Dorze homes high in the mountains of Ethiopia

The Dorze people live in the Guge mountains of Ethiopia around 3,000m above sea level. It is a beautiful region with a population of about 38,000. The Dorze are famous for their weaving using pit looms (below). Weaving is a skill that they employ on their clothes, fences, blankets and homes.

Dorze homes are built from bamboo with a thatch of enset leaves, also called the false banana. As well as using the drought-resistant enset to build with they also use it to make kocho, a fermented flat bread.

This house above is 90+ years old, taller than the average home of that age. Termites eat at these structures from the bottom which, over time, causes the home to shrink. As the home gets smaller it is put to different uses eventually ending up as a kitchen. It takes a couple about 3 months to build one of these dome homes. In the video above one of the villagers explains...