo I and II sites on each bank of the river have been dated to about 195,000 years ago and are the earliest known evidence worldwide of our Homo sapiens species. 

Historically, the Omo Valley and its inhabitants were largely self-sufficient and isolated from the rest of the country and the world. In recent decades, however, the Ethiopian central government has increased its presence in the area, including by promoting development measures, like internationally owned industrial scale plantations along the river and major dams. The Gibe III dam, when fully commissioned, will be the third largest hydroelectric plant in Africa. The Gibe IV dam is under construction downstream, with Gibe V planned, as well. The Gibe dams and the intensively irrigated plantations are substantially impacting the lives of lower valley ethnic groups.

The eastern side of the Omo Valley has a longer history of accessibility and resulting outside visitors and influence. One of the most visible ethnic groups there, the Mursi, have much in common with the Suri, both in language and traditions. The Kara and Hamar ethnic groups, further south, share language and cultural heritages. The Kara, however, is a much smaller group than the others. Also, their livestock emphasis is almost entirely on sheep and goats, versus cattle.

Suri territory is west of the Omo River and spans the Kibish River in the east. 

Acknowledgments

First, I thank my creative and talented Suri collaborators. In addition to those who worked directly with me on their portraits, I’m grateful to the Suri authors and artists who created the stories of Suri life that illustrate the literacy primers, as well as the translators, including Barkedhe Bilemouyi and Barsuni Ngakurel, who helped to bridge those stories and my other interactions into the English world. Last but definitely not least, I thank the Suri community more broadly for welcoming us and so enthusiastically supporting the new Hɔldina Suri (Light of the Suri in English) mother tongue education initiative and its predecessor, the Suri Literacy Project (SLP).

Second, I thank the generous donors to the Light of the Suri project. Their very welcome donations enabled the project’s debut year and are well on the way to funding the second year, but more support is definitely needed to make the second year possible.

Organizationally, I thank Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY) for hosting the SLP during its 20-year run and SIL Ethiopia for organizing and leading the new Light of the Suri initiative. Gɔlɔnyi Londiholi worked capably to launch the new project. Gergere Siralugu brings his passion for mother tongue education to Suri teacher training and overall leadership of the initiative, as well.

Oryx Photo Tours organized the fine 2019 Omo Valley tour that introduced me to the Suri; the tour was splendidly led by Marius Coetzee, Mike Dexter and Henok Tsegaye. Henok, on the ground in Ethiopia and with contacts among the Suri, was especially generous with his aid. C4 Photo Safaris arranged my excellent 2021 and 2023 visits to the Suri, with ground operations handled by An African Canvas, Graeme Lemon, co-owner, all under the very capable leadership of Shem Compion and Henok Tsegaye, together with lead local guides, including Kɔrkɔdhi Arsibhala and Tizbt Sumsum. In addition to his overall shepherding of the 2021 and 2023 trips, I thank Shem for his splendid videography and co-producer contributions on the two (so far!) short films we’ve made together.

Jon Abbink is Professor of Politics and Governance in Africa at Leiden University in the Netherlands and Chair of the Researchers' Assembly of the African Studies Centre Leiden, as well as a prolific, insightful author of Suri-related books and articles. Mike Bryant of SIL International has dedicated more than two decades to working with the Suri, helping to define and then apply the written Suri language. Both Jon and Mike have been gracious and thorough in responding to my emailed questions. They also co-authored, along with Suri colleague Daniel Bambu, the definitive book on Suri culture and language. Ulrike Beyer, who spent 18 years in Ethiopia as an advisor to the Suri Literacy Project, was helpful as well, especially in pointing me to the video and partially translated primer mentioned above, and providing a wide range of key insights along the way.

The EECMY, which hosted the SLP during its 20-year run, kindly authorized me to use project materials in my work. The Suri Ethiopia website has copies of some of those items (including the Suri Amharic English dictionary, in case you’re interested!).

Talented designer Elisabeth Ajtay helped me create the poster elements in this collection, using drawings and stories from the Literacy Project to complement the portraits of my Suri collaborators, further illuminating Suri language and culture. She also designed the beautiful small Eloquent Suri book that I took with me in 2021, leaving a copy with each of my portrait collaborators.

Selected References

Abbink, Jon, Bryant, Michael and Bambu, Daniel. Suri Orature: Introduction to the Society, Language and Oral Culture of the Suri People (Southwest Ethiopia). Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2013.

Clack, Timothy and Brittain, Marcus (editors). The River: Peoples and Histories of the Omo-Turkana Area. Oxford: Archaeopress Publishing, Ltd.: 2018.

Verswijver, Gustaaf and Silvester, Hans. Omo Peoples & Design. Paris: Éditions de La Martinière. 2008.