Anthropologist Carla Handley is sitting cross-legged in a mud-walled house in a Kenyan village called Merti. She’s meeting with a man dressed in a flowing blue robe and a woven cap of red and white. His name is Wario Bala and he’s a member of Kenya’s Borana ethnic group, a nomadic people who raise cattle across Kenya’s northern regions.
Handley introduces herself, then adds that she’s “known locally as Chaltu Jillo Hanti” – the Borana language name bestowed on her by elders in the community. An interpreter translates and Wala laughs approvingly.
Then Handley points to a poster she’s brought with pictures on it.
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